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Butzer, who in regard to unity of confession and his relations with the Swiss had not been able to have any further conversation with Luther at Schmalkald, had at once, on receiving the good news from Tambach, gone straight to Luther at Gotha, accompanied by the preacher Wolfhart from Augsburg. Luther, notwithstanding his suffering, now discussed with them this matter, so important in his eyes.
Luther sent to them a 'Consideration, whether unity is possible or not. He repeated in this tract, with studied precision and emphasis, those tenets of his doctrine to which Butzer had referred. The matter, he said, ought not to remain uncertain or ambiguous.
This fortunate beginning encouraged Butzer to further attempts, which he made afterwards in private. The day after the reading of the Recess, the Elector John was able at length to leave the Diet and set forward on his journey home. The Emperor took leave of him with these words: 'Uncle, Uncle, I did not look for this from you. The Elector, with tears in his eyes, went away in silence.
Zwingli and Oecolampadius met the Strasburg theologians, Butzer and Hedio, and Jacob Sturm, the leading citizen of that town, on September 29, at Marburg.
As to the objection they had about the godless partakers, if they confessed that the unworthy received with the other communicants the Body of Christ, they would not quarrel on that point. Luther, so Myconius tells us, spoke these words with great spirit and animation, as was apparent from his eyes and his whole countenance. Capito and Butzer could not refrain from tears.
Butzer was anxious to do this at a convention which the Schmalkaldic allies appointed to meet at Schmalkald, in view of the Council having been announced to be held in February 1537. A few days after the Protestants had effected an agreement at Wittenberg the announcement was issued from Rome of a Council, to be held at Mantua in the following year.
The spirit of brotherly union received a touching and beautiful expression on the Sunday in the common celebration of the Sacrament, and in sermons preached by Alber of Reutlingen in the early morning, and by Butzer in the middle of the day. The next morning, May 29, the meeting concluded with the signing of the articles which Melancthon had been commissioned to draw up.
It is Ditchling Beacon; and, yes, another still farther west; Chanctonbury Ring, with the rounded cone. And on this fair clear morning we can indistinctly discern a thin line of smoke curling up from Butzer, on the very limits of Sussex, and in view of the Isle of Wight and Carisbrooke Castle. Turn eastward.
But when Butzer now agreed with Luther's own opinion, and sent to him at Wittenberg an explanation that Christ's Body was truly present, but not as food for the stomach, Luther, in January 1535, declared as his judgment, that, since the South German preachers were willing to teach in accordance with the Augsburg Confession, he, for his part, neither could nor would refuse such concord; and since they distinctly confessed that Christ's Body was really and substantially presented and eaten, he could not, if their hearts agreed with their words, find fault with these words.
Luther now received through Butzer the communications from Switzerland, together with a letter from Meyer, the burgomaster of Basle. To the latter he sent on the 17th of the month a cheerful and friendly reply. He did not wish to induce him to make any further explanations and promises, but his whole mind was bent upon mutual forgiveness, and bearing with one another in patience and gentleness.
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