The senate having next visited the Dominican church, all the Romanists, to the number of six hundred, among whom were many foreign servants, cried out: "We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the Mass. We swear it, we swear it!" repeated they with uplifted hands. "If they reject the Mass—to arms! to arms!"[954]
The senate withdrew more embarrassed than ever.
REFORMED PROPOSITIONS.
The two parties were again assembled three days after. Œcolampadius was in the pulpit. "Be meek and tractable," said he; and he preached with such unction that many were ready to burst into tears.[955] The assembly offered up prayers, and then decreed that it would accept a new ordinance, by virtue of which, fifteen days after Pentecost, there should be a public disputation, in which no arguments should be employed but such as were drawn from the Word of God: after this a general vote should take place upon the Mass, that the majority should decide the question, and that in the meanwhile the Mass should be celebrated in three churches only; it being however understood, that nothing should be taught there that was in opposition to the Holy Scriptures.
The Romanist minority rejected these propositions: "Basle," said they, "is not like Berne and Zurich. Its revenues are derived in great measure from countries opposed to the Reformation!" The priests having refused to resort to the weekly conferences, they were suspended; and during a fortnight there was neither sermon nor mass at the cathedral, or in the churches of St. Ulric, St. Peter, and St. Theodore.
Those who remained faithful to Rome resolved upon an intrepid defence. Meltinger placed Sebastian Muller in the pulpit at St. Peter's, from which he had been interdicted, and this hot-headed priest vented such abusive sarcasms against the Reform, that several of the Evangelicals, who were listening to the sermon, were insulted and nearly torn in pieces.
A NIGHT OF TERROR.
It was necessary to arouse Basle from this nightmare, and strike a decisive blow. "Let us remember our liberty," said the reformed citizens, "and what we owe to the glory of Christ, to public justice, and to our posterity."[956] They then demanded that the enemies of the Reformation, friends and relations of the priests, who were the cause of all these delays and of all these troubles, should no longer sit in the councils until peace was re-established. This was the 8th February. The council notified that they would return an answer on the morrow.
At six o'clock in the evening, twelve hundred citizens were assembled in the corn-market. They began to fear that the delay required by the senate concealed some evil design. "We must have a reply this very night," they said. The senate was convoked in great haste.
From that period affairs assumed a more threatening attitude in Basle. Strong guards were posted by the burghers in the halls of the different guilds; armed men patrolled the city, and bivouacked in the public places, to anticipate the machinations of their adversaries;[957] the chains were stretched across the streets; torches were lighted, and resinous trees, whose flickering light scattered the darkness, were placed at intervals through the town; six pieces of artillery were planted before the town hall; and the gates of the city, as well as the arsenal and the ramparts, were occupied. Basle was in a state of siege.