Who was Ulrich Zwingli?

Such was the state of things in general as the new day began to dawn in the valleys of the Alps. Ulric Zwingle has been styled the apostle of the Swiss Reformation. He was no doubt the chief instrument in commencing and carrying on this great work, though some had been in the field before him. He was possessed of a strong and clear judgment, an ardent lover of the truth, earnest in its propagation, and animated with a noble zeal for the glory of God and the good of His church. In many things he was mistaken, as the best of the Lord's servants may be, but he is well-fitted to rank with such men as Luther and Calvin, or the most illustrious names in ecclesiastical history.

The Birth and Education of Zwingle

21 Moreover, brethren, Luther was not alone, but it pleased the God of all grace to raise up, in order to give to the world the fullest testimony that it was His own work, at the very same time, at a distant place, the monastery of Einsiedeln, a member of that monastery, named Zwingle, to preach the truths of the gospel, and protest against the wickedness of the pope and practices of Rome. And God was pleased so to order it, that these two men, Zwingle and Luther, were never united in sentiment to the day of their death. And so far was Luther from agreeing with Zwingle in his opinion on one point, that he was so angry with him about it that he would never join churches with him. And the truth is, that it rather seems that Zwingle began to preach the gospel before Luther. The cause of the Reformation was God's mercy and grace, the time for which was now fully come. The occasion of it, under God's providence was this: Pope Leo the tenth wanted to finish a very splendid church in Rome, commonly called St. Peter's; and in order to raise money for it, he set indulgences for sin to sale without limit. And this it was which made Luther and Zwingle both at the same time begin to protest against the conduct of the church: though Luther at first did not charge the pope with it, but only preached against the indulgences. When they tried to silence him, he went on to search the scriptures in order to defend himself, and find out where the truth of the matter lay; and there he found that the papacy of Rome had no foundation for its assumed authority, and afterwards he was persuaded that it was indeed that Babylon which it is expressly foretold should rise in the Christian church, and corrupt everything herself, and persecute all faithful witnesses to God's truth. Would to God, brethren, and it is my earnest prayer and trust, that many amongst you may be led by the same means of searching the scriptures to discover the same truths; and above all, that your souls may find their way by the teaching of God's Spirit, by the means of God's word, to the full power of eternal life and unfeigned holiness of heart and life through the knowledge of Jesus Christ therein revealed; that you may enter with unmixed joy into the presence of your God.

Zwingle's Early Views

Ulric Zwingle, the great Swiss Reformer, and compeer of Luther, differed entirely from both the teaching of Rome and the Saxon Reformers as to the real presence of Christ in the holy supper. The Swiss had long held opinions contrary alike to the Roman and the Saxon. At an early period of Zwingle's christian course his attention had been attracted by the simplicity of scripture on the subject of the Lord's supper. In the word of God he read that Christ had left this world and gone to His Father in heaven; and that this was to be a matter of special faith and hope to His disciples. This we find clearly taught in the Acts of the Apostles: "And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him to into heaven." Thus we see that the blessed Lord ascended personally, bodily, visibly; and that He shall return in like manner, but not until the close of the present dispensation, or church period. "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things." (Acts 1:10-11, 3:21)

Luther would have nothing to do with Zwingli. Zwingli was an eminent Swiss reformer, and he desired to be united with the German reformers. Luther's objection was principally because he believed Zwingli held erroneous doctrines on the Lord's supper.

In the same year that the Anabaptists made their appearance (1524), a long and pernicious controversy arose among those who had withdrawn from the Romish communion, respecting the manner in which the body and blood of Christ are present in the sacred supper. Luther and his adherents, while they renounced the papal error of transubstantiation — that the bread and wine after consecration remained no longer, but were transmuted into the body and blood of Christ — yet did maintain that persons coming to the sacred supper participated truly of the body and blood of Christ, together with the bread and wine. This doctrine gave rise to the term, consubstantiation. Ulric Zwingle, the Swiss Reformer, and his adherents were much more simple, being more fully delivered from the traditions of Rome. They maintained that the body and blood of the Lord are not present in the holy supper, but that the bread and the wine are merely symbols or emblems by which people should be moved to remember the death of Christ, and the blessing flowing therefrom.

As nearly all the Swiss divines, and not a few in Upper Germany, followed the teaching of Zwingle, and Luther and his friends contended strenuously for his doctrine, great disunion was created among the true friends of the Reformation, which was artfully fomented by the papists. But more of this afterwards, if the Lord will. We now turn to the

From this time, the ecclesiastical abuses which Rome had introduced became obvious to his mind; and, while expounding the scriptures from the pulpit, he faithfully and fearlessly exposed the innovations and corruptions of the Romish system. This was the dawn of the Reformation in Switzerland. Zwingle was maintaining the absolute authority of the truth of God and denouncing the falsehoods of Rome.

While thus engaged, he was obliged to leave his more sacred duties, and accompany the confederate army on an Italian expedition. Threatened by Francis I. who vowed to avenge in Italy the honour of the French name, the pope, in great consternation, entreated the cantons to come to his aid. It was then the custom in Switzerland for the Landamman, or chief magistrate of the canton, and the pastor of the parish to take the field with the troops on such campaigns. In the years 1513 and 1515, Zwingle was compelled to follow the banner of his parish to the plains of Italy. On the former of these occasions, the French were defeated by the confederates at Novara; and monks and priests proclaimed from their pulpits that the Swiss were the people of God, who avenged the bride of the Lord on her enemies. But, on the latter occasion he witnessed a signal defeat of his countrymen on the fatal field of Marignan. There, says history, the flower of the Helvetian youth perished. And Zwingle, who had been unable to prevent the great disaster, and overcome by his national feelings and patriotism, seized a sword and threw himself into the midst of danger. This was natural, and in those times it was considered noble, but it was not christian. He forgot for the moment that as a minister of Christ he should fight only with the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal," says the apostle, "but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:4-5)

These deep breathings of the innermost soul of Zwingle must command the grateful praise of every renewed heart to the God of all grace. What devotion to Christ, to His gospel, to His church, to his own relatives, to his country, to mankind! How evidently, how wonderfully, taught of God! His knowledge of the way of salvation, and his deeper entrance into the grand rest-giving truth of the believer's identification with Christ, fill our hearts with admiring delight. True, he did not understand deliverance through death from sin, Satan, and the world, as taught in Romans 6 and similar portions, nor could he have known the teaching of scripture on the subject of the church as the body of Christ, according to that word — "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." (1 Cor. 12:13) But he understood that there was communion in grace and blessing through faith in Christ's precious sacrifice. Had he been more under "the power of His resurrection" he would have been less of what his biographers call "the christian patriot, the christian hero." Not that he would have loved his neighbour, his kindred, or mankind less, but he would have manifested his love more in accordance with the spirit of one who is not only dead, but risen in Christ, and joined unto the Lord by one Spirit — the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Like Luther he held that justification by faith alone is the key-stone of Christianity; though, evidently, he was less under the power of prejudice, and had a much broader view of divine truth than the Saxon Reformer, and a more elevated style of expressing it.

The Disputations at Zurich

When Constantine made the profession of Christianity a pathway to worldly preferment, his heathen soldiers and senators eagerly rushed into the church. But alas! they brought their idolatries with them. It was then that statues, images, paintings, pomps, festivals, vestments, and the demigods of paganism were introduced into the professing church; and all this, that she might enjoy the favour of princes. From the fourth till the sixteenth century, idolatry was supreme, and the word of God was degraded and rejected by the dominant church. But now we see a greater than Constantine — son of a herdsman in the valley of the Tockenburg — the humble pastor of Zurich; standing before us, through grace, as the noblest champion of the word of God, and the most uncompromising enemy of the Judaism and the paganism of Rome, that the sixteenth century has furnished us with. Luther was a great Reformer as to doctrine, but feeble as to idolatry; Zwingle was valiant in both. Here, all praise be to the God of all grace, and the power of His Holy Spirit, Zwingle restores the long banished Bible to its right place, and purifies the church of its inveterate abuses.

Luther, it is true, objected to the force of arms in the furtherance of the truth, and looked for the triumphs of the gospel through the faithfulness of its friends; yet, as we have seen, he agreed to the princes assuming the entire control over ecclesiastical and spiritual affairs from an early period of the Reformation. But Zwingle went much farther in this dangerous course. When troubles arose, and dangers beset the vessel of the Reformation, through the treachery of the Catholic cantons, he thought it his duty, like a true republican or a christian patriot, to examine federal questions, to counsel the senate, and to sanction an appeal to arms. But the end of these unscriptural proceedings, as we shall soon painfully see, was the inglorious death of the illustrious Reformer, and an almost fatal blow to the evangelical cause in Switzerland.

Little did the German reformer think, when he refused the hand of his Swiss brother in the castle of Marburg, that within a year the opportunity for taking it would have gone by for ever. Yet so it was. Zwingli died on the battle-field, having accompanied the Protestant army in his capacity as chaplain. We do not attempt to justify the conduct of the Swiss Protestants in taking arms against their enemies; though they were only contending for their rights. Scripture teaches that "the servant of the Lord must not strive," and we may be sure that no good was ever done by the employment of carnal weapons in the spiritual conflicts of the church. At the battle of Cappel, in which Zwingli lost his life, twenty-five christian ministers were left dead upon the field! The great reformer was struck down at the very commencement of the action, while he was stooping over a dying man to breathe some word of comfort in his ear. The wound was not immediately fatal; and as he lay exhausted on the ground, he was heard to say: "Alas, what a calamity is this! Well, they have indeed killed the body, but they cannot touch the soul." For long hours he lay stretched upon the field, and when night had far advanced, a party of papists, with lighted torches, who were engaged in rifling the dead, came upon his body. He still breathed, but they did not recognise his face. One of the party asked him would he have a confessor, but the reformer shook his head. "If you cannot speak," said they, "invoke the mother of God, and the other saints for their intercession." The reformer again shook his head, and kept his eyes steadily fixed on heaven. "Die, then, obstinate heretic," said the officer of the party, and as he spoke he struck Zwingli on the throat with his sword. Later on they held a mock council on the lifeless body, and having condemned it for treason and heresy, the head was struck off, the body quartered, and the mutilated remains reduced to ashes.