History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume II Part 41

[650] Omnium vere spiritualium et eruditorum admiratione Christum predicavit. (Ibid.) He preached Christ to the admiration of all who were truly learned and spiritually minded.

[651] Nihil in sacris literis praeter Christum quaerendum. (Erasmi, Ep., p. 403.)

Zuinglius returned to his mountains, his mind and heart full of all that he had seen and heard at Bale. "I could not sleep," wrote he to Erasmus, shortly after his return, "if I had not conversed for some time with you. 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 aegidius Tschudi; his friends, the landaman aebli, 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. Nothing was done in the district without taking his advice. All the good hope??a??d that he would one day restore the ancient virtue of the Swiss.[652]

[652] Just.i.tiam avitam per hunc olim rest.i.tutum iri. (Osw. Myc. Vit.

Zw.)

[Sidenote: ZUINGLIUS AT MARIGNAN.]

Francis I, having mounted the throne, and being desirous to vindicate the honour of the French name in Italy, the pope in alarm laboured to gain the cantons. Accordingly, in 1515, Ulric revisited the plains of Italy amid the phalanxes of his fellow-citizens. But the division which French intrigues produced in the army stung him to the heart. He was often seen in the middle of the camp energetically, and at the same time wisely, haranguing his hearers in full armour ready for battle.[653] On the 8th September, five days before the battle of Marignan, he preached in the public square of Monza, where the Swiss soldiers, who remained true to their colours, had rea.s.sembled. "Had the counsels of Zuinglius been followed then and afterwards," says Werner Steiner of Zug, "what evils would not our country have been saved!"[654] But all ears were shut to words of concord, prudence, and submission. The vehement eloquence of Cardinal Schinner electrified the confederates, and hurried them impetuously to the fatal field of Marignan. There fell the flower of the Helvetic youth. Zuinglius, who had been unable to prevent all these disasters, threw himself, for the cause of Rome, into the midst of danger. His hand seized the sword.

Sad error of Zuinglius! A minister of Christ, he more than once forgot that it was his duty to fight only with spiritual weapons, and he was to see in his own person a striking fulfilment of our Saviour's prophecy, _He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword_.

[653] In dem Heerlager hat er Flyssig geprediget. (Bullinger MS.)

[654] ...In den Schlachten sich redlich und dapfer gestellt mit Rathen, Worten, und Thaten. (Ibid.)

Zuinglius and his Swiss had been unable to save Rome. The amba.s.sador of Venice was the first in the pontifical city who received news of the defeat of Marignan. Delighted, he repaired at an early hour to the Vatican. The pope came out of his apartment half dressed to give him an audience. Leo X, on learning the news, did not disguise his terror.

At this moment of alarm he saw only Francis I, and hoped only in him.

"Amba.s.sador," said he trembling to Zorsi, "we must throw ourselves into the arms of the king, and cry for mercy." Luther and Zuinglius in their danger knew another arm, and invoked another mercy.[655]

[655] Domine orator, vederemo quel fara il re Christmo semetteremo in le so man dimandando misericordia. (Zorsi Relatione MS.)

[Sidenote: ZUINGLIUS' METHOD.]

This second sojourn in Italy was not without use to Zuinglius. He observed the differences between the Ambrosian ritual used at Milan and that of Rome. He collected and compared together the most ancient canons of the ma.s.s. In this way a spirit of enquiry was developed in him even amid the tumult of camps. At the same time the sight of his countrymen led away beyond the Alps, and given up, like cattle, to the slaughter, filled him with indignation. "The flesh of the confederates," it was said, "is cheaper than that of their oxen and their calves." The disloyalty and ambition of the pope,[656] the avarice and ignorance of the priests, the licentiousness and dissipation of the monks, the pride and luxury of prelates, the corruption and venality employed on all hands to win the Swiss, being forced on his view more strongly than ever, made him still more alive to the necessity of a reform in the Church.

[656] Bellissimo parlador; prometea a.s.sa ma non attendea ... Most beautiful speechifier; he (Leo X) promised largely, but did not perform. (Relatione MS. di Gradenigo venuto orator di Roma.)

From this time Zuinglius preached the Word of G.o.d more clearly. In explaining the portions of the gospel and epistles selected for public worship, he always compared Scripture with Scripture.[657] He spoke with animation and force,[658] and followed with his hearers the same course which G.o.d was following with him. He did not, like Luther, proclaim the sores of the Church; but as often as the study of the Bible suggested some useful instruction to himself, he communicated it to his hearers. He tried to make them receive the truth into their hearts, and then trusted to it for the works which it behoved to produce.[659] "If they understand what is true," thought he, "they will discern what is false." This maxim is good at the commencement of a Reformation, but a time comes when error must be boldly stigmatised.

This Zuinglius knew very well. "The spring," said he, "is the season to sow;" and with him it was now spring.

[657] Non hominum commentis, sed sola scripturarum collatione. (Zw.

Op. i, p. 273.) Not by the inventions of men, but solely by comparing the Scriptures.

[658] Sondern auch mit predigen, dorrinen er heftig wa.s.s. (Bullinger's MS.)

[659] Volebat veritatem cognitam, in cordibus auditorum, agere suum officium. (Osw. Myc. Vit. Zw.) He wished the truth when known to do its work on the hearts of his hearers.

[Sidenote: DISCOVERY.]

Zuinglius has marked out this period (1516) as the commencement of the Swiss Reformation. In fact, if four years before he had bent his head over the Word of G.o.d, he now raised it, and turned it toward his people, to make them share in the light which he had found. This forms a new and important epoch in the history of the development of the religious revolution of those countries, but it has been erroneously concluded, from these dates, that the Reformation of Zuinglius preceded that of Luther. It may be that Zuinglius preached the gospel a year before Luther's Theses, but Luther himself preached it four years before these famous propositions.[660] Had Luther and Zuinglius confined themselves merely to sermons, the Reformation would not have so quickly gained ground in the Church. Neither Luther nor Zuinglius was the first monk or the first priest who preached a purer doctrine than that of the schoolmen. But Luther was the first who publicly, and with indomitable courage, raised the standard of truth against the empire of error, called general attention to the fundamental doctrine of the gospel--salvation by grace, introduced his age to that new career of knowledge, faith, and life, out of which a new world has arisen; in a word, began a true and salutary revolution. The great struggle, of which the Theses of 1517 were the signal, was truly the birth-throe of the Reformation, giving it at once both a body and a soul. Luther was the first Reformer.

[660] First Volume.

A spirit of enquiry began to breathe on the mountains of Switzerland.

One day the curate of Glaris, happening to be in the smiling district of Mollis, with Adam its curate, Bunzli, curate of Wesen, and Varachon, curate of Kerensen, these friends discovered an old liturgy, in which they read these words: "After baptising the child, we give him the sacrament of the Eucharist and the cup of blood."[661] "Then,"

said Zuinglius, "the supper was at that period dispensed in our churches under the two kinds." The liturgy was about two hundred years old. This was a great discovery for these priests of the Alps.

[661] Detur Eucharistiae sacramentum, similiter poculum sanguinis. (Zw.

Op. i, p. 266.) Let the sacrament of the Eucharist be given, likewise the cup of blood.

The defeat of Marignan had important results in the interior of the cantons. The conqueror, Francis I, lavished gold and flattery in order to gain the confederates, while the emperor besought them by their honour, by the tears of widows and orphans, and the blood of their brethren, not to sell themselves to their murderers. The French party gained the ascendancy at Glaris, which, from that time, was an uncomfortable residence to Ulric.

[Sidenote: 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 G.o.d 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. The Son of G.o.d himself, who in this was a type of the training given to his servants, spent forty days in the desert. It was time to remove Zuinglius from political movements, which, continually pressing upon his thoughts, might have banished the Spirit of G.o.d from them. It was time to train him for another stage than that on which courtiers, cabinets, and parties move, and where he should have wasted powers worthy of n.o.bler employment. His country, indeed, needed something else. It was necessary that a new life should now come down from heaven, and that he who was to be the instrument in communicating it should unlearn worldly things, in order to learn things above. The two spheres are entirely distinct; a wide s.p.a.ce separates these two worlds, and before pa.s.sing entirely from the one to the other, Zuinglius was to sojourn for a time on neutral ground, in a kind of intermediate and preparatory state, to be there taught of G.o.d. G.o.d accordingly took him away from the factions of Glaris; and, with a view to this noviciate, placed him in the solitude of a hermitage--confining within the narrow walls of an abbey this n.o.ble germ of the Reformation, which was shortly after to be transplanted to a better soil, and cover the mountains with its shadow.

CHAP. V.

Meinrad of Hohenzollern--Our Lady of Einsidlen--Calling of Zuinglius--The Abbot--Geroldsek--Companionship in Study--The Bible copied--Zuinglius and Superst.i.tion--First Opposition to Error--Sensation--Hedio--Zuinglius and the Legates--The Honours of Rome--The Bishop of Constance--Samson and Indulgences--Stapfer--Charity of Zuinglius--His Friends.

Meinrad of Hohenzollern, a German monk, about the middle of the ninth century, wandering on till he came between the lakes of Zurich and Wallstetten, had stopped upon a hill, resting on an amphitheatre of firs, and there built a cell. Banditti imbrued their hands in the blood of the saint. The b.l.o.o.d.y cell was long deserted, but towards the end of the tenth century, a convent and a church, in honour of the Virgin, were erected on the sacred spot. On the eve of the day of consecration, when the Bishop of Constance and his priests were at prayers in the church, a celestial chant, proceeding from invisible voices, suddenly echoed through the chapel. They prostrated themselves and listened in amaze. The next day, when the bishop was going to consecrate the chapel, a voice repeated thrice, "Stop, brother, stop!

G.o.d himself has consecrated it!"[662] It was said, that Christ in person had blessed it during the night, that the chant which they had heard proceeded from angels, apostles, and saints, and that the Virgin, standing upon the altar, had blazed forth like a flash of lightning. A bull of Pope Leo VII forbade the faithful to question the truth of this legend. Thenceforward an immense crowd of pilgrims ceased not to repair to Our Lady of the Eremites to the "consecration of angels." Delphi and Ephesus, in ancient, and Loretto in modern times, alone have equalled the fame of Einsidlen. It was in this strange place that, in 1516, Ulric Zuinglius was called as priest and preacher.

[662] Cessa, cessa, frater, divinitus capella consecrata est. (Hartm.

Annal. Einsidl. p. 51.)

[Sidenote: THE ABBOT OF EINSIDLEN. GEROLDSEK.]

Zuinglius hesitated not. "Neither ambition nor avarice takes me there," said he; "but the intrigues of the French."[663] Higher motives determined him. On the one hand, having more solitude, more calmness, and a less extensive parish, he could devote more time to study and meditation; on the other hand, this place of pilgrimage would give him facilities for spreading the knowledge of Jesus Christ to the remotest countries.[664]

[663] Loc.u.m mutavimus non cupidinis aut cupiditatis moti stimulis, verum Galiorum technis. (Zw. Ep. 24.)

[664] Christum et ejus veritatem in regiones et varias et remotas divulgari tam felici opportunitate. (Osw. Myc. Vit. Zw.)

The friends of evangelical preaching at Glaris expressed deep grief.

"What worse could happen to Glaris," said Peter Tschudi, one of the most distinguished citizens of the canton, "than to be deprived of so great a man."[665] His parishioners finding him immovable, resolved to leave him the t.i.tle of pastor of Glaris, with part of the benefice, and the means of returning when he chose.[666]

[665] Quid enim Glareanae nostrae tristius accidere poterat, tanto videlicet privari viro. (Zw. Ep., p. 16.)

[666] Two years later Zuinglius signs, Pastor Glaronrae, Minister Eremi. (Ibid., p. 30.)

Conrad of Rechberg, a gentleman of ancient family, grave, candid, intrepid, and occasionally somewhat rude, was one of the most celebrated sportsmen of the district to which Zuinglius was removed.

He had established on one of his farms a manege in which he reared a breed of horses which became celebrated in Italy. Such was the abbot of our Lady of the Eremites. Rechberg was equally averse to the pretensions of Rome and the discussions of theologians. One day, during a visitation of the Order, some observations were made to him.

"I am master here, not you," said he, somewhat rudely; "get along."

One day at table when Leo Juda was discussing some difficult point with the administrator of the convent, the hunting abbot exclaimed, "You, there, leave your disputes to me. I exclaim with David, '_Have pity on me, O G.o.d, according to thy goodness, and enter not into judgment with thy servant_.' I have no need to know any more."[667]

[667] Wirz, K. Gesch., iii, 363. Zuinglius Bildung, v. Schuler, p.

174. Miscell. Tigur., iii, 28.

[Sidenote: COMPANIONSHIP IN STUDY.]

Baron Theobald of Geroldsek was administrator of the monastery. He was of a meek spirit, sincerely pious, and had a great love of literature.