Such assertions as this, which were echoing already through the whole Confederacy, the prayers of his friends and the wishes of the government induced Zwingli to declare himself publicly on the subject. This was done in a sermon, which was given to the press under the title: "On Divine and Human Righteousness." In earlier moments of enthusiasm over the rich fruits of his struggle, from a feeling of the wide difference between evangelical freedom and the pressure of the numerous burdens imposed by a degenerate church, a word may have escaped him, which, joyfully laid hold of, distorted and magnified, gave some color to the reproach, that he wished also to attack civil order and guaranteed rights. This sermon, prepared with mature deliberation and assured confidence, shows how safe his standpoint here was, and that his system did not rest on fragments of knowledge, dark feelings and a mere negative spirit of contradiction, but was based on a profound understanding of the Holy Scriptures, in their entire connection. In seeking to bring the sense of human justice into harmony with the fulfillment of religious duty, the lower position was assigned to the citizen, in his relations to the state, where, in order to escape just punishment, he is obliged to obey; and the higher to the Christian, in the spiritual kingdom of his Lord and Master, where he is bound to aspire after the noblest things, in a spirit of faith, love and freedom. This will be plain from several passages, taken out of this sermon.