The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli

by Johann Jakob Hottinger

God, for thy honor and our land

Blast Satan's progeny,

And teach thy faithful flock to stand

Ever more firm in Thee.

To bitter strife, O put an end!

And waken love anew;

Kind hearts to parted brethren send,

Old feelings warm and true.

The Landfriede (General Peace) was concluded; quiet appeared to be restored in the Confederacy. Then a foreign country laid claim to the Swiss Reformer. In the spring of 1529, the majority of the princes and cities, assembled at the Imperial Diet in Spire, endeavored to check the progress of the Reformation in Germany, by stringent resolutions. Conflicting doctrines in regard to the Lord's Supper especially, should not be allowed. No more ecclesiastical innovations were to be permitted until approved at an ecumenical council. The states of the Empire, which were already inclined to the Gospel, entered protests against this compulsory act, and received thence the name of Protestants. The most active of these Protestants was the landgrave Philip of Hesse. Resolved to carry through the rising opposition, even against the Emperor himself if necessary, he directed his chief attention to the maintenance and establishment of concord among the Protesters themselves. Although the Confederates, from the nature of their special compacts (buende) and their struggles after national independence, had actually more and more torn lose from connection with the German Empire, they were still always formally counted as belonging to it,--indeed, said so themselves, whenever it suited their advantage. But, just before the election of the then reigning Emperor, the Diet, in the name of the collective cantons, wrote a complimentary letter to the Electoral Princes, under cover of the privilege due to them as members of the Empire. Now also the resolutions of the Imperial Diet were communicated by the Emperor, and a demand made upon them for their execution. It is easy to imagine that the Protestant Princes would strive likewise to gain them over to their party. Philip of Hesse especially, looked toward Zurich and Zwingli. Early in April, he had addressed him from Spire. He desired a personal interview. At the same time it might serve to heal the dispute between the Saxon and Swiss Reformers, which had taken a disagreeable turn, and contributed more than anything else to make the cause of the Gospel suspicious in the eyes of the Catholics, yea, even hateful to them. The chief obstacle in the way of an understanding lay in the manner of seeking it--by a general formula, a declaration drawn up in words, though the Gospel itself did not contain such a thing. Few in that age had the sound judgment of the later landgrave William of Hesse, who, in the year 1566, wrote to Bullinger: "What Christ, the Chief Schoolmaster, has not seen fit to explain, we men should not undertake to explain for ourselves." That Christ, offering himself up in love, would continue to live in all the members of his church to the remotest ages, and so declared at the last breaking of bread and pouring out of wine in the circle of his disciples, must be clear to every reader of the Gospel. Whether and how he continues to live in them, deeds only can show: the confession of the heart, not that of the lips, which Christ himself does not require of us.

But when, in spite of this, such a thing was required, it was necessarily apprehended in a plainer sense by some of the Reformers, and in a more profound one by others, according to the individual peculiarities; at the same time it was regarded as more free or more binding according to the spirit of the nations and the governments, which they represented. This will best appear from the history viewed in its connection.