Thus spoke the adversaries: and what would the citizens of Zurich do? Would their hearts fail them? Had their courage cooled with the blood of their fellow-citizen?
Zurich did not leave her friends or enemies long in suspense. The council announced calmly and nobly that they could make no concessions in what concerned the Word of God; and then proceeded to make a still more forcible reply.
ABOLITION OF PROCESSIONS AND IMAGES.
Ever since the year 1351, it had been customary for a numerous procession, each member of which bore a cross, to go on Whitmonday on a pilgrimage to Einsidlen to worship the Virgin. This festival, which had been established in commemoration of the battle of Tatwyll, was attended with great disorders.[500] The procession should have taken place on the 7th of May. On the petition of the three pastors it was prohibited by the council, and all the other processions were reformed in their turn.
They did not stop here. The relics, that source of innumerable superstitions, were honourably interred;[501] and then, at the request of the three pastors, the council published a decree, to the effect that honour being due to God alone, the images should be removed from all the churches of the canton, and their ornaments sold for the benefit of the poor. Twelve councillors, one from each guild, the three pastors, the city-architect, blacksmiths, carpenters, builders, and masons, went into the various churches, and having closed the doors,[502] took down the crosses, defaced the frescoes, whitewashed the walls, and took away the images, to the great delight of the believers, who regarded this proceeding (says Bullinger) as a striking homage paid to the true God. In some of the country churches, the ornaments were burnt "to the honour and glory of God." Erelong the organs were taken down, on account of their connexion with many superstitious practices; and a baptismal service was drawn up, from which everything unscriptural was excluded.[503]
The burgomaster Roust and his colleague, with their dying eyes joyfully hailed the triumph of the Reformation. They had lived long enough, and they died at the very time of this great renovation of public worship.
THE TWO REFORMATIONS.
The Swiss Reformation here presents itself under an aspect somewhat different from that of the German Reformation. Luther had risen up against the excesses of those who had broken the images in the churches of Wittemberg; and in Zwingle's presence the idols fell in the temples of Zurich. This difference is explained by the different lights in which the two reformers viewed the same object. Luther desired to maintain in the Church all that was not expressly contrary to the Scriptures, and Zwingle to abolish all that could not be proved by them. The German reformer wished to remain united to the Church of the preceding ages, and was content to purify it of all that was opposed to the Word of God. The Zurich reformer passed over these ages, returned to the apostolic times, and, carrying out an entire transformation of the Church, endeavoured to restore it to its primitive condition.
Zwingle's Reformation was therefore the more complete. The work that Providence had confided to Luther, the restoration of the doctrine of justification by faith, was doubtless the great work of the Reformation; but when this was accomplished, others remained to be done, which, although secondary, were still important; and to these Zwingle's exertions were more especially directed.
In fact, two mighty tasks had been imposed on the reformers. Christian Catholicism, born in the midst of Jewish pharisaism and Greek paganism, had gradually felt the influence of these two religions, which had transformed it into Roman-catholicism. The Reformation that was called to purify the Church, was destined to purge it alike from the Jewish and the pagan element.