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Updated: June 29, 2025
They and Lucas, their elder, however, took umbrage at his remarks; Lucas published a reply, whereupon Luther quietly left them to go their own way. While Butzer now was prosecuting with success his attempts at union, the Brethren renewed their overtures to Luther.
In August 1543 he wrote to the Zurich printer Froschauer, who had presented him with a translation of the Bible made by the preacher of that town, saying briefly and frankly that he could have no fellowship with them, and that he had no desire to share the blame of their pernicious doctrine; he was sorry 'that they should have laboured in vain, and should after all be lost. Even in a scheme of reformation which Butzer, with Melancthon, had prepared for Cologne, he now discovered some suspicious articles about the Sacrament, to which a criticism of Amsdorf had drawn his notice; they passed over, it appeared, Luther's declaration, already agreed on, about the substantial presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament, or merely 'mumbled it, as was Luther's expression.
The matter, said Butzer, was a mere dispute about words, and was only so difficult to settle because they had 'abused and sent each other to the devil too much. The Landgrave Philip wrote to Luther, and Luther now repeated with warmth his own desire for a 'well-established union, which would enable the Protestants to oppose a common front to the immoderate arrogance of the Papists.
On the strength of this view, Butzer, the theological representative of Strasburg, sought to make further overtures to the Wittenbergers. He was not deterred by Melancthon's mistrustful opposition or by Luther's leaving a letter of his unanswered. He now appeared in person at the Castle of Coburg, and on September 25 had a confidential and friendly interview with Luther.
He attracted the keen interest of several young inmates of the convent who afterwards became his coadjutors, such as John Brenz, Erhardt Schnepf, and Martin Butzer. They marvelled at his power of drawing out the meaning from the Scriptures, and of speaking not only with clearness and decision, but also with refinement and grace.
He would rather, however, leave matters as they had been, than enter into a union which might be only feigned or artificial, and must make bad worse. With regard to the Zwinglian publications, Butzer answered that he and his friends were in no way responsible for them, and that the preface, which consisted of a letter from himself, had been printed without his knowledge and consent.
Thus, in the following December he wrote himself to those evangelical centres in Switzerland from which Butzer had brought him the communication to Gotha; while the next year, in May 1538, he sent a friendly reply to a message from Bullinger, and again in June he wrote once more to the Swiss, on receiving an answer from them to his first letter.
And in the interests and for the objects represented by the league, namely, to oppose a sufficiently strong and compact power to Roman Catholicism and its menaces, those further attempts were now made to promote internal union among the Protestants, to which Butzer had so unremittingly devoted his labours, and which the Landgrave Philip among the princes considered of the utmost value.
Luther, therefore, could feel assured that Butzer agreed with him in rejecting every view which held that, in the Sacrament, the Body of Christ was present only in the subjective representation and the imagination, or that faith there rose up out of itself, so to speak, to the Lord, instead of merely grasping at what was offered, and thereby being quickened and made strong.
On December 10 Butzer brought back to the Landgrave from Wittenberg an opinion of Luther and Melancthon.
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