y the remedy. But points of faith must be left
untouched. Hence, these were summed up in the introduction. On the
contrary, no special reverence is shown for the Pope and the higher
position assumed by the clergy; indeed, in several essential
particulars, a decided purpose is expressed to hold them in check, and
if necessary even to resist them. There is room to conjecture, that if
these articles had been carried into practice, they would have exerted
a powerful influence against the Reformation, so far, perhaps, as to
have confined it to Zurich, and even in the end to have suppressed it
here.

But the impossibility of this soon appeared. The Great Councils of
Bern, Solothurn and especially Basel durst no longer venture to enforce
the general enactments against the married clergy, for the maintenance
of rules of fasting and for the preservation of purgatory among the
doctrines of faith, whilst on the other side, wherever they still had
firm footing, the priesthood opposed all the articles, which would set
limits to their greediness and love of power. Hence the general
resolutions were not carried out, and only showed the more strongly the
inward weakness of the Papacy.

But already, before this time, the first inconsistency, to which
Zwingli himself was obliged to submit, came to the aid of his
opponents. He had declared that the Gospel was able to endure any
trial; that to prove the right and utter the results of his examination
should be free to every one, and as he claimed this right in full
measure for himself, he, for his part, denied it to no other man. Yet
the State did this, and Zwingli fell in with the measure. As early as
January, 1523, the following ordinance was published: "Masters Ulric
Zwingli and Henry Utiger of the Canons, and Master Henry Walder and
Master Binder of the Councils, are appointed to inspect everything
which shall be printed in the city of Zurich, and the printer shall be
informed and command given him, to undertake to print nothing without
their knowledge and approval." Thus, the censorship of the press,
which, till now, had only been exercised by the bishops and the Pope,
was introduced by the State, by a republican state, and at a time when
this state was subjecting the exclusive, established faith, to every
kind of investigation. Whence this inconsistency? It did not spring
from the Reformer, but only from the unavoidable necessity of his age,
in which the capability of judging had no