These Theses represent in succinct fashion the preaching in the Reformed Church in Switzerland, and the fourth states in its earliest form what grew to be the Zwinglian doctrine of the Holy Supper.[28]
The Council of Bern had sent invitations to be present to the leading preachers in the Evangelical cities of Germany and Switzerland. Bucer and Capito came from Strassburg, Jacob Augsburger from Mühlhausen, Ambrose Blaarer from Constance, Sebastian Wagner,[29] surnamed Hofmeister (Œconomus), from Schaffhausen, Oecolampadius from Basel, and many others.[30] Zwingli’s arrival was eagerly expected. The Zurichers were resolved not to trust their leader away from the city without a strong guard, and sent him to Bern with an escort of three hundred men-at-arms. A great crowd of citizens and strangers filled the arcades which line both sides of the main street, and every window in the many-storied houses had its sightseers to watch the Zurichers tramping up from gate to cathedral with their pastor safe in the centre of the troop.
Romanist theologians did not muster in anything like the same strength. The men of the four Forest cantons stood sullenly aloof; the authorities in French-speaking Switzerland had no liking for the Disputation, and the strongly Romanist canton of Freiburg did its best to prevent the theologians of Neuchâtel, Morat, and Grandson from appearing at Bern; but in spite of the hindrances placed in their way no less than three hundred and fifty ecclesiastics gathered to the Disputation. The conference was opened on January 15th (le dimenche après la feste de la circuncision),[31] and was continued in German till the 24th; on the 25th a second discussion, lasting two days, was begun, for the benefit of strangers, in Latin. “When la Dispute des Welches (strangers) was opened, a stranger doctor (of Paris) came forward along with some priests speaking the same language as himself. He attacked the Ten Theses, and William Farel, preacher at Aigle, answered him.”[32] The more distinguished Romanist theologians who were present seem to have refrained from taking part in the discussion. The Bishop of Lausanne defended their silence on the grounds that they objected to discuss such weighty matters in the vulgar tongue; that no opportunity was given to them to speak in Latin; and that when the Emperor had interdicted the Disputation they were told by the authorities of Bern that they might leave the city if it so pleased them.[33]
The result of the Disputation was that the authorities and citizens of Bern were confirmed in their resolve to adopt the Reformation. The Disputation ended on the 26th of January (1528), and on the 7th of February the Mass was declared to be abolished, and a sermon took its place; images were removed from the churches; the monasteries were secularised, and the funds were used partly for education and partly to make up for the French and papal pensions, which were now definitely renounced, and declared to be illegal.
The two sermons which Zwingli preached in the cathedral during the Disputation made a powerful impression on the people of Bern. It was after one of them that M. de Watteville, the Advoyer or President of the Republic, declared himself to be convinced of the truth of the Evangelical faith, and with his whole family accepted the Reformation. His eldest son, a clergyman whose family interest had procured for him no less than thirteen benefices, and who, it was commonly supposed, would be the next Bishop of Lausanne, renounced them all to live the life of a simple country gentleman.[34]
The republic of Bern for long regarded the Ten Theses as the charter of its religious faith. Not content with declaring the Reformation legally established within the city, the authorities of Bern sent despatches or delegates to all the cities and lands under their control, informing them of what they had done, and inviting them to follow their example. They insisted that preachers of the Gospel must be at liberty to deliver their message without interruption throughout all their territories. They promised that they would maintain the liberty of both cults until means had been taken to find out which the majority of the inhabitants preferred, and that the decision would be taken by vote in presence of commissioners sent down from Bern.[35] When the majority of the parishioners accepted the Reformation, the new doctrinal standard was the Ten Theses, and the Council of Bern sent directions for the method of dispensing the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and for the solemnisation of marriages. The whole of the German-speaking portion of the canton proper and its dependences seem to have accepted the Reformation at once. Bern had, besides, some French-speaking districts under its own exclusive control, and others over which it ruled along with Freiburg. The progress of the new doctrines was slower in these district, but it may be said that they had all embraced the Reformation before the end of 1530. The history of the Reformation in French-speaking Switzerland belongs, however, to the next chapter, and the efforts of Bern to evangelise its subjects in these districts will be described there.
Not content with this, the Council of Bern constituted itself the patron and protector of persecuted Protestants outside their own lands, and the evangelisation of western Switzerland owed almost everything to its fostering care.[36]
Thus Bern in the west and Zurich in the east stood forth side by side pledged to the Reformation.
The cantonal authorities of Appenzell had declared, as early as 1524, that Gospel preaching was to have free course within their territories. Thomas Wyttenbach had been people’s priest in Biel from 1507, and had leavened the town with his Evangelical preaching. In 1524 he courageously married. The ecclesiastical authorities were strong enough to get him deposed; but a year or two later the citizens compelled the cantonal Council to permit the free preaching of the Gospel. Sebastian Hofmeister preached in Schaffhausen, and induced its people to declare for the Reformation. St. Gallen was evangelised by the Humanist Joachim von Watt (Vadianus), and by John Kessler, who had studied at Wittenberg. In German Switzerland only Luzern and the Forest cantons remained completely and immovably attached to the Roman Church, and refused to tolerate any Evangelical preaching within their borders. The Swiss Confederacy was divided ecclesiastically into two opposite camps.
The strong religious differences could not but affect the political cohesion of the Swiss Confederacy, linked together as it was by ties comparatively slight. The wonder is that they did not altogether destroy it.