Ad omnes Germaniae ecclesias reformatas, piorum, qui sub Zvingliani et Calviniani nominis invidia, vim & iniuriam patiuntur, apologia

...and by the bowels of Christian charity, we humbly beseech you.

Dissension regarding the Lord's Supper

How grave and long-lasting the dissension is regarding the sacred Supper of the Lord between those churches which, having abandoned Popish superstitions, profess the pure doctrine of the Gospel, no one is ignorant; nor is there anyone studious of religion and piety who does not deplore it, on account of the scandals that have arisen from it, which are many and grave. For those who, not without the happy auspices of the Supreme Being, had first begun to criticize public errors long established by use, and to restore the collapsed discipline of the Church, were pitted against each other, and in neither work did they achieve the success they had envisioned, and which all the pious desired with common prayers. But what Clement of Alexandria once wrote that the Jews and Gentiles threw in the faces of Christians, that they were discordant among themselves, which evidence shows that Christianity is neither from God nor worthy of the name of true religion: the same is today cast in our faces from both sides by our common adversaries, who, in order to protect the Papacy, defame this Gospel on the grounds that even those who profess its doctrine do not agree among themselves. They say this with the greater license because, as the struggle grows, more and graver controversies have arisen, which are debated today more bitterly than those first ones.