What then is the principle? It is love. But how comes love to spring up in the heart of a guilty and condemned man? It comes in this wise. The Gospel turns man's eye upon the Savior. He sees Him enduring His passion in his stead, bearing the bitter tree, to bestow upon him a free forgiveness, and life everlasting. That look enkindles love. That love penetrates his whole being, quickening, purifying, and elevating all his powers, filling the understanding with light, the will with obedience, the conscience with peace, the heart with joy, and making the life to abound in holy deeds, fruitful alike to God and man. Such was the Gospel that was now preached in the Cathedral of Zurich.
The Zurichers did not need any argument to convince them that this doctrine was true. They read its truth in its own light. Its glory was not of earth, but of the skies, where was the place of its birth. An unspeakable joy filled their hearts when they saw the black night of monkery departing, with its cowls, its beads, its scourges, its purgatorial fires, which had given much uneasiness to the flesh, but brought no relief to the conscience; and the sweet light of the Gospel opening so full of refreshing to their souls.
The cathedral, although a spacious building, could not contain the crowds that flocked to it. Zwingli labored with all his might to consolidate the movement. He admirably combined prudence with his zeal. He practiced the outward forms of the Church in the pale of which he still remained. He said mass: he abstained from flesh on fast-days: but all the while he labcured indefatigably to diffuse a knowledge of Divine truth, knowing that as the new growth developed, the old, with its rotten timber, and seared and shrivelled leaves, would be cast off. As soon as men should come to see that a free pardon was offered to them in the Bible, they would no longer scourge themselves to merit one, or climb the mountain of Einsiedeln with money in their hand to buy one. In short, Zwingli's first object, which he ever kept clearly in view, was not the overthrow of the Papacy, but the restoration of Christianity.
He commenced a week-day lecture for the peasants who came to market on Friday. Beautifully consecutive and logical was his Sunday course of instruction. Having opened to his flock the Gospel in his expositions of St. Matthew, he passed on to the consideration of the Acts of the Apostles, that he might show them how Christianity was diffused. He next expounded the Epistles, that he might have an opportunity of inculcating the Christian graces, and showing that the Gospel is not only a "doctrine," but also a "life." He then took up the Epistles of St. Peter, that he might reconcile the two apostles, and show the harmony that reigns in the New Testament on the two great subjects of "Faith" and "Works;" and last of all he expounded the Epistle to the Hebrews, showing the harmony that subsists between the two Dispensations, that both have one substance, and that one substance is the Gospel – Salvation of Grace – and that the difference lay only in the mode of revelation, which was by type and symbol in the one case, by plain literal statements in the other. "Here they were to learn," says Zwingli, "that Christ is our alone true High Priest. That was the seed I sowed; Matthew, Luke, Paul, Peter have watered it, but God caused it to thrive." And in a letter to Myconius, of December 31st, 1519, he reports that "at Zurich upwards of 2,000 souls had already been so strengthened and nourished by the milk of the truth, that they could now bear stronger food, and anxiously longed for it." Thus, step by step, did Zwingli lead his hearers onward from the first principles to the higher mysteries of Divine revelation.
A movement like this could not be confined within the walls of Zurich, any more than day can break and valley and mountain-top not catch the radiance. The seeds of this renovation were being cast by Zwingli into the air; the winds were wafting them all over Switzerland, and at many points laborers were preparing a soil in which they might take root and grow. It was in favor of the movement here that the chief actors were not, as elsewhere, kings, ministers, and princes of the Church, but the people. Let us look around and note the beginnings of this movement, by which so many of the Helvetic cantons were, at no distant day, to be emancipated from the tyranny of the Papal supremacy, and the superstitions of the Papal faith.
We begin on the northern frontier. There was at that time at Basle a brilliant cluster of men. Among the first, and by much the most illustrious of them all, was Erasmus, whose edition of the New Testament (1516) may be said to have opened a way for the Reformation. The labors of the celebrated printer Frobenius were scarcely less powerful. He printed at Basle the writings of Luther, and in a short time spread them in Italy, France, Spain, and England. Among the second class, the more distinguished were Capito and Hedio. They were warm friends and admirers of Zwingli, and they adopted in Basle the same measures for the propagation of the Reformed faith which the latter was prosecuting with so much success at Zurich. Capito began to expound daily to the citizens the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and with results thus described in a letter of Hedio's to Zwingli in 1520: "This most efficacious doctrine of Christ penetrates and warms the heart." The audiences increased. The doctors and monks conspired against the preacher, and raised tumults.
The Cardinal – Archbishop of Mainz, desiring to possess so great a scholar, invited Capito to Mainz, On his departure, however, the work did not cease. Hedio took it up, and beginning where Capito had stopped, went on to expound the Gospel with a courageous eloquence, to which the citizens listened, although the monks ceased not to warn them against believing those who told them that the sum of all Christian doctrine was to be found in the Gospel. Scotus, said they, was a greater doctor than St. Paul. So broke the dawn of the Reformation in Basle. The number of its disciples in this seat of learning rapidly increased. Still it had a long and sore fight before obtaining the mastery. The aristocracy were powerful: the clergy were not less so: the University threw its weight into the same scale. Here was a triple rampart, which it cost the truth much effort to scale. Hedio, who succeeded Capito, was himself succeeded by Ecolampadius, the greatest of the three. Ecolampadius labored with zeal and waited in hope for six years. At last, in 1528, Basle, the last of all the Helvetic cantons, decreed its acceptance of the Reformed faith.
At Lucerne, Myconius endeavored to sow the good seed of the Gospel; but the soil was unkindly, and the seed that sprang up soon withered. It was choked by the love of arms and the power of superstition. Oswald Geishauser – for such was his name till Erasmus hellenised it into Myconius – was one of the sweetest spirits and most accomplished minds of that age. He was born at Lucerne (1488), and educated at Basle, where he became Rector of St. Peter's School. In 1516 he left Basle, and became Rector of the Cathedral School at Zurich. He was the first of those who sought to dispel the ignorance of his native Switzerland by laboring, in his vocation as schoolmaster, to introduce at once the knowledge of ancient letters and the love of Holy Scripture. He had previously contracted a friendship with Zwingli, and it was mainly through his efforts and counsel that the Preacher of Einsiedeln was elected to fill the vacant office at Zurich. The two friends worked lovingly together, but at length it was resolved that Myconius should carry the light to his native city of Lucerne. The parting was sad, but Myconius obeyed the call of duty and set out.
He hoped that his office as head-master in the collegiate school of this city would afford him opportunities of introducing a higher knowledge than that of Pagan literature among the citizens around the Waldstatter Lake. He began his work very quietly. The writings of Luther had preceded him, but the citizens of Lucerne, the strenuous advocates at once of a foreign service and a foreign faith, abominated these books as if they had proceeded from the pen of a demon. The expositions of Myconius in the school awakened instant suspicion. "We must burn Luther and the schoolmaster," said the citizens to one another. Myconius went on, notwithstanding, not once mentioning Luther's name, but quietly conveying to the youth around him a knowledge of the Gospel. The whisperings soon grew into accusations.
At last they burst out in fierce threats. "I live among ravenous wolves," we find him writing in December, 1520. He was summoned before the council. "He is a Lutheran," said one accuser; "he is a seducer of youth," said another. The council enjoined him not