" Henry IV., of
France, who had not then embraced the Catholic faith, was anxious to
unite the two great parties of Lutherans and Calvinists, who were as
hostile to each other as they were to the Catholics. He sent an
ambassador to Germany to urge their union. He entreated them to call a
general synod, suggesting, that as they differed only on the single
point of the Lord's Supper, it would be easy for them to form some basis
of fraternal and harmonious action.
The Catholic church received the doctrine, so called, of
_transubstantiation_; that is, the bread and wine, used in the Lord's
Supper, is converted into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ,
that it is no longer bread and wine, but real flesh and blood; and none
the less so, because it does not appear such to our senses. Luther
renounced the doctrine of transubstantiation, and adopted, in its stead,
what he called _consubstantiation_; that is, that after the consecration
of the elements, the body and blood of Christ are substantially _present
with_ (cum et sub,) with and under, the substance of the bread and wine.
Calvin taught that the bread and wine represented the real body and
blood of Christ, and that the body and blood were _spiritually present_
in the sacrament.
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