294

LIBERTY AND INTOLERANCE.

creature was burnt alive by the Roman-catholics of the Tyrol.

Undoubtedly a spirit of rebellion existed among the anabaptists; no doubt the old ecclesiastical law, condemning heretics to death, still existed, and the Reformation could not in one or two years reform every error; and further, there is no question that the Romish states would have accused the Protestant states of encouraging disorder if they had not punished these enthusiasts; but these considerations may explain, although they cannot justify, the severity of the magistrates. They might have taken measures against everything that infringed the civil authority; but religious errors, being combated by the teachers, should have enjoyed complete liberty before the civil tribunals. Such opinions are not to be expelled by the scourge; they are not drowned by throwing their professors into the water; they float up again from the depth of the abyss; and fire but serves to kindle in their adherents a fiercer enthusiasm and thirst for martyrdom. Zwingle, with whose sentiments on this subject we are acquainted, took no part in these severities.*

CHAPTER XI.

Progression and Immobility-Zwingle and Luther-Luther's Return to Scholasticism-Respect for Tradition-Occam-Contrary Tendency in Zwingle-Beginning of the Controversy-Ecolampadius and the Swabian Syngramma-Strasburg mediates.

It was not, however, on baptism alone that diversities were to prevail; more serious differences were to arise on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper..

The human mind, freed from the yoke that had pressed upon it for so many ages, made use of its liberty; and if

Quod homines seditiosi, reipublicæ turbatores, magistratuum hostes, justa Senatus sententia, damnati sunt, num id Zwinglio fraudi esse poterit? Rod. Gualteri Ep. ad lectorem, Opp. 1544, ii.

PROGRESSION AND IMMOBILITY.

295

Roman-catholicism has to fear the shoals of despotism, Protestantism is equally exposed to those of anarchy. Progression is the character of Protestantism, as immobility is that of Romanism.

Roman-catholicism, which possesses in the papacy a means of continually establishing new doctrines, appears at first sight, indeed, to contain a principle eminently favourable to variations. It has in truth largely availed itself or it, and from age to age we see Rome bringing forward or ratifying new doctrines. But its system once complete, Roman-catholicism has declared itself the champion of immobility. In this its safety lies; it resembles those buildings which tremble at the least motion, and from which nothing can be taken without bringing them wholly to the ground. Permit the Romish priests to marry, or aim a blow at the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the whole system is shaken, the whole edifice crumbles into dust.

It is not thus with evangelical Christianity. Its principle is much less favourable to variations, and much more so to progression and to life. In fact, on the one hand it recognises Scripture only as the source of truth, one and always the same, from the beginning of the Church to the end: how then should it vary as Popery has done? But, on the other hand, each Christian is to go and draw for himself from this fountain; and hence proceed action and liberty. Accordingly, evangelical Christianity, while it is the same in the nineteenth as in the sixteenth century, and as in the first, is in every age full of spontaneity and motion, and is now filling the world with its researches, its labours, bibles, missionaries, light, salvation, and life.

It is a great error to classify together and almost to confound evangelical Christianity with mysticism and rationalism, and to impute their irregularities to it. Motion is in the very nature of Christian Protestantism; it is directly opposed to immobility and lethargy; but it is the motion of health and life that characterizes it, and not the aberrations of man deprived of reason, or the convulsions of disease. We shall see this characteristic manifested in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper.

296

ZWINGLE AND LUTHER.

Such a result might have been expected. This doctrine had been understood in very different manners in the former ages of the Church, and this diversity existed until the time when the doctrine of transubstantiation and the scholastic theology began simultaneously to rule over the middle ages. But when this dominion was shaken, the old diversities were destined to reappear.

Zwingle and Luther, who had each been developed separately, the one in Switzerland and the other in Saxony, were however one day to meet face to face. The same spirit, and in many respects the same character, animated both, Both alike were filled with love for the truth and hatred of injustice; both were naturally violent; and this violence was moderated in each by a sincere piety. But there was one feature in Zwingle's character destined to carry him farther than Luther. It was not only as a man that he loved liberty, but also as a republican and fellow-countryman of Tell. Accustomed to the decision of a free state, he did not permit himself to be stopped by those considerations before which Luther recoiled. He had moreover studied less profoundly the scholastic theology, and thus found his motions less fettered. Both were ardently attached to their own convictions; both resolved to defend them; and, little habituated to yield to the convictions of another, they were now to meet, like two proud war-horses, which, rushing through the contending ranks, suddenly encounter each other in the hottest of the strife.

A practical tendency predominated in the character of Zwingle and in the Reformation of which he was the author, and this tendency was directed to two great objects, simplicity of worship and sanctification of life. To harmonize the worship with the necessities of the mind, that seeks not external pomp but invisible things-this was Zwingle's first aim. The idea of the corporeal presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, the origin of so many ceremonies and superstitions of the Church, must therefore be abolished. But another desire of the Swiss reformer led to the same results. He found that the Roman doctrine of the eucharist, and even that of Luther, presupposed a certain magical influence pre

THE NETHERLANDERS AT ZURICH.

297

judicial to sanctification; he feared lest Christians, imagining they received Jesus Christ in the consecrated bread, should henceforward less earnestly seek to be united to him by faith in the heart. "Faith," said he, “is not knowledge, opinion, imagination; it is a reality.* It leads to a real union with Divine things." Thus, whatever Zwingle's adversaries may have asserted, it was not a leaning to rationalism, but a profoundly religious view, that led him to his peculiar doctrines.

But there was another element in Zwingle's convictions: he was subject to those historical influences which we must everywhere recognise in the annals of the Church as in that of the world. It has been long supposed that he was acquainted with the sentiments of Ratram, Wickliffe, and Peter Waldo; but we possess a much safer historical clue to the convictions of the Swiss reformer.

The two Netherlanders, Rhodius and Sagarus, whom we have seen arrive at Wittemberg, and there occasion the first difference between Luther and Carlstadt, had turned their steps towards Switzerland, carrying with them Wessel's manuscripts, and reached Basle, where Luther himself had commended them to Ecolampadius. The latter person, who was of timid character, finding that Luther did not approve of the opinions which these brethren from Holland were endeavouring to propagate, did not venture to declare his sentiments, and sent them to Zwingle. They arrived at Zurich in 1521, and having waited on the reformer, immediately turned the conversation on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper.+

Rhodius and his friend did not at first make known their opinions, but after listening to Zwingle, they gave thanks to God for having delivered them from so great an error.‡

* Fidem rem esse, non scientiam, non opinionem vel imaginationem. Comment. de vera relig. Zw. Opp. iii. 230.

+ Factum est ut Johannes Rhodius et Georgius Sagarus, pii et docti viri, Tigurum venirent, ut de Eucharistia cum Zwinglio conferrent. Lavateri Hist. de origine controv. sacram. Tiguri, 1564, p. 1.

Qui cum ejus sententiam audivissent dissimulantes suam, gratias egerunt Deo, quod a tanto errore liberati essent atque Honii Batavi opistolam protulerunt. Ibid.

298

RESULT OF ZWINGLE'S INQUIRIES.

They then presented the letter from Cornelius Hoen, which Zwingle read, and published shortly after.

This letter had an incalculable influence on the destinies of the Reformation. Hoen, resting his arguments on Christ's words in the sixth chapter of Saint John, said: "Christ gives himself to us by means of the bread:* but let us distinguish between the bread we receive by the mouth, and Christ whom we receive by faith. Whoever thinks that he receives only what he takes into his mouth, does not discern the body of the Lord, and eats and drinks his own condemnation, because by eating and drinking he bears testimony to the presence of Christ, whilst by his unbelief he remains far from Him."-At the same time the Netherlanders laid Wessel's theses before Zwingle. These writings made a deep impression on the reformer's mind.

The result of Zwingle's inquiries corresponded, with his tendencies. By studying Scripture as a whole, which was his custom, and not in detached passages, and by having recourse to classical antiquity for the solution of the difficulties of language, he arrived at the conviction that the word is,* employed in the formula of the institution of the Lord's Supper, ought to be taken (as Hoen said) in the meaning of signifies, and as early as 1523 he wrote to his friend Wittembach that the bread and wine are in the Eucharist what the water is in baptism. "It would be in vain," added he, "for us to plunge a man a thousand times in water, if he does not believe. Faith is the one thing needful."+

It would appear, besides, that Zwingle had been prepared,§ indirectly at least, for these views by Erasmus. Melancthon says: "Zwingle confessed to me (at Marburg)

Dominus per panem se ipsum tradit nobis. Epist. Christiana per Honnium Batavum Hist. Ev. i. 231-260.

+ Propositiones ex evangelio de corpore et sanguine Christi sumendo, &c. It is uncertain whether Zwingle had, at this time, received Wessel's treatise de Eucharistia.

Haud aliter hic panem et vinum esse puto quam aqua est in baptismo. Ad Wittenbachium Ep. 15th June 1523.

§ Zwinglius mihi confessus est, se ex Erasmi scriptis primum hausisse opinionem suam de cœna Domini. Corp. Ref. iv. 970.