are apt to covet, whether in the church or in civil life, seldom add to the happiness of their possessors: and accordingly Zwingle found this station involve him in new cares, and expose him to new vexations. In a letter to Haller, chiefly treating of some cases of conscience, he thus describes the incessant engagements which pressed upon him. "The hurry of business and the care of the churches occupy me to such a degree, that Dr. Engelhardt lately told me, he wondered that I had not before this time become distracted. For instance, I have been ten times called off since I began this letter. From Suabia they write to me for what I am not competent to perform for them; though I do what I can. From every part of Switzerland I am applied to by those who are in difficulties for Christ's sake. If however any thing occurs in which I can be of use to you, do not spare me-for I hope for more leisure. . . . . Put a candid construction on what I write: but do not set down for oracles what I send merely as the offerings of good will. I only suggest what may give an impulse to your own thoughts." One while he even felt himself so much harassed as to entertain thoughts of relinquishing his situation: but shortly after his confidence in God revived, and we find him writing in a noble spirit to his friend Myconius, as one prepared to despise all difficulties and encounter all dangers rather than desert his post. Such," says he, are the storms that beat upon the house of God, and threaten to overthrow it, that, unless the Lord himself had evidently appeared to watch over it, I should long since have given it up for lost. But, when I see that the vessel of the church is in every case piloted and controlled by him, and that he even commands the winds and the waves, I should be a coward indeed, and unworthy the name of a man, should I disgracefully ruin myself by quitting my station. I therefore commit myself entirely to his care and kindness."

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Among the individuals who about this time derived great benefit from intercourse with Zwingle, was Francis Lambert,' a native of Avignon, and a Franciscan of the strictest class, who had been for fifteen years a professor of divinity in his own country. To a certain extent he had become acquainted with the truths of the gospel, and he appears, like Apollos, to have been "an eloquent man," and full of zeal to communicate to others what he had learned himself. Having been compelled to quit his home for his religion's sake, he had come into Switzerland, and preached earnestly at Geneva, Lausanne, and other places. He was well received by the bishop of Lausanne, Sebastian de Montfauçon, obtained considerable influence over him, and seemed for the time to have made a very hopeful impression upon his mind. But that prelate, like his brother of Constance, as the reformation proceeded and incurred odium, drew back, and ranged himself among its opponents.From Lausanne Lambert proceeded to Friburg, and thence to Berne; where Haller gave him letters of introduction to Zwingle, at Zuric. In the German part of Switzerland he could preach only in Latin; which he did with much acceptance to such as were capable of understanding him. But he needed himself to be taught the way of God more perfectly; and happily he was open to conviction, and willing to learn. Among the errors which he still retained, was the doctrine of the intercession of the saints; which he accordingly preached at Zuric. Zwingle remonstrated against it, and Lambert begged to discuss the question more fully with the reformed teachers. He did so, and was convinced of his error on which, lifting up his hands and eyes to heaven, he blessed God for his further grace thus bestowed on him. Henceforth he laid aside his Franciscan habit. He afterwards went into Saxony,

1 Lutheran Ref. vol. i. p. 356-7.

where the elector, at Luther's instance, assigned him a pension. He soon after married, and removed to Strasburg, and finally into Hesse, where he materially assisted the landgrave in the reformation of his country in the year 1526. By him he was made professor of divinity at Marpurg, where he died in the year

1530.

Hitherto the Swiss reformers had encountered no public or systematic opposition; but we now begin to find various authorities in church and state combining to stay their progress. In the year 1522 several citizens of Zuric, acting upon the lessons they had received concerning Christian liberty, and the unscriptural impositions of the Romish church, ventured to neglect the prohibition of meat during Lent, without having applied for a dispensation—a liberty which Zwingle himself had never yet taken. Christopher Froschouer, a celebrated printer, the first who introduced a press into Zuric, is mentioned as one of the number. This conduct gave great offence, and some of the clergy commenced a prosecution, before the magistrates, against these contemners of "the laws of the church." The bishop of Constance also, having been apprised of what had taken place, despatched a deputation, at the head of which was Faber, who were to address themselves both to the magistrates and to the chapter, commanding the latter to support their brethren in the prosecution of so flagrant an offence. The deputation demanded to be heard before the grand council; a demand which was complied with upon the condition, enforced by the general voice of the citizens, that the three pastors, Zwingle, Engelhardt, and Roeschlin should be present, and should have the liberty of reply. With great reluctance the deputies acceded to this condition, and Faber delivered a pompous harangue against certain persons, (without naming any,) who wished to abolish all the commandments and ceremonies of the church-the removal of which

might be expected to draw after it the subversion of the Christian faith itself. He then urged the charge against the offending citizens, who had occasioned "scandal to the whole world; " exhorting the magistrates to steadfastness in their attachment to the church-" out of which there was no salvation;" and concluding with the declaration, that "the ceremonies were the only means of leading the people in the way to heaven." Zwingle replied, "that what S. Peter had said of the ceremonies of the Jews might well be applied to those of the church of Rome, that they were a yoke which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear: that it was not by means of ceremonies, but by the promulgation of the word of God, after the example set us by Jesus Christ and his apostles, that the people must be guided in the way to heaven: that, during the sixteen years that he had officiated in the diocese of Constance, the bishop had never once sent any deputation like the present, for the purpose of shewing how the word of God ought to be preached; and that he could not but be astonished that he should now treat, as of so much consequence, the omission, on the part of a few simple citizens, of an insignificant observance, which he (the speaker) would undertake to prove, from the scriptures and the fathers, was not binding on the consciences of Christians." In the end, the council came to a conclusion not very satisfactory to the deputation, That the bishop should be requested to assemble the divines of his diocese, or, if practicable, to obtain the decision of a council, both as to the present question, and as to the real cause of the dissentions complained of; that, in the mean time, the people should be exhorted to abstain from meat during Lent; and that those who refused to do so, without urgent cause, should be punished.

These proceedings drew from the pen of Zwingle his first publication, a small work on "the Distinc

E

tion of Meats," including a consideration of the question of "Offences and Scandals." As a writer, therefore, in the cause of the reformation, Zwingle was posterior to Luther by four or five years.

The following month the bishop, through the medium of Faber, addressed a long mandate, or exhortation, to the clergy and the magistrates of his diocese, and another specially to the provost and chapter of Zuric, the object of which, as far as Zuric was concerned, evidently was to procure the dismissal of Zwingle-though still without naming him. They were accompanied by copies of the pope's bull and of the edict of Worms against Luther. The writer deplored the divisions of the church, and that, in contempt of the edicts of the pope and the emperor, teachers, prompted by the spirit of the devil, and acting only from motives of private ambition, preached against the ceremonies which had been ever in use in the church;" and that the magistrates also were divided, and did not act the part which became them.-This mandate was ordered to be read by the clergy from the pulpit every Sunday and holiday.

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About the same time, the cantons, assembled at Lucerne, and influenced in part by these admonitions of the bishop of Constance, issued a decree prohibiting the teaching of "the new doctrine," as they styled it: and, having learned that the council of Baden had established a preacher in their town, they required the appointment to be cancelled, as a dangerous innovation; though they had themselves, a few months before, set a similar precedent at Neuchâtel.

Encouraged by these examples of their superiors, the monks of Zuric, of the three orders of Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians, preferred complaints against Zwingle before the magistrates, as "incessantly attacking them, and rendering them odious to the people." They acknowledged that they