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Updated: June 7, 2025
Zwingli's father was prosperous, however, and the boy had the best education which could be obtained, at Basel and Vienna. His later discontent with the old Church came not through spiritual wrestlings in the monastery, but from the study of the classics and of the Greek New Testament. Zwingli had become a priest and settled at the famous monastery of Einsiedeln near the lake of Zurich.
The Abbot of St. Gall excused himself on account of the shortness of the time, which did permit him to obtain instructions. From the city on the contrary, appeared, along with Vadianus the friend of Zwingli's youth, who three years after rose to the dignity of burgomaster there, the pastor Benedict Burgauer and Doctor Schapeler.
To them Zwingli's opponents in the other cantons silently turned, and the Reformer was threatened with a new battle.
In fact, the resolution to grant Zwingli's petition was at last carried. Besides, the Council could justify itself with the Bishop by his own inactivity, by his refusal of the just prayer to institute a synod or convocation of learned men for the examination of the Reformer's doctrine.
In 1526, Felix Mants, the anabaptist, is drowned at Zurich, in obedience to Zwingli's pithy formula 'Qui iterum mergit mergatur'. Thus the anabaptists, upon their first appearance, were exposed to the fires of the Church and the water of the Zwinglians.
In Zurich the Great Council had, through Zwingli's influence, become the ruling authority; in Bern, as might be expected from her character, it was always the Small. As long as the Reformation was confined to Zurich, the ecclesiastical tendency predominated; in proportion as it passed over to Bern, Basel and other states, the political gained the upper hand.
The natural consequence of this dominion of the intellect, of which many now dream, is the popular doctrine: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." To this the very wisest legislation of all nations has given too little attention. Zwingli's Works, by Schuler and Schultheiss, Latinorum scriptorum pars prima, p. 341. Translator. VIII. Ch. 3 and 6.
Zwingli's doctrine, from the time of its first announcement, had seemed to Luther nothing but a visionary nay, 'devilish' perversion of the truth and the Word of God. The progress of the controversy, so far from healing the difference between them, tended only to sharpen and intensify it.
Bernard, the Gray Sisters and the excellent schools of particular monasteries? But then, on the other side, who will not admit that indolence, false views of life, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, and secret and impure practices found a home in a multitude of these establishments? In Zwingli's days, these dark features were most prominent and, we may even say, altogether prevailed.
Just in proportion as Zwingli's position became more secure, his views were transferred to the system of government, and the Reformation taking hold thus of political life, new embarrassments were prepared for him by the very men, who originally supported him, and the first traces of dangerous movements from below upward began already to appear. The time was ripe for his great work.
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