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

Zwingli's enemies called it "a Diet of vagabonds," and loudly prophesied that all the beggars in Switzerland would infallibly grace it with their presence. Had the magistrates of Zurich expected guests of this sort, they would have prepared for their coming after a different fashion.

Zwingli prepared for the conference which he had been the main instrument of convoking, by composing an abridgment of doctrine, consisting of sixty-seven articles, which he got printed, and offered to defend from the Word of God. The first article struck at that dogma of Romanism which declares that "Holy Scripture has no authority unless it be sanctioned by the Church." The others were not less important, namely, that Jesus Christ is our only Teacher and Mediator; that He alone is the Head of believers; that all who are united to Him are members of His body, children of God, and Members of the Church; that it is by power from their Head alone that Christians can do any good act; that from Him, not from the Church or the clergy, comes the efficacy that sanctifies; that Jesus Christ is the one sovereign and eternal Priest; that the mass is not a sacrifice; that every kind of food may be made use of on all days; that monkery, with all that appertains to it – frocks, tonsures, and badges – is to be rejected; that Holy Scripture permits all men, without exception, to marry; that ecclesiastics, as well as others, are bound to obey the magistrate; that magistrates have received power from God to put malefactors to death; that God alone can pardon sin; that He gives pardon solely for the love of Christ; that the pardon of sins for money is simony; and, in fine, that there is no purgatory after death.

By the publication of these theses, Zwingli struck the first blow in the coming campaign, and opened the discussions in the canton before the conference had opened them in the Council Hall of Zurich.

When the clay (29th January, 1523) arrived, 600 persons assembled in the Town Hall. They met at tlhe early hour of six. The conference included persons of rank, canons, priests, scholars, strangers, and many citizens of Zurich. The Bishop of Constance, the diocesan, was invited, but appeared only by his deputies, John Faber, Vicar-General, and James von Anwyl, knight, and Grand Master of the Episcopal Court at Constance. Deputies of the Reformation appeared only from Bern and Schaffhausen; so weak as yet was the cause in the Swiss cantons.

The burgomaster, Marx Roist, presided. He was, says Christoffel, "a hoary-headed warrior, who had fought with Zwingli at Marignano." He had a son named Gaspar, a captain in the Pope's bodyguard, nevertheless he himself was a staunch Reformer, and adhered faithfully to Zwingli, although Pope Adrian had tried to gain him by letters full of praise. In a vacant space in the middle of the assembly sat Zwingli alone at a table. Bibles in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages lay open before him. All eyes were turned upon him. He was there to defend the Gospel he had preached, which so many, now face to face with him, had loudly denounced as heresy and sedition, and the cause of the, strifes that were beginning to rend the cantons. His position was not unlike that of Luther at Worms. The cause was the same, only the tribunal was less august, the assemblage less brilliant, and the immediate risks less formidable. But the faith that upheld the champion of Worms also animated the hero of Zurich. The venerable president rose. He stated briefly why the conference had been convoked, adding, "If any one has anything to say against the doctrine of Zwingli, now is the time to speak." All eyes were turned on the bishop's representative, John Faber. Faber had formerly been a friend of Zwingli, but having visited Rome and been flattered by the Pope, he was now thoroughly devoted to the Papal interests, and had become one of Zwingli's bitterest opponents.

Faber sat still, but James von Anwyl rose. He tried to throw oil upon the waters, and to allay the storm raging, not indeed in the council chamber – for there all was calm – but in Zurich. The deputies, he said, were present not to engage in controversy, but to learn the unhappy divisions that were rending the canton, and to employ their power in healing them. He concluded by dropping a hint of a General Council, that was soon to meet, and which would amicably arrange this whole matter.

Zwingli saw through a device which threatened to rob him, of all the advantage that he hoped to gain from the conference. "This was now," he said, "his fifth year in Zurich. He had preached God's message to men as contained in His own Word;" and, submitting his theses, he offered to make good before the assembly their agreement with the Scriptures; and looking round upon all, said, "Go on then, in God's name. Here I am to answer you." Thus again challenged, Faber, who wore a red hat, rose, but only to attempt to stifle discussion, by holding out the near prospect of a General Council. "It would meet at Nuremberg within a year's time."

"And why not," instantly retorted the Reformer, "at Erfurt or Wittemberg?" Zwingli entered fully into the grounds of his doctrine, and closed by expressing his convictions that a General Council they would not soon see, and that the one now convened was as good as any the Pope was likely to give them. Had they not in this conference, doctors, theologians, jurisconsults, and wise men, just as able to read the Word of God in the original Hebrew and Greek, and as well qualified to determine all questions by this, the alone infallible rule, as any Council they were ever likely to see in Christendom?

A long pause followed Zwingli's address. He stood unaccused in the midst of those who had so loudly blamed and condemned him out of doors.

Again he challenged his opponents: he challenged them a second time, he challenged them a third time. No one spoke. At length Faber rose – not to take up the gauntlet which Zwingli had thrown down, but to tell how he had discomfited in argument the pastor of Fislisbach, whom, as we have already said, the Diet at Baden had imprisoned; and to express his amazement at the pass to which things had come, when the ancient usages which had lasted for twelve centuries were forsaken, and it was calmly concluded "that Christendom had been in error fourteen hundred years!"

The Reformer quickly replied that error was not less error because the belief of it had lasted fourteen hundred years, and that in the worship of God antiquity of usage was nothing, unless ground or warrant for it could be found in the Sacred Scriptures.

He denied that the false dogmas and the idolatrous practices which he was combating came from the first ages, or were known to the early Christians. They were the growth of times less enlightened and men less holy. Successive Councils and doctors, in comparatively modern times, had rooted up the good and planted the evil in its room. The prohibition of marriage to priests he instanced as a case in point.

Master Hoffman, of Schaffhausen, then rose. He had been branded, he said, as a heretic at Lausanne, and chased from that city for no other offense than having preached, agreeably to the Word of God, against the invocation of the saints. Therefore he must adjure the Vicar-General, Faber, in the name of God, to show him those passages in the Bible in which such invocation is permitted and enjoined. To this solemn appeal Faber remained silent.

Leo Juda next came forward. He had but recently come to Zurich, he said, as a laborer with Zwingli in the work of the Gospel. He was not able to see that the worship of the Church of Rome had any foundation in Scripture. He could not recommend to his people any other intercessor than the one Mediator, even Christ Jesus, nor could he bid them repose on any other expiation of their sins than His death and passion on the cross. If this belief of his was false, he implored Faber to show him from the Word of God a better way.