§ 111. THE EUCHARISTIC THEORIES COMPARED. 681
adopted by all the leading Reformed Confessions of faith. We select a few specimens from one of the earliest and from the latest Calvinistic standards : —
HEIDELBERG CATECHISM (1563).
Question 76. What is it to eat the crucified body, and drink the shed blood, of Christ ?
Answer. It is not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the forgiveness of sins and life eternal; but moreover also, to be so united more and more to his sacred body by the Holy Ghost, who dwells both in Christ and in us, that although He is in heaven, and we on the earth, we are nevertheless flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones, and live and are governed forever by one Spirit, as members of the same body are by one soul.
Q. 78. Do, then, the bread and wine become the real body and blood of Christ ?
A. No: but as the water, in baptism, is not changed into the blood of Christ, nor becomes the washing away of sins itself, being only the divine token and assurance thereof; so also, in the Lord’s Supper, the sacred bread does not become the body of Christ itself, though agreeably to the nature and usage of sacraments it is called the body of Christ.
Q. 79. Why, then, doth Christ call the bread His body, and the cup His blood, or the. New Testament in His blood; and St. Paul, the communion of the body and blood of Christ ?
A. Christ speaks thus not without great cause; namely, not only to teach us thereby, that, like as bread and wine sustain this temporal life, so also His crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink of our souls unto life eternal; but much more, by this visible sign and pledge to assure us that we are as really partakers of His true body and blood, through the working of the Holy Ghost, as we receive by the mouth of the body these holy tokens in remembrance of Him; and that all His sufferings and obedience are as certainly our own, as if we had ourselves suffered and done all in our own persons.
WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH (1647).
Chapter XXIX., section VII.
Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are, to the outward senses.
682 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
WESTMINSTER LARGER CATECHISM (1647).
Question 170. How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord’s Supper feed upon the body and blood of Christ therein ?
Answer. As the body and blood of Christ are not corporally or carnally present in, with, or under the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper; and yet are spiritually present to the faith of the receiver, no less truly and really than the elements themselves are to their outward senses; so they that worthily communicate in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, do therein feed upon the body and blood of Christ, not after a-corporal or carnal, but in a spiritual manner; yet truly and really, while by faith they receive and apply unto themselves Christ crucified, and all the benefits of his death.
CHAPTER VIII. THE POLITICAL SITUATION BETWEEN 1526 AND 1529.
§ 112. The First Diet of Speier, and the Beginning of the | Territorial System. 1526.
I. The documents in WALcH, XVI. 243 sqq. Neue Sammlung der Reichsabschiede, II. 273-75. Bucuuoutz: Ferdinand I., Bd. ITI.
II. RANKE, II. 249 sqq. JANSSEN, III. 39 sqq. J. Ney (Prot. minister in Speier): Analekten zur Gesch. des Reichstags zu Speier im J. 1526, in Brieger’s ‘‘ Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengesch.,”’ Gotha, 1885, p. 800 sqq., and 1887, p. 800 sqq. (New Documents from the archives of Karlsruh and Wiirzburg), WALTER FRIEDENSBURG: Der Reichstag zu Speier, 1526, im Zusammenhang der polit. und kirchl. Entwicklung Deutschlands im Reformationszeitalter, Berlin, 1887 (xiv. and 602 pages). Previous discussions by VEESEMEIER and KLUCKHOHN (in “‘ Hist. Zeitschrift,”’ 1886). Friedensburg used much new material preserved in the archives of Hamburg and other cities. CHARLES G. ALBERT: The Diet of Speyer, the Rise and Necessity of Protestantism, in the ‘‘ Luth. Quart. Review’ (Gettysburg, Penn.), for January, 1888.
WE must now consider the political situation which has in part been presupposed in previous sections.
As Protestantism advanced, the execution of the Edict of Worms became less and less practicable. This was made manifest at the imperial Diet of Speier, held in the summer of 1526 under Archduke Ferdinand, in the name of the Emperor.1 The Protestant princes dared here for the first time to profess their faith, and were greatly strengthened by the delegates of the imperial cities in which the Reformation had
1 Speier, or Speyer, is an old German city on the left bank of the Rhine, the seat of a bishop, with a cathedral and the graves of eight German kings, the capital of the Bavarian Palatinate. It became the birthplace of the
name ‘‘ Protestants’”’ in 1529. See below, § 115, p. 692.