The feud which raged round the doctrine of the Lord's Supper had already broken out before the first diet of Spires, and had aroused great and immediate excitement.
Following the fashion of the pagan mysteries in which men were only permitted to gaze upon the sacred objects after minute lustrations and scrupulous purifications, Christian teachers came to represent the Creed, Lord's Prayer and Lord's Supper as mysteries to be guarded in silence and never divulged either to the unbaptized or to the pagans.
Neither baptism (by pouring on the head) nor the Lord's Supper (with the accompaniment of feet-washing) conferred grace; they were divine ordinances which reflected the believer's inward state.
As a result of these assemblies it was decided that those who had become members in childhood simply by virtue of their parents' status could not subsequently join in the celebration of the Lord's Supper nor record votes on ecclesiastical issues, unless they should approve themselves fit; they might, however, in their turn bring their children to baptism and hand on to them the degree of membership which they themselves had received from their own parents.
When tables were substituted for altars in the English churches, these were not merely movable, but at the administration of the Lord's Supper were actually moved into the body of the church, and placed table-wise - that is, with the long sides turned to the north and south, and the narrow ends to the east and west, - the officiating clergyman standing at the north side.
That the Lord's Supper was from the first a meal symbolic of Christian unity and commemorative of Christ's death is questioned by none.
In 1538 the ministers took upon themselves to refuse to administer the Lord's Supper in Geneva because the city, as represented by its council, declined to submit to church discipline.
His position at the time was not unpopular throughout New England, and it is needless to say that his doctrine that the Lord's Supper is not a cause of regeneration and that communicants should be professing Christians has since (very largely through the efforts of his pupil Joseph Bellamy) become a standard of New England Congre gationalism.
They read the Greek Testament and the classics; fasted on Wednesday and Friday; received the Lord's Supper every week; and brought all their life under review.
It was proposed also, as conducive to the welfare of the church, that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper should be administered more frequently, at least once every month, and that congregational singing of psalms should be practised in the churches.