Note 224 — CCXXXVII.—To the Pastors of the Church of Berne.[224]

While Calvin was engaged in active negotiations with the ministers of Zurich for the adoption of a common formula regarding the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, he addressed to the ministers of the Church of Berne a statement of what the Church of Geneva held on that important question, in the hope of leading that Church into the proposed union. But the Bernese clergy, placed in a position of absolute dependence on the seigneury, could not adopt any formula without its authority; and the seigneurs, jealous of their influence, regarded with a distrustful eye any communication with the ministers of Geneva. The approaches of Calvin, also, were not well received, and the noble desire of the Reformer for the union of the Helvetian churches, realized at a later period by Bullinger, met with no response.—Ruchat, tom. v. pp. 578, 579.