As far as Luther contended for these truths, he was right against the Sacramentarians, though
he erred in the form of conception and statement. His view is mystical but profound; Zwingli’s
view is clear but superficial. The former commends itself to devout feeling, the latter to the sober
understanding and intellect.
II. The Zwinglian Theory.—The Lord’s Supper is a solemn commemoration of the atoning
death of Christ, according to his own command: "Do this in remembrance of me," and the words
of Paul: "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he
come."^928 Zwingli emphasized this primitive character of the institution as a gift of God to man, in
opposition to the Roman mass as a work or offering which man makes to God.^929 He compares the
sacrament to a wedding-ring which seals the marriage union between Christ and the believer. He
denied the corporal presence, because Christ ascended to heaven, and because a body cannot be
present in more than one place at once, also because two substances cannot occupy the same space
at the same time; but he admitted his spiritual presence, for Christ is eternal God, and his death is
forever fruitful and efficacious.^930 He denied the corporal eating as Capernaitic and useless, but he
admitted a spiritual participation in the crucified body and blood by faith. Christ is both "host and
feast" in the holy communion.
His last word on the subject of the eucharist (in the Confession to King Francis I.) is this:
—
"We believe that Christ is truly present in the Lord’s Supper; yea, that there is no
communion without such presence .... We believe that the true body of Christ is eaten in
the communion, not in a gross and carnal manner, but in a sacramental and spiritual manner
by the religious, believing and pious heart."^931
This passage comes so near the Calvinistic view that it can hardly be distinguished from it.
Calvin did injustice to Zwingli, when once in a confidential letter he called his earlier eucharistic
doctrine, profane."^932 But Zwingli in his polemic writings laid so much stress upon the absence of
Christ’s body, that the positive truth of His spiritual presence was not sufficiently emphasized.
Undoubtedly the Lord’s Supper is a commemoration of the historic Christ of the past, but it is also
a vital communion with the ever-living Christ who is both in heaven and in his church on earth.
Zwingli’s theory did not pass into any of the leading Reformed confessions; but it was
adopted by the Arminians, Socinians, Unitarians, and Rationalists, and obtained for a time a wide
currency in all Protestant churches, even the Lutheran. But the Rationalists deny what Zwingli
(^928) Zwingli calls the sacrament ein Wiedergedächtniss und Erneuern dessen, was einst geschehen und in Ewigkeit kräftig ist. His views
on the Lord’s Supper are conveniently put together by Usteri and Vögelin, in Zwingli’s Sämmtliche Schriften im Auszuge, vol. II. 70-167.
(^929) Dorner (Gesch. der protest. Theol., p. 300): "Das Charakteristische in allen Schriften Zwingli’s vor 1524 ist sein Gegensatz gegen
das heil. Abendmahl als Opfer und Messe." So also Ebrard.
(^930) He expressed at Marburg, and in his two confessions to Charles I. and to Francis I., his full belief in the divinity of Christ in the
sense of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. Dorner says (l.c., p. 302): "Dass Zwingli Christum gegenwärtig denkt, ist unleugbar; er sei
bei diesem Mahle Wirth und Gastmahl (hospes et epulum)."
(^931) Christum credimus vere esse in coena, immo non esse Domini coenam nisi Christus adsit ... Adserimus igitur non sic carnaliter et
crasse manducari corpus Christi in coena, ut isti perhibent, sed verum Christi corpus credimus in coena sacramentaliter et spiritualiter
edi, a religiosa, fideli et sancta mente, quomodo et divus Chrysostomus sentit. Et haec est brevis summa nostrae, immo non nostrae, sed
ipsius veritatis, sententia de hac controversia. Niemeyer, Collectio Confess., pp. 71, 72.
(^932) Letter to Viret, September, 1542: "De scriptis Zwinglii sic sentire, ut sentis, tibi permitto. Neque enim omnia legi. Et fortassis sub
finem vitae, retractavit ac correxit in melius quae temere initio exciderant. Sed in scriptis prioribus memini, quam profana sit de Sacramentis
sententia."Opera, XI. 438.