shortly after the Conference of Baden, when her repeated vindication,
her fourth complaint against exclusion from the public councils in
direct violation of treaties resounded unheard, and her letters to the
Five Cantons were no longer read, and threats multiplied, the
neighboring imperial city of Constance found herself in a like forsaken
condition. There also, through the preaching of Ambrosius Blaarer, a
friend of Zwingli, and others, the reformation of the church had made
such active progress, that the bishop and the majority of the canons
withdrew in anger to Ueberlingen and M[oe]rsburg, and the Emperor
caused the city to feel the weight of his displeasure; but the Council,
devoted to the new order of things, looked around beyond the walls for
support in case of need. The necessity appeared the greater, because
the suspicion prevailed among many of the citizens that Austria, sure
of the secret approval of the head of the Empire, would use the
favorable moment to take possession of a place so well situated on the
frontier. The behavior of the Archducal Vicegerent, Marcus Sittich von
Ems, strengthened the suspicion. His troopers rode up close to the
gates of the city. He himself looked about in the neighborhood for a
spot, as he said, on which to pitch a camp. In these straits Constance
turned toward Zurich and sought a defensive alliance with her. After
long negotiations, conducted in secret, this was at last concluded on
the 25th of December, 1527, a few days before the Zurichers set out to
the Conference at Bern. They carried the news thither. Bern also, in a
certain measure by storm, was won over as a party. As early as the 6th
of January, 1528, the very day on which the Religious Conference was
opened, the majority of the Great Council expressed their willingness
to take the matter in hand. The name given to the Alliance, the
Christian _Buergerrecht_, (Citizen's rights), was easy to understand,
not so its spirit. In the ancient treaties the Five Cantons had
surrendered the privilege of contracting other alliances without the
common consent of all the states; the three original cantons,
therefore, could not permit any deliberation among separated cantonal
authorities. Zurich, on the contrary, and Bern, at the time of their
accession to the Confederacy, had reserved this privilege in writing.
As a natural consequence, the ties of the Federal Compact were viewed
somewhat differently by its members. To the original cantons they
appeared closer; to the cities, especially Zurich, less restrictive.
This conflict of opinion had contributed not a little to the duration
and violence of the old Zurich War, in the preceding century. Now it
revived again, and that at a most unpropitious moment. In the
_Buergerrecht_, stipulations were certainly made in regard to the
Emperor and Empire, as well as the Confederates, so that the
obligations under which the two cities had come toward them, seemed to
be ratified on the face of it; but this same _Buergerrecht_ spoke also
of the possibility of warlike expeditions, the division of whatever
might be conquered, and the privilege of enlarging and extending itself
to other cities and territories. Here lay the manifest germ of a new
confederacy, resting on new foundations, and the subsequent movements
of Zwingli, since expressions incontestibly show that he, more perhaps
than any statesman in Zurich, had thought of such an issue. The further
the Reformation advanced, the more did it appear to him an affair of
historical developement, the author of new conditions in political
life; but to these very changes, many of those, who were favorable to
the new religious views, showed themselves decidedly averse; for to
them the federal compact, under its existing forms, was a thing to be
kept inviolably sacred. The time had come when a two-fold choice was
placed before him; either of his own accord to retire altogether from
the sphere of politics and, plant himself upon purely religious ground,
where he might be unassailable; or else to become more completely a
politician, _i.e._ the soul of a faithful band of the most resolute and
able members of the government, who, now in a narrow circle and in
profound secrecy, prepared and paved the way for the most important
business, such as that for which Zwingli himself, at an earlier period,
had demanded the greatest possible publicity. The embarrassment into
which his retreat would throw the heads of the government, his
unrivalled skill in doing business, the hope, that he might cherish, of
seeing his political plans succeed as well as his reforms in the
church, his own conviction of their necessity in order to uphold the
religious movement, and his peculiar position as the citizen of a free
state, who could not, as a man of science, be overlooked in the
ordering of his country's affairs--all this together drew him toward
the second and more dangerous path.
Although, we observe with concern, that he now takes this path;
although a foreboding of the fruitless struggles, which he thus
prepared for himself, is awakened within us, there is also at the same
time a growing admiration of the power displayed by him, and his
persevering activity, not only in the field of politics, but in his
vocation as a teacher, preacher, and theological writer, which he yet
fulfilled with undiminished fidelity. He, who feels such strength
within, durst aim at the very highest. Not in blind hatred of the
existing order, would he destroy it: out of party-spirit, pride, or
lust for dominion: a noble image of a father-land not split asunder,
but made young again, reviving in fuller vigor under new forms, hovered
before his soul. Heart and head had contributed to its outlines; nor
was its realization, by means of a sincere and general effort, beyond
the range of possibility. Can it then be imputed to him as a crime,
that so few comprehended his ideal, that the time was not ripe for it?
In Bern, meanwhile, the negotiations touching the Christian
_Buergerrecht_ were actively carried on by the government during the
Religious Conference, in spite of the opposition, as it appears, of a
party averse to the Alliance. Roist and the town-clerk, Mangolt, sent
information of this to Zurich in several letters. They spoke of
consultations with intimate acquaintances, with trusty friends, and of
the confidential but unofficial communications of the latter. Zwingli
also, busy as he was during the session of that Diet, aided the Zurich
Council by drawing up two opinions for the removal of certain doubts on
the part of Schwytz. After a happy issue in ecclesiastical as well as
political matters, Zwingli ascended the pulpit once more and took his
leave: "Understand now"--so he concluded his discourse--"the liberty,
which Christ gives you, and abide therein according to the word of the
Apostle. You know under what a yoke our consciences groaned, and how we
were led from one false hope to another; from one law to another. But
now you see that freedom and hope rest upon knowledge and trust; upon
confidence toward God through Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son.
Never suffer yourselves to be robbed of freedom and the salvation of
your souls. Nothing requires so much courage as this. And as our
forefathers, thanks be to God! stood up everywhere bold and unterrified
in defence of personal liberty, much more should we stand fast in those
things, which give us peace of conscience here and make us eternally
joyful hereafter; not doubting that God, who has enlightened and drawn
you, will also draw our dear neighbors, the other Confederates, in his
own good time, so that we in true friendship, to which right knowledge
is in no wise opposed, may become more harmonious than we ever were
before. May God, who has created and saves us all, bestow this upon
them and us!"
Whilst concord between Zurich and Bern appeared to be restored and
their union made stronger than ever, the news of the prevailing
alliance was received in Luzern with the liveliest indignation. At a
Diet held there, to which he had come on other business, a Bernese
ambassador, William von Diessbach, was called to account by the Five
Cantons. It is very probable he affirmed that his Lords had a right to
make the treaty.--Amid outbursts of displeasure, the session was
immediately raised, but after his departure it was again opened. "The
Devil take the old faith;" said the Bernese upon the street, "it is no
longer tenable." This saying, reported to the sergeants of the Council,
increased their wrath. The parties were separated. To organize and
strengthen themselves was a natural consequence.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER FIFTH:
Footnote 1: No one will think ill of a Protestant for believing that
the Catholic church could exist in greater spiritual unity, worth and
security under national bishops, primates and patriarchs, without a
Pope.
Footnote 2: For scientific readers: But how near an approach did not
the Greeks and Romans already make to it? The old proverb: _Mens sana
in corpore sano_, shows a recognition of the equal position of the
world of sense and the world of spirit, as well as their reciprocal
necessity. This saying is likewise the key to all philosophy; the clue
to reconciliation between spirit and matter, consciousness and guilt,
freedom and necessity, self-determination and determination from
without.
Footnote 3: The so-called "Scottish Cloisters," to which old St. Gall
especially belonged, were zealous in the culture of science. Benedict
himself held it in low esteem. The peculiar monasticism, which took its
rise from the fanatics of the Thebaid, was, moreover, only a reaction
against the preponderance of the sensuous element in Hellenism.
Footnote 4: From Pope Gregory VII., we may date especially the
unnatural schism between church and state, which are not two separate
elements, but spring from the same root and are filled with the same
living power. From this time forward, the Hohenstaufens were obliged to
fight against the church, and Adrian and Innocence made war upon the
state. Afterwards they strove with equal ill-success to reconcile the
parts, which stood over against each other in proud independence. But
is a healthy existence conceivable without religion, or an active
religion without life? The state would become a philosophical
abstraction; the church a deceptive mist-image. The universal church
(without form) stands _over_ the state; the established church (with
form) _in_ the state. The universal church is only visible in its
fruits; the established church in its external arrangement, which it
must receive from the state, or subject to its approval. The universal
church is unchangeable, eternal; the established church variable,
accidental.
Footnote 5: The seventh Sunday after the day of the Holy Three Kings,
in old almanacs, is styled, "Alleluia Niederlag" from an ordinance of
Alexander II., that on this day, neither the Hallelujah, nor any other
song of praise durst be sung.
Footnote 6: Concerning the relation of Zwingli to his age, the author
published an article in the Swiss Monthly Chronicle for the year 1819,
from which, as the periodical was confined to a narrow circle, he
ventures to insert here a short extract. "The great man goes in advance
of his age. His bold, firm step wins for him a host of trusting and
powerful adherents. Prudence hesitates; fear trembles; and the
evil-will refuses to follow him. Self-interest, justly in dread of
every blazing up of the truth, mingles in the drama with cunning art; a
separation ensues; and he who would bring peace to all the world, has
brought a sword; but still completes his work, if he suffer for it, or
is so happy as to fall. By the sacrifice of himself the hero becomes a
saint. Eyewitnesses of his labors, noble enough to admire him, able
enough to support him, but not strong enough to take his place, guard
with loving hearts his memory and his words; the solitary staff for a
race, which had the desire, but not the requisite maturity, to take
into itself the entire spirit of the illustrious dead. More and more
was the letter now anxiously guarded, and in it the living, creative
spirit was securely and faithfully handed down to a more enlightened
age. And this age was first able to understand the great man fully, to
prize his services and value his doctrine. It is surprising that
centuries ago any one should think, as it delights in thinking; it
honors the noble of former times as its spiritual kindred; but let it
beware of pride, for if he were to rise again amid the means, the
experience, the knowledge of this age, he would soon hasten in advance
of it also, as they ever do, who regard not that, which one generation
of men style truth, but the eternal fundamental truth of all ages; who
have not pious feeling alone--not wisdom alone; to whom alone it is
revealed, by whose earnest and constant endeavor it is attained, to be
wise and good at the same time."
Footnote 7: It may not be uninteresting to many readers to learn
something of the after fate of this man, who occupies so prominent a
place in the foregoing history. His last letter to Zwingli, as far as
known, is dated February 14th, 1523, and his last to Myconius,
September 4th, 1524. In these already he complains of the restless
agitation in Basel, rising up in hostility to every more moderate view:
"It is my conviction," he writes, "that at present obstacles are thrown
in the way of the sciences as well as of the Gospel, by none more than
by those who made us believe, they would have swallowed both. Yet one
durst not complain aloud; for that old, 'Leave me my Christ untouched,'
has lately become a litany among them.'" Now more than ever his life
was devoted to the study of Grecian and especially Roman antiquity; for
theology and church history he never had any great affection. In the
beginnings of the Reformation he looked chiefly at the victory of
science, the revival of the study of the languages, the need of a more
thorough investigation of the classical ages, and was, therefore,
favorable to it. But as soon as this Reformation ventured forth from
the narrow circles of the academical lecture-room, the student's
chamber and the polite world, to move in which had become a matter of
necessity to him, upon the theatre of public life, and appeared under
democratic forms; as soon as unlearned advocates for it rose up beside
the educated and strove for approval and influence with the people,
wounding his refined taste by their rude manners and their rough
language, he began to grow uneasy. He feared directly the opposite of
what he had first hoped for, the final overthrow of all thorough
scientific culture. Of the great transformation wrought in the life of
the church and the people, with its beneficial results for religion and
politics, he had no sense, because he never traveled beyond his Roman
and Grecian studies. The bitterness of his feelings found vent in
subtle and sometimes malicious scorn. Even in presence of his scholars
and house-companions, whose number, as he always kept a boarding house,
was seldom under twenty, he allowed himself to call [OE]colampadius
"_[OE]codiabolos_" (House-devil), or "_Schlampadius_." It can readily
be imagined that when this became known it created a dislike toward him
among his former admirers, and especially among the young. He received
an unequivocal proof of it, when passing through Zurich. Having arrived
there with wet garments, he asked his host for the loan of a dry coat
that he might walk out. The latter assured him, perhaps maliciously,
that he had only a yellow one to spare, which he durst not offer him.
In spite of the strange color Glareanus put it on; but scarcely had he
appeared on the street, when he saw himself surrounded by a troop of
mocking school-boys, to whom he had probably been betrayed. "Ay! ay!
Glareanus, how you are tricked out! We must learn your verses," and
similar things were shouted in his ears. On his return, the landlord
met him with the words: "Out of the mouths of children and sucklings
hast thou prepared praise for thyself." His opinion of the age became
more and more gloomy. His secret grudge against it is particularly
visible in his letter to Ægidius Tschudi, who, like him, had remained
true to the Catholic confession. "The young men of the present day," he
wrote in 1550, "resemble those of Sodom and Gomorah. Drunkenness,
perfidy, ungodliness, dishonoring of the holy have overpowered all
their natures. Never was the world so corrupt as now." And yet, at that
very time, he had often so many hearers in Freiburg, that, instead of
the usual lecture-room the _Aula_ (the hall for examinations and
celebrations) had to be given up to him. He continued to exercise his
chosen calling with unwearied activity, until he closed his eventful
life in the seventy-fourth year of his age. It is remarkable that,
notwithstanding his dislike to the Reformation, the General Inquisition
at Madrid, as late as the year 1667, included him among "the authors of
cursed memory, whose works, published or yet to be published, are
forbidden without exception."
Footnote 8: The polemical treatise of Erasmus on this same subject
appeared earlier; besides, Erasmus was not actually a teacher in the
University.
Footnote 9: Adherents of Cataline, a Roman, whose criminal tampering
with the dregs of the people, whose attempt at their head to
revolutionize Rome, and whose defeat by Cicero the consul then in
power, are pictured in a graphic manner by the historian Sallust.
Footnote 10: [OE]colampadius had played the hero at the Conference of
Baden, he had _gebadet_; Zwingli should now do the same at Bern, in
whose coat of arms the bear occupied a prominent place.--_Translator_.
CHAPTER SIXTH
ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTIES. BREACH OF THE GENERAL PEACE.
Not only was the reciprocal relation of the states within the
Confederacy changed by the conclusion of the _Buergerrecht_; but that
of the entire nation toward foreign countries was just as much altered.
Early in the beginning of February, 1528, a letter of the Emperor,
written from Spire, reached Luzern, with complaints about this
alliance; very similar ones were received from the authorities of the
Austrian Government at Ensisheim and Inspruck, and still a fourth one
from the captains of the Swabian League. "Constance," such was their
general drift, "is not at all competent to conclude a treaty of this
kind without the consent of the Emperor, nor have the Confederate
Cities any right to enter into it. It is not impossible that it may yet
be the occasion of war, and the damage resulting may be ascribed to
their own folly by the Confederates." This warning was very acceptable
to the deputies of the Eight Cantons. It was immediately communicated
to the Zurichers. "You see," was the language of the accompanying
letter, "whither the necessity of finding allies for the maintenance of
your superstition must lead you. Do not hope that we will stand by you
in case of war. It is not our doing; we, who wish to uphold the laws,
regulations and customs of our fathers, will not be accused of
disturbing the peace of the Empire. We exhort you, by virtue of our
Confederation, to abstain from unlawful alliances." But neither
Zurich and Bern, on the one hand, nor Constance on the other, were
moved by all this. "We have," answered they, "strictly examined our
Confederate Charter, our Imperial Privileges, the Hereditary Union with
Austria--all necessary documents, and have nowhere been able to find,
that we have transcended law or privilege. And Constance is just as
little subject to Austria or the Swabian League, as we. Why do they
then wish to interfere? Our _Buergerrecht_ was devised not for
disturbing the peace of the Empire, but to aid in preserving it."
Agreement became more and more difficult. The Five Cantons, already
standing in hostile attitude toward Zurich and Bern, sought to persuade
Glarus, Freiburg and Solothurn to a closer, special union "for the
maintenance of the old, true Christian faith, the holy seven sacraments
and particularly the office and sacrifice of the mass, with all good
Christian rules, benedictions and usages, as handed down from our
forefathers, nothing excepted"--for the suppression of every innovation
in the Common Territories, and armed succor, if either there or on
their own soil an attack is made on that faith, whose support and
defence should be the highest duty, higher even than the preservation
of the Confederacy. From Freiburg they received an unconditional
assent; from Glarus and Solothurn, where the friends of Reform were
increasing in number, one with provisos attached. Wallis (_Valois_)
also joined the alliance. More anon. The time had come, when the Five
Cantons began likewise to look beyond the limits of the Confederacy.
Austria was the nearest to them. Zurich and Bern had sought foreign aid
in order to carry out their innovations more securely, why should they
refuse the same for the preservation of the old faith, for upholding
the unity of the church. Through the bishops of Chur, especially
through their friends in Graubuenden, they hoped to obtain access to
the authorities of the Archducal government in Inspruck. Meanwhile
these projects were kept secret for a long time within a narrow circle
of those who could be trusted. They first came to light, when, in the
summer of 1528, a second alliance in addition to the Christian
_Buergerrecht_ was concluded between Zurich and Bern, who were moved
thereto, as they said, by the violent suppression, on the part of the
Eight Cantons, of all attempts at Reform in the Common Territories.
"Since," so it is recorded in the original documents relating to this
matter, "our dear Confederates of the Eight Cantons are not only
offended and show themselves averse to us and our adherents in our
Christian enterprise, but have even taken occasion specially to pledge
and bind themselves to remain true to the old faith, as they call it,
and have attempted to seduce several of ours from their Christian
enterprise and respect and obedience to us, promising them help,
counsel, encouragement and succor against us, all for the suppression
of the Divine Word and of the duty, which our people owe to us, it is
not only becoming in us, but our great necessity demands it, so that
the Divine Word and evangelical truth may not in any measure be kept
down by outrage and violence, but that we and ours may be allowed to
remain in the free enjoyment thereof without any fear or terror of
man."--And thus one measure of mistrust and dislike continually
provoked another still more hostile. There was less and less
concealment in the efforts of each to strengthen their party.