people, skillful and unskillful speakers arose among them, individual
princes and governments sought to extricate themselves from the fetters
of the spiritual power, and against all ordinances of the church, which
were not clearly warranted by the Holy Scriptures, a growing
indifference prevailed. He himself also wrote from Rome against Luther.
"You cunningly strive"--he says in his book--"to subject the spiritual
to the worldly, but the Lord will not suffer his anointed (Christos
suos) to go to the ground." He came back to Constance completely
transformed, and his influence was very soon observable here.
In the abduction of the pastor of Fislispach he had a hand, and the
pastoral letter of the Bishop, to which we have alluded, as well as the
address to the Zurich chapter of canons had, according to the universal
opinion, proceeded from him. We saw that Zwingli put off answering the
letter. He took some time for it. But then an ample vindication
appeared. "May your Highness, illustrious Chief Shepherd"---he thus
begins--"pardon, if I trouble you with this paper in your manifold
labors. The Lord procure it a hearing! For six years I have preached
the Gospel, and am now represented to thee not as a dutiful guardian,
but as a robber and destroyer in the sheep-fold. By their continual,
unwearied outcries they have prevailed on you to send an admonition, as
illiterate as it is unbecoming, to the chapter of our convent. Thou
wouldst have done nothing of the kind of thine accord; thou couldst not
have written, of thyself, anything so vain and boasting; thou wouldst
also have made known thy thoughts to us in the German language.
Therefore I send thee this epistle called _Archeteles_, because I hope
it is the beginning and end of my quarrel with thy counsellors." After
this somewhat diffuse introduction follow the sixty-nine points of
complaint, again printed, and an answer appended to each one
separately. As he proceeds in the letter we see his courage and
assurance increase; the style becomes bolder, his judgment more
decided, and the interwoven sallies of wit more cutting, till here
again in a feeling of triumph, and prompted by the lugubrious tone of
the last point of the Bishop, he gives a mock-review of it somewhat in
the manner of the litany:
That we may remain in the unity of our Holy Mother, the Church;--for
this we beseech thee, O Lord, hear us.
That we may obey our Superiors, _i.e._ the pious governments;--for this
we beseech Thee, hear us.
That Thou wilt teach the false bishops humility enough not to think
themselves supreme lords but co-pastors, according to the word of
Peter; for this we beseech Thee.
That Thou wilt enlighten them with thy light, first to acknowledge Thy
true Church itself;--for this we beseech Thee, hear us.
That Thou wilt open for them the fountains of living water;--for this
we beseech Thee, hear us.
From the troubled fountains, which they have dug, out of which no
wholesome water flows;--set us free, O Lord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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