Protestantism in Switzerland - James Aitken Wylie
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standpo<strong>in</strong>t of the Lutherans, if so he might close<br />
the breach which divided and weakened the two<br />
great bodies of Protestants, and rally <strong>in</strong>to one host<br />
all the forces of the Reformation <strong>in</strong> the face of a yet<br />
powerful Papacy.<br />
Zw<strong>in</strong>gli has more successfully extricated the<br />
spiritual from the mystical <strong>in</strong> the Sacrament of the<br />
Lord's Supper than either Luther or Calv<strong>in</strong>. His<br />
sentiments were a recoil from the mysticism and<br />
absurdity which, from an early age, had been<br />
gather<strong>in</strong>g round this Sacrament, and which had<br />
reached their height <strong>in</strong> the Popish doctr<strong>in</strong>e of the<br />
mass.<br />
Some have ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed that the recoil went too<br />
far, that Zw<strong>in</strong>gli fell <strong>in</strong>to the error of excessive<br />
simplicity, and that he reduced the ord<strong>in</strong>ance of the<br />
Lord's Supper to a mere memorial or<br />
commemoration service. His earliest statements<br />
(1525) on the doctr<strong>in</strong>e of the Sacraments, and<br />
especially the Eucharist, may be open to this<br />
objection; but not so his latter teach<strong>in</strong>gs (1530), we<br />
are disposed to th<strong>in</strong>k. He returned to the golden<br />
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