[Sidenote: A PATCHED-UP PEACE.] The new pastors of Berne, encouraged by their friends abroad, threw off the restraint which they had at first imposed on their speech. Sebastian Meyer, in particular, giving way to his natural disposition, thoroughly headlong and incautious, taught publicly that in the supper the body of Christ is truly eaten and his blood truly drunk, but took care to add, _by faith_. Kunz supported him. The conflict thus began. Megander and Erasmus Ritter started up to oppose this doctrine; and Meyer did not hesitate to say in the colloquies that the doctrine of the supper had never been rightly taught in the canton of Berne. The Bernese council convoked a synod, at which three hundred ministers of the German and French cantons of Switzerland were present. Meyer, together with Kunz, vividly depicted the evils which would be involved in a rejection of the agreement. Erasmus Ritter, with Megander, replied that an agreement was certainly very much to be desired, but that the truth must not be sacrificed to it. The Zwinglian party had the best of it. They agreed to stand by the second confession of Basel, and to avoid the use of terms which gave origin to the disputes; such as, _corporal_, _real_, _natural_, _supernatural_, _invisible_, _carnal_, _miraculous_, _inexpressible presence_. But this patched-up peace was of short duration. The secret correspondence between Bucer and Luther having been published, the Zwinglians were scandalized, people’s minds were thrown into agitation, and the edifice of concord, which they had toiled to rear, threatened to crumble away. Bucer then applied to the council of Berne, and requested it to convoke a synod at which he might be allowed to vindicate himself. ‘This whole business of the supper,’ said he, ‘is a mere dispute about words, but it is of the utmost importance to put an end to it; and I appeal to the justice of the Bernese magistrates, who cannot allow a man, whoever he may be, to be condemned before he is heard.’ Another synod was consequently convoked at Berne, for the month of September.[531]