The joy of the Swiss was redoubled. Luther continued: "And although at present we are not agreed on the question whether the real body and blood of Christ are corporeally present in the bread and wine, yet both the interested parties shall cherish more and more a truly christian charity for one another, so far as conscience permits; and we will all earnestly implore the Lord to condescend by his Spirit to confirm us in the sound doctrine."[290] [290] Osiander (a Lutheran) employs the accusative, "in _den_ rechten Verstand," which would indicate a movement towards an object that we do not possess: Bullinger and Scultet (both Reformed divines) have the dative. The Swiss obtained what they had asked: unity in diversity. It was immediately resolved to hold a solemn meeting for the signature of the articles. They were read over again. Œcolampadius, Zwingle, Bucer, and Hedio, signed them first on one copy; while Luther, Melancthon, Jonas, Osiander, Brentz, and Agricola, wrote their names on the other; both parties then signed the copy of their adversaries, and this important document was sent to the press.[291] [291] Bullinger and others indicate the 3d October as the day on which the articles were signed; Osiander, an eye-witness, and whose narrative is very exact, says it was the 4th, which agrees with all the other data. [Sidenote: REMARKS.] Thus the Reformation had made a sensible step at Marburg. The opinion of Zwingle on the spiritual presence, and of Luther on the bodily presence, are both found in christian antiquity; but both the extreme doctrines have been always rejected: that of the Rationalists, on the one hand, who behold in the Eucharist nothing but a simple commemoration; and of the Papists, on the other, who adore in it a transubstantiation. These are both errors; while the doctrines of Luther and Zwingle, and the medium taken by Calvin, already maintained by some of the Fathers, were considered in ancient times as different views of the same truth. If Luther had yielded, it might have been feared that the Church would fall into the extreme of Rationalism; if Zwingle, that it would rush into the extreme of Popery. It is a salutary thing for the Church that these different views should be entertained; but it is a pernicious thing for individuals to attach themselves to one of them, in such a manner as to anathematize the others. "There is only this little stumbling-block," wrote Melancthon, "that embarrasses the Church of our Lord."[292] All,--Romanists and Evangelicals, Saxons and Swiss, admitted the presence, and even the real presence of Christ; but here was the essential point of separation: Is this presence effected by the faith of the communicant, or by the _opus operatum_ of the priest? The germs of Popery, Sacerdotalism, Puseyism, are inevitably contained in this latter thesis. If it is maintained that a wicked priest (as has been said) operates this real presence of Christ by three words, we enter the