abrogation of the law of celibacy fittingly followed the abolition of the monastic vow. This was essential to the restoration of the ministerial office to its apostolic dignity and purity. Many of the Reformed pastors took advantage of the change in the law, among others Leo Juda, Zwingli's friend. Zwingli himself had contracted in 1522 a private marriage, according to the custom of the times, with Anna Reinhard, widow of John Meyer von Knonau, a lady of great beauty and of noble character. On the 2nd of April, 1524, he publicly celebrated his marriage in the minster church. Zwingli had made no secret whatever of his private espousals, which were well known to both friend and foe, but the public acknowledgment of them was hailed by the former as marking the completion of another stage in the Swiss Reformation.
Thus step by step the movement advanced. Its path was a peaceful one. That changes so great in a country where the government was so liberal, and the expression of public opinion so unrestrained, should have been accomplished without popular tumults, is truly marvellous. This must be ascribed mainly to the enlightened maxims that guided the procedure of the Reformer. When Zwingli wished to do away with any oppressive or superstitious obdervance; he sifted and exposed the false dogma on which it was founded, knowing that when he had overthrown it in the popular belief, it would soon fall in the popular practice. When public sentiment was ripe, the people would go to the legislative chamber, and would there find the magistrates prepared to put into the form of law what was already the judgment and wish of the community; and thus the law, never outrunning public opinion would be willingly obeyed. In this way Zwingli had already accomplished a host of reforms. He had opened the door of the convents; he had suppressed the monastic orders; he had restored hundreds of idle men to useful industry; he had set free thousands of pounds for the erection of hospitals and the education of youth; and he had closed a fountain of pollution, only the more defiling because it issued from the sanctuary, and restored purity to the altar, in the repeal of the law of clerical celibacy. But the Reformation did not stop here. More arduous achievement awaited it.
CHAPTER 14
DISCUSSION ON IMAGES AND THE MASS
Christ's Death – Zwingli's Fundamental Position – Iconoclasts – Hottinger – Zwingli on Image-worship – Conference of all Switzerland summoned – 900 Members Assemble – Preliminary Question – The Church – Discussion on Images – Books that Teach Nothing – The Mass Discussed – It is Overthrown – Joy of Zwingli – Relics Inferred.
THE images were still retained in the churches, and mass still formed part of the public worship. Zwingli now began to prepare the public mind for a reform in both particulars – to lead men from the idol to the one true God; from the mass which the Church had invented to the Supper which Christ had instituted. The Reformer began by laying down this doctrine in his teaching, and afterwards more formally in eighteen propositions or conclusions which he published – "that Christ, Who offered Himself once for all upon the cross, is a sufficient and everlasting Sacrifice for the sins of all who believe upon Him; and that, therefore, the mass is not a sacrifice, but the memorial of Christ's once offering upon the cross, and the visible seal of our redemption through Him." This great truth received in the public mind, he knew that the mass must fall.
But all men had not the patience of Zwingli. A young priest, Louis Hetzer, of fiery zeal and impetuous temper, published a small treatise on images, which led to an ebullition of popular feeling. Outside the city gates, at Stadelhofen, stood a crucifix, richly ornamented, and with a frequent crowd of devotees before it. It gave annoyance to not a few of the citizens, and among others to a shoemaker, named Nicholas Hottinger, "a worthy man," says Bullinger, "and well versed in his Bible." One day as Hottinger stood surveying the image, its owner happened to come up, and Hottinger demanded of him "when he meant to take that thing away?" "Nobody bids you worship it, Nicholas," was the reply. "But don't you know," said Hottinger, "that the Word of God forbids images?" "If," replied the owner, "you feel yourself empowered to remove it, do so." Hottinger took this for consent, and one morning afterwards, the shoemaker, coming to the spot with a party of his fellow-citizens, dug a trench round the crucifix, when it fell with a crash. A violent outcry was raised by the adherents of the old faith against these iconoclasts. "Down with these men!" they shouted; "they are church-robbers, and deserving of death."
The commotion was increased by an occurrence that soon thereafter happened. Lawrence Meyer, Vicar of St. Peter's, remarked one day to a fellow-vicar, that when he thought of the people at the church-door, pale with hunger, and shivering from want of clothes, he had a great mind to knock down the idols on the altars, and take their silken robes and costly jewels, and therewith buy food and raiment for the poor. On Lady-day, before three o'clock in the morning, the plates, rolls, images, and other symbols had all disappeared from St. Peter's Church. Suspicion, of course, fell upon the vicar. The very thing which he had confessed having a strong desire to do, had been done; and yet it may have been another and not the vicar who did it, and as the deed could not be traced to him, nothing more came of it so far as Meyer was concerned.
Still the incident was followed by important consequences. Zwingli had shrunk from the discussion of the question of worshipping by images, but now he felt the necessity of declaring his sentiments. He displayed in this, as in every reform which he instituted, great breadth of view, and singular moderation in action. As regarded images in churches, he jocularly remarked that they did not hurt himself, for his short-sightedness prevented him seeing them. He was no enemy to pictures and statues, if used for purposes purely aesthetic. The power of bodying forth beautiful forms, or lofty ideas, in marble or on canvas, was one of the good gifts of God. He did not, therefore, condemn the glass paintings in the church windows, and similar ornaments in sacred buildings, which were as little likely to mislead the people as the cock on the church steeple, or the statue of Charles the Great at the minster. And even with regard to images which were superstitiously used, he did not approve their unauthorised and irregular destruction. Let the abuse be exposed and sifted, and it would fall of itself. "The child is not let down from the cradle," said he, "till a rest has been presented to it to aid it in walking." When the knowledge of the one true God has entered the heart., the man will no longer be able to wornhip by an image.
"On the other hand," said he, "all images must be removed which serve the purposes of a superstitious veneration, because such veneration is idolatry. First of all, where are the images placed? Why, on the altar, before the eyes of the worshippers. Will the Romanists permit a man to stand on the altar when mass is being celebrated? Not they. Images, then, are higher than men, and yet they have been cut out of a willow-tree by the hands of men. But further, the worshippers bow to them, and bare the head before them. Is not that the very act which God has forbidden? 'Thou shalt not bow down unto them.' Consider if this be not open idolatry."
"Further," argued Zwingli, "we burn costly incense before them, as did the heathen to their idols. Here we commit a two-fold sin. If we say that thus we honor the saints, it was thus that the heathen honored their idols. If we say that it is God we honor, it is a form of worship which no apostle or evangelist ever offered to Him."
"Like the heathen, do we not call those images by the names of those they represent? We name one piece of carved wood the Mother of God, another St. Nicholas, a third Holy Hildegarde, and so on. Have we not heard of men breaking into prisons and slaying those who had taken away their images, and when asked why they did so, they replied, 'Oh, they have burned or stolen our blessed Lord God and the saints'? Whom do they call our Lord God? The idol."
"Do we not give to these idols what we ought to give to the poor? We form them of massive gold or silver, or we overlay them with some precious metal. We hang rich clothing upon them, we adorn them with chains and precious jewels. We give to the bedizened image what we ought to give to the poor, who are the living images of God."
"But, say
