tered it in Poland, threatened to be also rife". disciples, either of the orthodox or heterodox, were able to survive the barbarous malice of the Inquisition". 5 Above, pp. 92, 93. 6 M'Crie, pp. 149 sq., pp. 385 sq. On the Socini (Lælius and Faustus), with whom Ochino was allied at Zürich, see below Chap. v. 7 See M'Crie's fifth chapter, on 'the Suppression of the Reformation in Italy.' The leader of the countermovement, which began in 1542, was Cardinal Caraffa, afterwards Paul IV., whose nephew, Caraccioli, son of the marquis of Vico, was one of the most eminent of the Italian reformers. CHAPTER II. THE SWISS SCHOOL OF CHURCH-REFORMERS, LAND. of Zwingli (b. 1484.) SWITZERLAND. SWITZER AS Luther stands unrivalled in the group of worthies who conducted what is termed the Saxon Reformation, Zwingli's figure is originally foremost in the kindred Early career struggles of the Swiss. He was born on New Year's day, 1484, and was thus Luther's junior only by seven weeks. His father was the leading man of Wildhaus, a parish in the Toggenburg, where, high above the level of the lake of Zürich, he retained the simple dignity and truthfulness that characterized the Swiss of olden times, before they were so commonly attracted from their native pastures to decide the battles of adjacent states. Huldreich Zwingli, being destined for the priesthood, sought his elementary education at Basle and Berne, and after studying philosophy for two years at the university of Vienna, commenced his theological course at Basle under the care of Thomas Wyttenbach, a teacher justly held in very high repute. At the early age of twenty-two, Zwingli was 1 On the boyhood and early training of Zwingli, see Schuler's Huldreich Zwingli, Zürich, 1819. The best contemporary Life of him is by Oswald Myconius, the reforming preacher, who died at Basle in 1552. It is reprinted in Stäudlin's Archiv für Kirchengesch. Vol. 1. 2 Their services were especially solicited by the pope on one side, and the French on the other. Hence arose the custom of pensions by which a French party had acquired general ascendancy in Switzerland at the beginning of the sixteenth century: Ranke, Ref. I. 65, 66. 3 He belonged to the same school as Erasmus, and besides inspiring LAND. appointed priest of Glarus (1506). He carried with him SWITZERinto his seclusion a passionate love of letters, and especially His classical of that untrodden field of literature which was exciting the tastes. profoundest admiration of the age,-the classical remains of Greece and Rome. To these he long devoted his chief interest; for although not unacquainted with the writings of the Middle Ages, scholasticism had never any charm for him, and exercised but little influence on his mental training. Thus while Luther undervalued the wisdom of the heathen poets and philosophers, Zwingli venerated them as gifted with an almost supernatural inspiration. principles. At the same time other traits no less distinctive in his character were strongly brought to light. Zwingli was His political from first to last a genuine republican, not only by the accident of birth in the Helvetic confederacy, but as it seemed by an original instinct of his nature. Hence we find the pastor of Glarus busily engaged in politics, composing patriotic allegories in denunciation of 'the foreigners,' taking the field with his courageous flock, and even present at the battle of Marignano, where his countrymen at last succumbed beneath the chivalry of France (1515). student of the But in the meanwhile an important change was passing Becomes a over the complexion of his private studies. In 1513 he Bible. applied himself with characteristic ardour to the cultivation of the Greek language, and accepting the principles of his pupils with a love of classical literature, excited them against the more extravagant of the Mediæval notions. Zwingli says (Opp. III. 544, ed. Schuler) that he learned from Wyttenbach 'solam Christi mortem pretium esse remissionis peccatorum. 4 Ranke, III. 63. Walter (Gualther), his son-in-law, whose Apology for him was prefixed to the edition of his works which appeared in 1545, has to answer the following charge among others: Quosdam ex Ethnicorum numero, homines impios, cru deles, horrendos, idololatras et Epi- 5 These were entitled Der Laby- 6 'Copi prædicare Evangelium,' he writes in 1523, antequam Lutheri nomen unquam audivissem. Atque in eum usum ante decem annos operam dedi Græcanicis literis, ut ex fontibus doctrinam Christi haurire possem:' Opp. (ed. Gualther. 1545), I. fol. 38 a. He did not LAND. Zwingli contrasted with Luther. SWITZER exegesis then advocated by Erasmus, resolved that the Bible, and especially the New Testament in the original, should be in future his great touchstone for determining the nature and the limits of religious truth. In all this process, notwithstanding some analogies, the course of Zwingli had diverged considerably from that of the Wittenberg reformer. Luther, as we saw, was forced into collision with the church-authorities by an internal pressure of the conscience, a profound and overwhelming impulse of his moral sensibilities. Though disciplined to habits of submission, and by nature indisposed to break away from the traditions of the past, he was nevertheless unable to repress the storm of holy indignation that arose within him on beholding the practical substitution of man's righteousness for Christ's1, of justification by the law for justification by faith. But if this error had been once corrected, Luther's quarrel with the dominant school of theologians would in all probability have ceased. Zwingli, on the contrary 2, had no such reverence for the Church, and no such bond of union with antiquity. His thoughts were for the most part circumscribed within his native mountains, and concentrated on the parish where his lot was cast. That joyous heart, of which his cheerful countenance was the unfailing index, had been well-nigh unacquainted with the spiritual tempests in which Luther learned to fathom the abyss of human depravity, and tested the victorious power of faith: and therefore what the Saxon friar undertook as the result of holy impulses and spiritual intuitions, the Swiss clergy indeed condemn the reading of the nymus neque cæteri, sed sola Scrip- 3 'Ingenio amoenus et ore jucundus supra quam dici possit erat,' is the description of Oswald Myconius. He had also a fine musical taste. LAND. man was rather aiming to achieve by the employment of SWITZER his critical and reasoning faculties. He rose at length to controvert established usages and dogmas of the Church, because he had not found them in his careful study of the Greek Testament. ship with atory effort. The Swiss reformer had thus many points in common His friendwith Erasmus, and accordingly as soon as the literary Erasmus. chieftain came to Basle in 1514, frequent communications1 passed between them. There is nothing,' wrote Zwingli, 'of which I am prouder than to have seen Erasmus.' But in 1516 he began to manifest far greater boldness than his learned correspondents. Having been transferred to Einsiedeln in the autumn of that year, he laboured to divert his people from the grosser forms of image-worship and First reformother like corruptions, and even wrote to his diocesan, the bishop of Constance, urging the necessity of minor reformations. Two years later he was appointed to a preachership in the collegiate church of Zürich (Jan. 1, 1519) where he found a more appropriate arena for his eloquence, and where his force of character at once exalted him to the position he retained during the rest of his life. His efforts had at this period a three-fold tendency,-to vindicate the absolute supremacy of Holy Scripture, and establish what 4 See, for instance, Erasmi Epist. Lib. XXXI. ep. 52. 5 Erasmus was, however, the chief agent in determining his course: Opp. 1. fol. 55 b, ed. Gualther. He had learned from a poem of his friend that Christ was the true 'Patron' of the sinner and the helpless. 'Hunc enim vidi unicum esse thesaurum pii pectoris, quin cœpi scriptis Bibliorum sacrorum veterumque patrum diligentius intendere, certius quiddam ex his de divorum intercessione venaturus. In Bibliis Sacris plane nihil reperi. Apud quosdam veterum de ea re inveni, apud alios nihil.' His removal to this lonelier district ('Eremitorium) was chiefly 7 Waddington, II. 271, 272. In I |