Hence, after the Lutherans had presented their Confession June 25, and Zwingli his own
July 8, the four cities handed theirs, July 11, to the Emperor in German and Latin. It was received
very ungraciously, and not allowed to be read before the Diet; but a confutation full of
misrepresentations was prepared by Faber, Eck, and Cochlaeus, and read Oct. 24 (or 17). The
Strassburg divines were not even favored with a copy of this confutation, but procured one secretly,
and answered it by a "Vindication and Defense" in the autumn of 1531.
The Tetrapolitan Confession consists of twenty-three chapters, besides preface and
conclusion. It is in doctrine and arrangement closely conformed to the Lutheran Confession, and
breathes the same spirit of moderation, but is more distinctly Protestant. This appears at once in
the first chapter (On the Matter of Preaching), in the declaration that nothing should be taught in
the pulpit but what was either expressly contained in the Holy Scriptures, or fairly deduced therefrom.
(The Lutheran Confession is silent on the supreme authority of the Scriptures.) The evangelical
doctrine of justification is stated in the third and fourth chapters more clearly than by Melanchthon;
namely, that we are justified not by works of our own, but solely by the grace of God and the merits
of Christ, through a living faith, which is active in love, and productive of good works. Images are
rejected in Chap. XXII.
The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper (Chap. XVIII.) is couched in dubious language, which
was intended to comprehend in substance the Lutheran and the Zwinglian theories, and accords
with the union tendency of Bucer. But it contains the germ of the Calvinistic view. In this ordinance,
it is said, Christ offers to his followers, as truly now as at the institution, his very body and blood
as spiritual food and drink, whereby their souls are nourished to everlasting life. Nothing is said of
the oral manducation and the participation of unbelievers, which are the distinctive features of the
Lutheran view. Bucer, who had attended the Conference at Marburg in 1529, labored with great
zeal afterwards to bring about a doctrinal compromise between the contending theories, but without
effect.
The Tetrapolitan Confession was soon superseded by the clearer and more logical confessions
of the Calvinistic type. The four cities afterwards signed the Lutheran Confession to join the
Smalcald League. But Bucer himself remained true to his union creed, and reconfessed it in his
last will and testament (1548) and on his death-bed.
§ 122. Zwingli’s Confession to the Emperor Charles.
Ad Carolum Boni. Imperatorem, Germaniae comitia Augustae celebrantem Fidei Huldrychi Zwinglii
Ratio (Rechenschaft). Anno MDXXX. Mense Julio. Vincat veritas. In the same year a German
translation appeared in Zürich, and in 1543 an English translation. See Niemeyer, Collect. Conf.,
p. XXVI. and 16 sqq. Böckel: Bekenntnissschriften der reform. Kirche, p. 40. sqq. Mörikofer:
U. Zwingli, vol. II. p. 297 sqq. Christoffel: U. Z., vol. II. p. 237 sqq. Schaff: Creeds, I. 366 sqq.
Zwingli took advantage of the meeting of the Diet of Augsburg, to send a confession of his
faith, addressed to the German Emperor, Charles V., shortly after the Lutheran princes had presented
theirs. It is dated Zürich, July 3, 1530, and was delivered by his messenger at Augsburg on the 8th
of the same month; but it shared the same fate as the "Tetrapolitan Confession." It was treated with
contempt, and never laid before the Diet. Dr. Eck wrote in three days a refutation, charging Zwingli
that for ten years he had labored to root out from the people of Switzerland all faith and all religion,