The Bishops of Coire, Constance, and Basle, the university of the latter city, and the twelve cantons, were accordingly requested to send deputies to Zurich. But the bishops declined the invitation, and calling to mind the wretched figure their deputies had made at the former disputation, they had little inclination to repeat such humiliating scenes. Let the evangelicals dispute if they please, but let them dispute alone. On the first occasion, the Romish party had kept silence; on the second they were resolved not to appear. Rome may possibly have imagined that the great combat would cease for want of combatants. The bishops were not alone in refusing to attend. The men of Unterwalden replied that they had no scholars among them, but only worthy and pious priests, who explained the Gospel as their fathers had done; that they would send no deputy to Zwingle "and his fellows;" but that, if he fell into their hands, they would treat him in such a manner as to deprive him of all wish to relapse into the same faults.[481] Schaffhausen and St. Gall alone sent representatives. [481] So wollten wir Ihm den Lohn geben, dass er's nimmer mehr thäte. Simmler Samml. MS. ix. [Sidenote: ZWINGLE ON THE CHURCH.] On the 26th of October, after the sermon, an assembly of more than nine hundred persons, composed of members of the Great Council and of three hundred and fifty priests, filled the large hall of the town-house. Zwingle and Leo Juda were seated at a table, on which lay the Old and New Testament in the original languages. Zwingle spoke first, and overthrowing with a vigorous arm the authority of the hierarchy and of its councils, established the rights of every Christian Church, and claimed the liberty of the primitive ages--of those times when the Church knew neither general nor provincial councils. "The universal Church," said he, "is spread over the whole world, wherever there is faith in Christ, in India as well as at Zurich......And as for particular churches, we have them at Berne, at Schaffhausen, and even here. But the popes, with their cardinals and their councils, form neither the universal Church nor a particular Church.[482] The assembly before which I now speak," continued he with energy, "is the Church of Zurich; it desires to hear the Word of God, and it has the right of ordering all that may appear to it conformable with the Holy Scriptures." [482] Der Päbste, Cardinäle und Bischöffe Concilia sind nich die christliche Kirche. Fussl. Beytr. iii. 20.