Thus did Zwingle rely on the Church, but on the true Church; not on the clergy alone, but on the assembly of Christians,--on the people. All that the Scriptures say of the Church in general, he applied to particular churches. He did not think that any church could err which listened with docility to the Word of God. In his eyes, the Church was represented politically and ecclesiastically by the Great Council.[483] At first he explained every question from the pulpit; and when his hearers' minds were convinced of the truth, he carried the matter before the Great Council, who, in harmony with the ministers of the Church, formed such decisions as the Church called for.[484] [483] Diacosion Senatus summa est potestas Ecclesiæ vice. Zw. Opp. iii. 339. [484] Ante omnia multitudinem de quæstione probe docere ita factum est, ut quidquid diacosii (the great council of two hundred), cum verbi ministris ordinarent, jamdudum in animis fidelium ordinatum esset. Zw. Opp. iii. 339. [Sidenote: CANON HOFFMAN--PRESBYTERIANISM.] In the absence of the bishop's deputies, Conrad Hoffmann, the same aged canon who had procured Zwingle's election to Zurich, undertook the defence of the pope. He maintained that the Church, the flock, the "third estate," had no right to discuss such matters. "I was thirteen years at Heidelberg," said he, "living in the house of a very great scholar, whose name was Doctor Joss, a worthy and pious man, with whom I long ate and drank and led a merry life; but I always heard him say that it was not proper to discuss such matters; so you see......" All were ready to burst into laughter; but the burgomaster checked them. "Let us therefore wait for a council," continued Hoffmann. "For the present, I shall not dispute, but obey the bishop's orders, even should he be a knave!" "Wait for a council!" replied Zwingle. "And who will attend a council? The pope with some sluggish and ignorant bishops who will do nothing but what suits their fancy. No! the Church is not there! Höng and Küssnacht (these were two Zurich villages) are certainly more of a church than all the bishops and popes put together!" Thus did Zwingle vindicate the rights of the christian people, whom Rome had deprived of their privileges. The assembly before which he was speaking was not, in his judgment, the Church of Zurich, but its first representative. This is the beginning of the Presbyterian system in the age of the Reformation. Zwingle was withdrawing Zurich from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance, separating it from the Latin hierarchy, and founding on this idea of the flock, of the christian assembly, a new ecclesiastical constitution, to which other countries were afterwards to adhere. [Sidenote: SILENCE OF PRIESTS AND MONKS.]