This, and reports of a similar character, which were sent in from the canton, induced the government to place Grebel, Manz, and some dozen of the most stiff-necked rebels of respectable education in the monastery of the Augustines, where Zwingli and the two other people's priests of the city received orders to visit them frequently. It was hoped they would be finally set right. But what a triumph it was for them, when they succeeded in puzzling Zwingli with one of his own assertions! He had said that no one, according to the New Testament, had been baptised a second time. Did he not know that Paul rebaptised those twelve in Ephesus, who had already been baptised by John?[7] The report of this victory over the hitherto invincible champion spread through the canton with amazing rapidity. "He is fallen," so they cried, "the false prophet, the great dragon; the Spirit of the Lord is with us. The Gospel will now be everywhere brought to light. Away with taxes! Away with the sword! No Christian will wish to be a ruler! We are all brethren. Sell your goods, lay all together on one heap. Let there be no poor any longer and no rich!" A second conference before a select assembly had now but little influence. The matter must be decided before the people, and Zwingli began to arm himself for the work. Meanwhile, he grappled with the subject in his sermons. He showed the difference between the baptism of John and that of Paul, brought out the antagonism between the letter and the spirit, and unfolded the consequences of the doctrines of the deluded fanatics, in such a clear, lively and convincing manner, that a storm of applause resounded through the church at the close of one of these sermons. The city was won. But the canton yet remained. "Zwingli has the advantage in the protection of the government and the city," they cried. "Those, who are best able to contend with him, have been exiled, or not permitted to appear. Had it been otherwise, he must have yielded." Many honest, well-meaning people believed this; and the following petition, sent into the government, seems to have sprung from such a belief: "Honorable, wise, gracious Lords, we are indeed free to confess, that you have trouble and labor on our account, and on the other hand, that we are daily involved in great anxiety. Now, we are willing to suffer, and call upon God to help you and us to peace, which can indeed be brought about, if Your Worships propose a public conference, and invite other people to it; let them be those, who have been cast out because of this business, and others also. Then, whatever is established from the Word of God, to that we pledge you our bodies and our lives, our honor and our goods. But if indeed you wish an answer from us, it can be nothing else, than the public confession, that we have not grace from God to talk with Master Ulric, so that he can understand us, or ability to speak straight from the heart.