James Aitken Wylie - The History of Protestantism (Complete 24 Books in One Volume)

It was a work of this magnitude which was accomplished in Switzerland in the short space of ten years. The truth entered, and the heart was cleansed from the pollution of lust, the understanding was liberated from the yoke of tradition and human doctrines, and the conscience was relieved from the burden of monastic observances. The emancipation was complete as well as speedy; the intellect, the heart, the conscience, all were renovated; and a new era of political and industrial life was commenced that same hour in the Reformed cantons.

Unhappily, the five Forest Cantons did not share in this renovation. The territory of these cantons contains, as every traveler knows, the grandest scenery in all Switzerland. It possesses the higher distinction of having been the cradle of Swiss independence. But those who had contended on many a bloody field to break the yoke of Austria, were content, in the sixteenth century, to remain under the yoke of Rome. They even threatened to bring back the Austrian arms, unless the Refrained cantons would promise to retrace their steps, and return to the faith they had cast off. It is not easy to explain why the heroes of the fourteenth century should have been so lacking in courage in the sixteenth. Their physical courage had been nursed in the presence of physical danger. They had to contend with the winter storms, with the avalanches and the mountain torrents; this made them strong in limb and bold in spirit. But the same causes which strengthen physical bravery sometimes weaken moral courage. They were insensible to the yoke that pressed upon the soul. If their personal liberty or their material interests were assailed, they were ready to defend them with their blood; but the higher liberty they were unable to appreciate. Their more secluded position shut them out from the means of information accessible to the other cantons. But the main cause of the difference lay in the foreign service to which these cantons were specially addicted. That service had demoralised them. Husbanding their blood that they might sell it for gold, they were deaf when liberty pleaded. Thus their grand mountains became the asylum of the superstitions in which their fathers had lived, and the bulwark of that, base vassalage which the other cantons had thrown off.

Table of Contents

The Foreign Enlistments – The Worship at Zurich as yet Unchanged – Zwingli makes a Beginning – Fasts and Forbidden Meats – Bishop of Constance Interferes – Zwingli's Defense – The Council of Two Hundred – The Council gives no Decision – Opposition organised against Zwingli – Constance, Lausanne, and the Diet against Zwingli – First Swiss Edict of Persecution – Diet Petitioned to Cancel it – The Reformed Band – Luther Silent – Zwingli Raises his Voice – The Swiss Printing-press.

OUR attention must again be directed to the center of the movement at Zurich. In 1521 we find the work still progressing, although at every step it provokes opposition and awakens conflict. The first trouble grew out of the affair of foreign service. Charles V. and Francis I. were on the point of coming to blows on the plains of Italy. On the outlook for allies, they were making overtures to the Swiss. The men of Zurich promised their swords to the emperor. The other cantons engaged theirs to the French. Zwingli, as a patriot and a Christian minister, denounced a service in which Swiss would meet Swiss, and brother shed the blood of brother in a quarrel which was not theirs. To what purpose should he labor in Switzerland by the preaching of the Gospel to break the yoke of the Pope, while his fellow-citizens were shedding their blood in Italy to maintain it? Nevertheless, the solicitations of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Sion, who had sent an agent into the canton to enlist recruits for the emperor, to whom the Pope had now joined himself in alliance, prevailed, and a body of 2,700 Zurichers marched out at the gates, bound on this enterprise. They won no laurels in the campaign; the usual miseries – wounds and death, widows and orphans, vices and demoralization formed its sequel, and many a year passed before another body of Zurichers left their home on a similar errand. Zwingli betook himself more earnestly to the preaching of the Word of God, persuaded that only this could extinguish that love of gold which was entangling his countrymen with foreign princes, and inspire them with a horror of these mercenary and fratricidal wars into which this greed of sordid treasure was plunging them, to the ruin of their country.

The next point to be attacked by the Reformer was the fast-days of the Church. Hitherto no change had been made in the worship at Zurich. The altar with its furniture still stood; mass was still said; the images still occupied their niches; and the festivals were duly honored as they came round. Zwingli was content, meanwhile, to sow the seed. He precipitated nothing, for he saw that till the understanding was enlightened, and the heart renovated, outward change would nought avail. But now, after four years' inculcation of the truth, he judged that his flock was not unprepared to apply the principles he had taught them. He made a beginning with the smaller matters. In expounding the fourth chapter of the first Epistle to Timothy, Zwingli took occasion to maintain that fasts appointed by the Church, in which certain meats were forbidden to be eaten at certain times, had no foundation in the Bible. Certain citizens of Zurich, sober and worthy men for the most part, resolved to reduce Zwingli's doctrine to practice. They ate flesh on forbidden days. The monks took alarm. They saw that the whole question of ecclesiastical ordinances was at stake. If men could eat forbidden meats without purchasing permission from the Church, might not her commands be set at nought on other weightier points? What helped to increase the irritation were the words of Zwingli, in his sermon, which had given special umbrage to the war party: – "Many think that to eat flesh is improper, nay, a sin, although God has nowhere forbidden it; but to sell human flesh for slaughter and carnage, they hold to be no sin at all."

It began to be clear how Zwingli's doctrine would work; its consequences threatened to be very alarming, indeed. The revenues of the clergy it would diminish, and it would withdraw the halberds of the Swiss from the service of Rome and her allies. The enemies of the Reformation, who up to this time had watched the movement at Zurich in silence, but in no little uneasiness, began now to bestir themselves. The Church's authority and their own pockets were invaded. Numerous foes arose to oppose Zwingli.

The tumult on this weighty affair of "forbidden meats" increased, and the Bishop of Constance, in whose diocese Zurich was situated, sent his suffragan, Melchior Bottli, and two others, to arrange matters. The suffragan-bishop appeared (April 9th, 1522) before the Great Council of Zurich. He accused Zwingli, without mentioning him by name, of preaching novelties subversive of the public peace; and said if he were allowed to teach men to transgress the ordinances of the Church, a time would soon come when no law would be obeyed, and a universal anarchy would overwhelm all things. Zwingli met the charge of sedition and disorder by pointing to Zurich, "in which he had now been four years, preaching the Gospel of Jesus, and the doctrine of the apostles, with the sweat of his brow, and which was more quiet and peaceful than any other town in the Confederacy." "Is not then," he asked, "Christianity the best safeguard of the general security? Although all ceremonies were abolished, would Christianity therefore cease to exist? May not the people be led by another path than ceremonies to the knowledge of the truth, namely, by the path which Christ and His apostles pursued?" He concluded by asking that people should be at liberty to fast all the days of the year, if so it pleased them, but that no one should be compelled to fast by the threat of excommunication. The suffragan had no other reply than to warn the councillors not to separate themselves from a Church out of which there was no salvation. To this the quick retort of Zwingli was, "that this need not alarm them, seeing the Church consists of all those in every place who believe upon the Lord Jesus – the Rock which St. Peter confessed; – it is out of this Church," said he, "that there is no salvation." The immediate result of this discussion – an augury of greater things to come – was the conversion of one of the deputies of the bishop to the Reformed faith – John Vanner.