John Zuinglius

“ Whatever be the country in which you dwell, God encompasses you, and hears you as well as in our Lady of Einsidlen. Can useless works, long pilgrimages, offerings, images, the invocation of the Virgin, or the saints, obtain the grace of God?... What avails the multitude of words in which we embody our prayers? What avails a glossy hood—a head well shaven—a long robe with its neat folds, and mules caparisoned with gold? God looks to the heart, but our heart is alienated from God." [670]
But Zuinglius wished to do more than lift his voice against superstition. ”

“ Perhaps this was Zuinglius' foible, though it was in a spirit of cheerfulness and Christian liberty that he cultivated this art, which religion has always associated with her sublimest flights. He set some of his Christian poems to music, and did not scruple sometimes to amuse the youngest of his flock with his lute. He showed the same good nature to the poor. "He ate and drank," says one of his contemporaries, "with all who invited him,—he despised no one; he was most compassionate to the poor; always firm and always joyful in bad as in good fortune. No evil made him afraid ”

“ There is nothing of which I boast so much as of having seen Erasmus." Zuinglius had received a new impulse. Such journeys often exercise a great influence over the career of the Christian. The disciples of Zuinglius—Valentin, Jost, Louis, Peter, and Ægidius Tschudi; his friends, the landăman Æbli, the curate, Binzli of Wesen, Fridolin Brunnen, and the celebrated professor Glarean, saw with admiration how he grew in wisdom and knowledge. The old honoured him as a courageous servant of his country, and faithful pastors honoured him as a faithful servant of the Lord. ”

“ Myconius spoke of him to the provost of the chapter, Felix Frey, (who from the appearance and talents of Zuinglius was already prepossessed in his favour,) [685] to Utinger, an old man who was held in high respect, and to canon Hoffman, a man of an upright open disposition, who, having long preached against foreign service, was favourably inclined to Ulric. Other Zurichers had, on different occasions, heard Zuinglius at Einsidlen, and had returned full of admiration. The election of preacher to the cathedral soon set all the inhabitants of Zurich in motion. Different parties were formed. ”

“ Christ is thy salvation! Thou art nothing, thou canst do nothing! Christ is the Alpha and the Omega! Christ is all, and can do all. [728] All created things will forsake and deceive thee, but Christ, the Holy and Righteous One, will receive and justify thee...." "Yes," exclaims Zuinglius, "He is our righteousness, and the righteousness of all who shall ever appear as righteous before the judgment seat of God!..."
Indulgences could not stand a moment when confronted with such truths; and hence Zuinglius never hesitated to attack them. "No man," said he, "is able to forgive sins. ”

“ OUR LADY OF EINSIDLEN.
Zuinglius, at Glaris, might perhaps have remained a man of the world. Party intrigues, political questions, the empire, France, or the Duke of Milan, might have absorbed his whole life. Those whom God means to prepare for great services he never leaves amid the turmoil of the world. He leads them apart, and places them in a retreat where they commune with Him and their own consciences, and receive lessons never to be effaced. ”

“ Zurich, the centre of the political interests of Switzerland, where the most influential persons in the nation frequently assembled, was the place best fitted to act upon the whole country, and shed the seeds of truth over all its cantons. Accordingly, the friends of letters and the Bible hailed the appointment of Zuinglius with acclamation. At Paris, in particular, the Swiss students, who were there in great numbers, were enraptured with the news. [697] But if Zuinglius had the prospect of a great victory at Zurich, he had also the prospect of a severe contest. ”

“ Zuinglius's step was slow, but progressive. He did not come to the truth like Luther amid those tempests which compel the soul to seek a speedy shelter. He arrived at it by the peaceful influence of Scripture, whose power gradually gains upon the heart. Luther reached the wished-for shore across the billows of the boundless deep; Zuinglius, by allowing himself to glide along the stream. These are the two principal ways by which God leads men. Zuinglius was not fully converted to God and his gospel till the first period of his sojourn at Zurich ”

“ The doctrine of Zuinglius has often been so much misrepresented, that it seems proper here to give an account of what he preached at this time to the increasing crowds who flocked to the cathedral of Zurich.
The fall of Adam, Zuinglius regarded as the key to man's history. "Before the fall," said he one day, "man had been created with a free will, so that he was able, if he chose, to keep the law, his nature was pure, being as yet untainted by the malady of sin ”

“ But if he studied Scripture, it was to preach it. The peasants who flocked to the market on Friday to dispose of their goods, showed an eagerness to receive the Word of God. To satisfy their longings, Zuinglius had begun, in December 1520, to expound the Psalms every Friday after studying the original. The Reformers always combined learned with practical labours—the latter forming the end, the former only the means. They were at once students and popular teachers. ”

“ From a Roman station, 23 a royal villa, a chapter of noble virgins, Zurich had gradually increased to a free and flourishing city; where the appeals of the Milanese were sometimes tried by the Imperial commissaries. 24 In an age less ripe for reformation, the precursor of Zuinglius was heard with applause: a brave and simple people imbibed, and long retained, the color of his opinions; and his art, or merit, seduced the bishop of Constance, and even the pope's legate, who forgot, for his sake, the interest of their master and their order. ”

“ Luther's writings are pervaded with a thorough personal conviction of the benefits which the cross of Christ confers upon himself, and this conviction, glowing with heat and life, is the soul of all he says. The same thing doubtless exists in Zuinglius, but in an inferior degree. He had looked more to the Christian system as a whole, and admired it particularly for its beauty, for the light which it sheds into the human mind, and the eternal life which it brings to the world. The one is more the man of heart, the other more the man of intellect ”

“ I feel languid in all my members, and somewhat as if I were dead." Moreover, Zuinglius, by his opposition to indulgences, had excited the wrath of their partisans. Oswald strengthened his friend by letters which he wrote him from Lucerne. And did he not also receive pledges of assistance from the Lord in the protection which He gave to the Saxon champion who was gaining such important victories over Rome? "What think you," said Myconius to Zuinglius, "of the cause of Luther? For my part I have no fear either for the gospel or for him. If God does not protect his truth, who will protect it? ”

“ The two hundred could not contain their indignation; a murmur burst forth in the assembly. [824] The burgomaster again pressed the deputies. They felt ashamed, and silently resumed their seats. Then Zuinglius said:
"The Coadjutor speaks of seditious doctrines subversive of civil laws. Let him know that Zurich is quieter, and more obedient to the laws than any other town in Switzerland, and this all good citizens attribute to the gospel. Is not Christianity the most powerful safeguard of justice among a people? ”

“ The day following that on which Zuinglius received this mysterious letter, at the moment when Staheli was going to enter the church of Eau, a chaplain stopped him and said, "Make all haste and quit the house of Zuinglius; a catastrophe is preparing." Fanatics in despair of being able to arrest the Reformation by word, armed themselves with the poniard. When mighty revolutions are accomplished in society, assassins are often thrown up from the impure dregs of the agitated population. God guarded Zuinglius. ”

“ Does not he whom we love dwell in our heart, and does it not of itself perform what he enjoins? Accordingly, Zuinglius, waxing bold, declared to the people of Zurich that love to the Redeemer was alone capable of making man do things agreeable to God. "Works done out of Jesus Christ are not useful," said the Christian orator; "since every thing is done of him, in him, and by him, what do we pretend to arrogate to ourselves? Wherever faith in God is, there God is, and wherever God is, there is a zeal which presses and urges men to good works. ”

“ The young messenger had told him of the attacks which Zuinglius had to endure from the monks at Zurich. Writing him the same day, he says, "The truth of the Holy Spirit is invincible. Armed with the shield of the Holy Scriptures you have remained conqueror, not in one combat only, nor in two, but in three, and the fourth is now commencing.... Seize those powerful weapons which are harder than diamond! Christ, in order to protect his people, has need only of his Word. Your struggles give indomitable courage to all who have devoted themselves to Jesus Christ." ”

“ But the legates flattered themselves they might retain several of them by gaining Zuinglius, as they gained Erasmus, with pensions and honours. At this time the legates, Ennius and Pucci, went frequently to Einsidlen, where from its proximity to the democratic cantons, it was more easy to carry on negotiations with them. But Zuinglius, far from sacrificing the truth to the demands and offers of Rome, omitted no opportunity of defending the gospel. The famous Schinner, who had then some disturbance in his diocese, passed some time at Einsidlen. ”

“ Zuinglius knew to give where Rome knew to take; he was as ready to practise good works, as to combat those who taught that they were the means of obtaining salvation. He daily gave liberally to Stapfer. [682] "It is God," said he, anxious not to take any glory to himself, "It is God who begets charity in the believer, and gives him at once the thought, the resolution, and the work itself. Whatever good a righteous man does it is God who does it by his own power." ”

“ Men have no right to bind the gospel at pleasure to their own sense, and their own interpretation." [633] "Zuinglius raised his eye to heaven," said his dearest friend, "unwilling to have any other interpreter than the Holy Spirit himself." [634]
ZUINGLIUS AND LUTHER. ZUINGLIUS AND ERASMUS.
Such, from the commencement of his career, was the man, whom some have not scrupled to represent as having wished to subject the Bible to human reason. "Philosophy and theology," said he, "ceased not to raise up objections against me. ”

“ Zuinglius was now connected with the cardinal, and accordingly joined the Roman party. Schinner and Julius II at last disclosed the end which they had in view in these intrigues. Eight thousand Swiss mustered by the eloquence of the cardinal-archbishop, passed the Alps; but famine, war, and French gold obliged them to return to their mountains without glory. They brought back the usual results of these foreign wars,—distrust, licentiousness, party spirit, all sorts of violence and disorder. Citizens refused to obey their magistrates, and children their parents ”

“ Zuinglius felt that the moment for action had arrived, and with the energy which characterised him, called a meeting of the ministers of the Lord, the friends of the gospel, at Einsidlen. The strength of Christians is neither in carnal weapons, nor the flames of martyrdom—it is in a simple but unanimous and intrepid profession of these great truths to which the world must one day be subjugated. In particular, God calls upon those who serve him to hold these heavenly doctrines prominently forth in presence of the whole people without being dismayed by the clamour of adversaries. ”

“ The curate of the place, an old papal guard, a man of good temper, but completely ignorant, had obtained his benefice by carrying a halberd. True to his soldier habits, he spent the day and part of the night in jovial company, while Stäheli, his vicar, was indefatigable in fulfilling the duties of his office. [791] Zuinglius invited the young minister to his house. "I have need of Swiss help," said he to him, and from this moment Stäheli was his fellow-labourer. Zuinglius, Stäheli, and Luti, afterwards pastor of Winterthur, lived under the same roof. ”

“ The young people who lodged with Zuinglius had immediately left, conformably to directions which he had given. His house was empty, but it was to him the very moment to return. He hurriedly quitted Pfeffers, and reappearing in the bosom of his flock, now decimated by the plague, he immediately sent to Wildhaus for his young brother Andrew, who wished to attend him. From that moment he devoted himself entirely to the victims of this dreadful scourge. Every day he preached Christ and his consolations to the sick. ”

“ Such a baptism Luther had received at that period of agony when the cell and long passages of the convent of Erfurt resounded with his cries. Zuinglius was to receive it by being brought into contact with sickness and death. The heroes of this world—the Charles Twelfths and Napoleons—have a moment which is decisive of their career and their glory, and it is when they all at once become conscious of their strength. There is an analogous moment in the life of God's heroes, but it is in a contrary direction; it is when they recognise their impotence and nothingness ”