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SEPTEMBER 4, 1858.

BOOKS.

COCHRAN'S TRANSLATION OF CHRISTOFFEL'S ZWINGLI.* 80ME admirers of the Swiss religious Reformer, Zwingli, in- cline to give him 'precedence over Luther ; and in certain points rightly. If he did not as regards time forestall Luther's oppo- sition to the abuses of the Papacy, Zwingli or Zuinglius, arrived at his religions conclusions by a more intellectual and independent process than Luther. But for the slight put upon " hisorder " in the matter of the indulgences, and a not over-respectable feeling of tra- iling jealousy, the great German reformer might have left the work of Ecclesiastical reform to other hands. His Opposition to Popery grew up by degrees and was forced upon him by the violence of successive controversies, and possibly by his own vanity ; for with all his geniality and strength of character, Luther had many weaknesses. Zwingli on the other hand arrived at his religious views entirely by reflection, and "searching the scriptures," es- pecially in their original tongue. The licentiousness and cor- ruption around him might have stimulated his logical results ; but his conclusion—that the Scripture and the Scripture alone must be the sole arbiter of religious questions, and that the " church " was as regarded the Papacy a merely human insti- tution or invention, were reached by private meditation and in- quiry. If Zwingli had not the racy strength of Luther's nature, neither had he its coarseness, its vehemence, and its obstinacy ; Zwingli, moreover, possessed a more philosophical mind and greater self-control than Luther ; qualities which rendered him less prone to rely upon the arm of the flesh and gave him greater consistency of conduct and opinion. Fortune, however, assigned him a smaller stage on which to fulfill his part, and he had we think a less expansive mind than his great contemporary ; some- thing of the provincial attaches to Zwingli, whereas Luther was imperial ; as the world, in the eminence it has assigned to him, has rightly determined. The circumstances of their publics lives also were widely differ- ent. From the time when Luther began to preach against the particular vendor of indulgences, as Much perhaps as against the indulgences themselves his life was passed amid. violent conten- tions, turmoils, and dangers. Even his veryhonours and worldly greatness were of an irritating and pugnacious kind ; for they had a relation to secular wars and politics, as well as religious disputes ; he often required some of "the wisdom of the serpent" to steer his way successfully among great men. Zwingli encoun- tered little danger and difficulty comparatively, nor was he so much tempted as Luther to indirect courses ; and we say com- paratively ; because no man in those times, or indeed in any times, who heads a reform movement, can hope to escape labours and controversies, and such attacks as the age will tolerate. Switzerland possessed much ecclesiastical freedom extending to the popular election of her own pastors. That sense of the cor- ruption of the Papal Church, and even the doubts as to some of her dogmas, which had been everywhere growing in the minds of thoughtful men for some generations, seem to have been prevalent among the more respectable of the Swiss clergy. The military reputation of the Swiss, and the employment of her mercenaries, not only by temporal princes but even by the Pope himself, might induce caution in the treatment of the Cantons. At all events, when Zwingli began to preach the Gospel—the Scriptures as a rule of life, and Cluist crucified as the sole means of salvation, he met with much encouragement both from clergy and laity ; nor was there anything to be called persecution when he first pro- ceeded to attack the practices and even dogmas of the Church. The Papal Court rather sought to conciliate him by honours and offices. At a later date of his call to Zurich his position rather re- sembled that of Knox in Scotland or Calvin at Geneva, than of Luther in Germany, who was a spiritual adviser indeed, but at the same time a dependent of powerful princes. Not only was the Church of Zurich reformed at the instance of Zwingli but in some sense the state. One great source of evil against which the Reformer preached and legislated was mercenary service, a course that raised up enemies against him, especially amongst those authorities who received penrions from foreign powers to emu- rage the Swiss levies. His discourses on this subject would now "e among the most popular of his writings not merely for their indications of the times, but for the general truth of his views. His homely.style is, in English, not always of the strongest; whether from suffering an translation or on the ground he himself alleges .a! a general excuse for all his writings—that the demands upon his time prevented him from finishing anything. It is, however, ,orms Zutingy ; or the Rise of the Reformation in Switzerland. A Life of the Re- !. er, with some Notices of his Time and Contemporaries. By R. Christoffel,

rastor of the Reformed Church, Wintersinge Switzerland. Translated from the

German, by John Cochran, Esq. Published by ' Clark, Edinburgh; and Hamilton and Adams, London.

[MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT.]

easy to see that matter like the following, novel in its view of a popular and practical question, and enforced by a striking person and manner, would produce a considerable effect among a primitive people three centuries ago.

"Let each one for himself reflect on the evils of war, and think how it would be with him if he were treated in the manner in which we use our fellow Christians. Think, now that a foreign mercenary came into thy land with violence, laid waste thy meads, thy fields, thy vineyards, drove off thy cattle, bound thy house-furniture together and carted it away, slew thy son in the attack, who would defend himself and thee, violated the chastity of thy daughters, kicked with his feet the dear wife of thy bosom, who went before thee, and fell down at the feet of this foreign soldier, beg- ging mercy for thee and herself, dragged out thyself, pious, worthy, old man, even in thine own house and home, from the place where thou west crouching in fear, knocked thee down in presence of thy wife, despite her cries, and despite thine own trembling, venerable, pleading, grey hairs, and then at last set fire to thy dwelling, and burned it to the ground ; wouldst thou not think within thyself, if the heaven did not open and spit fire on such villany, if the earth did not yawn and swallow up such mons- ters, there were no God ? And yet thou doest all this to another, and called it, forsooth, the right of war. "Those who, for truth, religion, justice, and native country, venture their lives in war, are true men, and their cause is sacred. But as for those blood-thirsty, mercenary soldiers, who take the field for gain, of whom the world is now full, and those wars which princes carry on, from day to day, out of lust of power, filling the earth with bloodshed, I, for my part, not only cannot approve them, but I believe there is nothing more wicked and criminal and have the opinion that such men deserve to be branded as highway rollers, and that they ,rre unworthy of the :lame of Christians.

"The third danger is, that with foreign money and foreign wars, our manners will become corrupted and debased. This we see very clearly, for our people have never returned from the foreign wars without bringing something new in clothes for themselves and their wives, or without im- porting home some new extravagance in eating and drinking, some new oaths; the bad they see and learn with readiness, so that we have reason to fear if these wars be not desisted from, we shall be inundated with still worse evils. The morality of the women, too, is corrupted. A woman is a weak creature, and desirous of new, handsome things, ornaments, fine clothes, jewels, (as we see in Dinah, who went to Sechem out of curiosity, and was there humbled,) and when such like things are made to flash in their eyes, and offered to them, think you that they will not be moved by these things, and that the temptation will not be too strong for them ? It is to be feared, too, that in time, the number of the males will be dimin- ished, although, as yet, this has been less noticeable. But, at least, they are unmanned by luxury. Now, no one will work to obtain a living, the lands are out of cultivation, and lie waste in many places, because labourers are not to be got, although there be people enough, and a land that could well nourish us all. If it bear not cinnamon, ginger, malmsey, cloves, oranges, silk, and other such dainties for the palate, it bean at least butter, milk, horses, sheep, cattle, lint, wine, and corn, and that to the full, so that we can rear a fine strong race of men, and as to what we want in our own country we can obtain As. elsewhere against our own produce. That we do not hold to this, comes from the selfishness that has been introduced among us, and which leads us off from labour to idle- ness. And yet, to work is noble ; it saves from wantonness and vice, it yields good fruit, so that a man can richly nourish his body without care, and without the fear that he sully himself with the blood of the innocent, and live by it. It makes the body, too, hale and strong, dissipated diseases, engendered by idleness, and last of all, fruit and increase follow the hand of the worker, as creation itself came from the hand of the all-yorking God at the beginning, so that, in external things, there is nothinein the uni- verse so like God as the worker. It is to selfishness we owe it, that all our strength and power, which ought to defend our country, are consumed in " the service of foreign masters. Behold how unlike we are to our ancestors. These would not suffer foreign masters in their land, but now we lead them in amongst us by the band, if they have but money, that some may get hold of the money, while many get the stripes. And when a pious man has brought up a well-doing son, then come the captains and steal him away, and he must expose himself to the danger of dying of hunger, disease, mur- der, shot, or wounds. And if he reckon up his bargained money, he will find he could have won more by thrashing, without speaking of his being run through the body with a spear ere the account comes to be paid."

The later life of Zwingli was chiefly occupied in public du- ties, in the reformation of religion in Switzerland, the inculca- tion of morality among a rustic, but somewhat coarse and licen- tious people, in endeavours to improve the government of Zurich and other Cantons, and in religious controversy. In the sense of varied fortune his life was uneventful. He was born within a few weeks of Luther ; namely, Zwingli on the 1st January 1454 Luther on martinmas 1483. They were both sons of peasants ; but while Luther's parents were poor and austere, those of Zwingli were of competent means and of kindly disposition. His father and his grandmother are said to have stored the boy's mind with narratives of Swiss history, legendary tales, and biblical narratives. His father's brother was a clergyman, the dean of Wesen, and he took charge of his nephew, when the boy was about eight or nine years old. He first placed young Zwingli at the public school, and when the apt pupil outstripped the master, his uncle sent him to Basle, to his friend George Binzli.

" Binzli was a learned man who, at the same time, possessed a mild dis- position and a warm heart. Here, too, the rapid progress of the boy speedily outran the capabilities of the master. Young Huldreich [Zwingli] was espe- cially clever in the disputatious which were then common as well in the lower as in the higher schools, excelling in these all his class-fellows. His musical talents, too, began to develop themselves in an extraordinary de- gree, and to excite universal admiration. The faithful teacher, perceiving that his school would no longer avail for his precocious scholar, sent him home, with a recommendation that he might be sent to a seminary better correspondent with the attainments he had made. At that time, Henry WoeMin (Lupulus,) at Berne, taught the dead languages with great ap- plause. The Ammann of Wildbaus and the Dean of- Wesen resolved to send the boy thither. Lupulus was deeply read in the Greek and Boman clas- sics, and in ancient history; he had also made a journey to the Holy Se- pulchre, and, by personal observation, had gained a knowledge of Italy, Greece, and Palestine. The history of his native country, too, he had in- vestigated with diligence, and he had sung with enthusiasm the life of the pious hermit Nieolaus von der Fluee. Under his tuition Zwingli was in- troduced to an acquaintance with the Roman orators and poets, and at the direction of this teacher he began to exercise his poetic talent in attempts in verse, after the models of the great Loin poets. The Dominican monks, who in Berne as well as in other places, strove in rivalry, by means lawful as well as unlawful, with the Franciscans, for the superior veneration of the people, had their attention turned to the sharp-witted boy with the surprising musical talents, and sought to win him for their order. With this design, they induced him to enter their cloister, and live in it, till he should reach the age that might permit him to become a member of their order. But the eye of God watched over the lad, and preserved him from the snares of these corrupted monks. His father and uncle heard of the danger which impended over young Huldreich, and they recalled him home, to send him elsewhere."

That " elsewhere " was first the High School of Vienna, and then that of Basle, where he found a teacher, Thomas Wittenbach, who not only instructed him in the learning of the day, but directed him to the Scriptures, as well as to a more rational system of study, as he probably first shook his absolute faith in the Romish Church. Wittenbach held that "the time is not far distant when the scho- lastic theology will be swept away, and the old doctrine of the Church established in its room on the foundation of God's Word. Absolution is a Romish. cheat ; the death of Christ is the only pay- ment of our sins."

In 1506 Zwingli received "a call to be parson at Glarus, being elected by the free votes of the community." Before he coald. take possession of his parish, he had a practical taste of Papal abuses. The Master of the Horse to the Pope, appeared with a Papal letter of investiture for the place, although he was already in possession of several livings. The community of Glarus suc- cessfully maintained their right of election, but Zwingli, never- theless, had to give the intruder money to "renounce his claims." At Glarus Zwingli remained some ten years, during which he founded a Latin school, and twice accompanied the Swiss army to the field as a chaplain, once in 1513, when the French, under Louis the Twelfth, were driven out of Lombardy, and again in 1515, during the campaign of Marignano, at which great battle Zwingli was present. During a portion of his sojourn at Glarus it does not appear that he entertained doubts of the Romish doc- trines. His faith in the Church was first shaken by discovering in Italy a liturgy and a mass-book different from those in use ; and the critic could not resist the historical evidence that these variations indicated a work of man. As a parish priest he dis- charged his duty with acceptance, but does not appear to have altogether resisted the prevailing immorality of the period. "His parish embraced nearly a third of the Canton of Glarus. A gross licentiousness of manners, with that fiery, martial spirit and heroic cou- rage which had well proved themselves in the Burgundian and Suabian wars, characterized his parishioners, as indeed almost the whole Swiss population of the time. The sexual relations were in such a state of dis- order that infringements of the seventh commandment ceased any longer to be visited with ecclesiastical censure, a circumstance the less to be won- dered at since the clergy themselves led the way in the almost universal depravity of manners. The priest, who held in respect the marriage vows, who shunned to seduce unsuspecting innocence, or to violate the chastity of the consecrated nun, could hold up his head even as a man of honour and virtue, although stained with the grossest sensuality ; for, verily, had he not sworn to the bishop, at his consecration, to preserve his chastity only so far as this were possible to human weakness. It is a dangerous thing,' says Zwingli, for a young priest to have access, through the sanctity of his office, to young women, be they married or virgins. Let straw be kept from fire. Give the priest a wife ; he would then, like any other honest man, concern himself with the care of his household, his wife, his child, and other affairs, whereby he would be freed from many trials and tempta- tions.' Zwingli himself, as he writes to his friend Utinger, with the great- est candour, had formed the resolution to live in this regard, as well as in every other, a holy life before God ; but, alas ! not finding one fellow- priest to share his sentiments and his resolve, much less to serve to him as an example and a beacon, he fell too before the inroad of fleshly lusts, as he himself, with deep pain and remorse, confessed, for he would not appear better than he really was. Yet his fall neither violated the sanctity of the marriage bed, which was always sacred in his eyes, nor ensnared virgin innocence, nor created any other source of bitterness. By prayer and dili- gent study he succeeded in subduing this enemy too, after in faith he had laid hold on Him who is mighty to save even in the weakest."

After ten years' exertion at Glarus Zwingli went by invitation to Einsiedeln "the most frequented resort for pilgrims for the whole of Southern Germany, Switzerland, and the Eastern part of France." Gibbon, ere he was yet emancipated from the coils of Rome, has recorded in his autobiography the effect which the "lively naked image of superstition" made upon his mind, sug- gesting to him "as in the same place it had done to Zuinglius, the most pressing argument for the Reformation of the church." Not contrary to the views of the Abbot of Einsiedeln and some of his ecclesiastics—for they were men of scriptural views ; but to the surprise of the pilgrims and doubtless many others who heard of it: Zwingli thundered against the utility and even the evils of pilgrimages, and the worship of the Virgin, telling his congre- gations that God was present everywhere, and that for purposes of salvation all places were alike. It is notable too that in one of his-sermons he used the argument which is still a cogent one against.Mariolatry—the conduct of Christ at Cana. The preacher has personified the Virgin. "I am no goddess, nor any source of blessing; God alone is that well, who has ordained thatall good shall come to you through my Son. By at- tributing to me that which alone is God's, ye poor mortals attempt to change the power and government of God. For verily, since the beginning of th, world, He has given to no creature such a powers that any should ft it for for succour as if it were God. I am no god, therefore seek not frolers that which is God's alone to give. When I weapon the earth my Bon who indeed loved and honoured me, bestowed °nine none of His miracuj,,s' power. On the contrary, when I exhorted hint, -saying, the people lisv-e- no wine, he gave me a strange answer, ',Woman,' said he, what have I do with thee ' ? This was done solely that the miracle might not be t° cribed to me but to him. Therefore, let God abide in his government at authority as it has been of old. Ye think ye honour Inc by worship, — me. Ye do greatly dishonour me. Worship is to be paid to none but the One living and true God.' Such, and the like, Mary would without doubt, have said, and still say, if she were present in the midst of ag is to acknowledge the saving work of her Son, which he has wrought for poor sinners ; to honour this work aright, and. to spill Therefore, let everyone know that the highest honour we can show to mu); grace." Such was the style of Zwingle's preaching y.1th5lhira7-18f;orbnalit though striking at the very root of Popery, it does not seem that the idea of separation from the Romish church, was _present to his mind. What he wanted was, Reformation by the Church itself; and the single-minded man called upon dignified church_ men—Cardinals and others—to aid in the work. Even at Zurich, whither he went by invitation at the end of 1518, separation was far from appearing his object at first ; though undoubtedly he acted without any care for obvious consequences. His influence and proceedings at Zurich, have been already intimated, and be- long rather to his public career than his personal life. The most indi- vidually remarkable incident of the whole, was' Zwingli's contest with Luther, touching the real presence. Luther's ideas, as is well known, were Papistical, with a distinction' in regard to the sacrament. He says himself, that he could not get over the text "this is my body"; ;_ and that is about all he can say.; for he wanted the learning Zwingli and his friends brought against him, and the logic of the senses which first shook Gibbon's faith in the mass—the text "attested" by a single sense—sight, and the " real presence" disproved by three senses, "the sight, the touch, and the taste." The interpretation of Zwingli, was that which Protestants have generally adopted. The meaning Of the text he rendered, This signifies my body, and gave a symbolical or metaphorical sense to the sacrament—Christ is not present in the lifeless bread, but in the believing soul. The dispute was carried on without much Christian gentleness by most of those who were engaged in it ; and with acrimonious coarseness on the part of Luther. With a view to reconciliation, Landgrave Philip von Hessen contrived a conference between Luther and Melaneh- thou, and Zwingli and CEcolampad, which ended as it began, with regard to the opinion ; but the report furnished some 'dramatic passages.

" CEeolempar 1 : But of what use is the partaking by the mouth when we have that by the Spirit ? " Luther : I do not concern myself as to what we require, I look only at the words as they stand written, This is my body.' It is to be believed and done unconditionally. It must be done. If God were to command me to eat dung, .I should do it, knowing well that it would be wholesome for me.

"Zwingli now took part in the dialogue. He began by administering a sharp rebuke to Luther for his declaration at the very outset of the debate, that he was resolved not to depart from the opinion he had formed ; for, in this manner, all farther instruction out of the Scriptures was rendered im- possible. Scripture must always be interpreted by Scripture. Were we to adhere to the letter of the text we must conclude that Christ had full brothers. The sentences of Holy Scripture are not dark or enigmatical, like the oracular responses of the dmmons but they are clear and plain, if we only compare the one with the other. 'He then went into a more minute exposition of the section in John vi. and drew from it the conclusion, 'If the Lord here expressly testifies that His flesh profiteth nothing in the °or- oreal partaking of it, He certainly would neither have enjoined upon His isciples, nor upon us, in the Supper, the doing of a profitless thing, that is the corporeal eating of His body. To this He says, "When ye shall see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before," from which they might conclude that they are not to eat really, or corporeally, of His flesh. " Luther : In the gospel, 'brother' signifies a cousin, or a relation. The words of institution cannot be so explained. Christ says, This is my body.,' and it must be so. When Christ says, the flesh profiteth nothing! He is not speaking of His own but of our flesh. " Zwingli : The soul is nourished by the Spirit, not by the flesh. " Luther : The body is eaten by the mouth, the soul does not partake of it corporeally. " Zwingli: It is then a food of the body and not of the soul. " Luther : I have said, and say it again, the body is not corporeally eaten into our body, and will reserve it, whether the soul also eats it. "Zwingli : You say this, however, without being able to prove it by Scripture. Besides, you first denied that the soul eats the body, and now you will have it reserved. " Luther : Your whole object into catch main my words. "Zwingli: No; but you speak of things that contradict each other, and it is necessary to point out the truth. " Luther : I abide by the words of Christ, 'This is my body'? They are the words of God. If the Lord were to set before me wooden apples, sea command me to eat them, I should eat them, knowing they would be whole- some for me, and I dare not ask why ? "Zwingli now proved, by various passages of Scripture, that the signeis_ often put for the thing signified, and that the worth of the Sacrament est cially are to be so explained. He censured Luther for employing so ell!) an example as that of the wooden apples. Such illustrations were not mer place. We know that God neither commands us to eat wooden apples ?I., dung as his body. The word of God reveals to us His holy ; it rvirtult not darkness. God set before 11B nothing incomprehensible, if le only rightly understand His Word. Hence, if one passage, is not clear r us, we must compare it with others, and, in this manner, investigate lew the sense. Thus the Virgin Mary asked, Luke i. 34, 'How shall this be and the angel answered her question. In the same manner the, clis gr° asked. John vi. 52, How can this man give .us His ilesh to eat ? should not we also endeavour to discover, from Scripture, how the Ivo,ee. of the Holy Supper are to be understood? They have, however, been l'rito terpreted by Christ himself, who showed in what manner His flesh Wa° be eaten, and his blood drunk. Luther : We are not to examine whether is may be taken for signitiee for so we fall into t. "uterp. retteing ; but we are to take the words in their simple sense, This is my. body.' From thence, pointing at the words written before him, the devil himself cannot pull me. When I enter into owe inquiries about their meaning, I lose my faith and become a fool. Wherefore, give glory to God, and take and believe the simple plain letters is they stand." Although Zwingli was not in the usual sense of the word a martyr, he fell in the cause of religions Reform, being killed in the battle of Cappel fought during a religious war between the protestant and Catholic cantons, he having attended the army of Zurich in his old capacity of " field-preacher." His death took place on the 11th October 1531 in the forty-eighth year of his age. ChristoffePs Life must not altogether be judged by an English standard; for it was written by a Switzer, for a Swiss public. Hence there are minutiae of a local character with small interest fbr English readers, while the writings and controversies of Zuingli are entered into at too much length, and where it is not extracts with too little condensation for the same class of persons. The work is less the Life than the Times of Zwingli—a defect, however, which is by no means peculiar to Switzerland ; and it is composed by a Switzer not only with Swiss feelings but some- what of the German expansive ponderousness.