hing in accordance with sincerity and the
Gospel, if I do not say, that the people in our world of Zurich defraud
in this matter like tyrants and Turks. 'People of this world' I style
the tyrants of our fatherland, who go by the name of 'the assembled
fathers,' Decimating fathers they ought to be called. Thou art not
perhaps willing to believe me, and yet T see it with my own eyes. _Only
ask Zwingli, who can tell thee everything better than I can._"

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.

"There are two laws, as well as two kinds of righteousness; a human and
a divine. One part of the law regards the inner man alone, for we must
love God and our neighbor. But no one can fulfill this command; hence
no one is righteous, because God only and He by grace, the pledge of
which is Christ, can make us righteous through faith. The other part of
the law regards the external man alone, and hence we may be outwardly
pious and righteous, and still none the less wicked within.