mmon people in
some measure redeemed from error and rendered peaceful, we make
arrangements for the disputation."

After such a declaration, what was the part demanded of the free state
of Zurich? That she should appear in the circle of her confederate
sisters in the attitude of a poor sinner; take back whatever she had
established after mature trial; seize the Reformer and arraign him
before an inquisition, by which he had already been prejudged as a
heretic. And then what anxiety, what memories connected themselves with
Baden, the place of the conference? It stood in close dependence on the
most embittered cantons. The majority of its own citizens were hostile
to the Reformation. Here, a short time before, the blood of the men of
Stammheim and Burkhard Ruetiman had been shed by an unrighteous
sentence, out of mere religious hatred and in violation of pledges;
from thence, the same year, Nicolas Hottinger, of whom we have already
spoken, had been delivered up to Luzern, to fall by the sword, in spite
of all the intercessions of the Zurich government. The principles of
the Romish Church in regard to those, whom she esteemed heretics, were
well known. It had been openly declared by several, and believed by
many, that they were not bound to keep faith with such persons. Just
about this time, (December 11, A. D. 1525), Pope Clement VII., to whom
the Zurichers had sent the Secretary Am Gruet, to collect the arrears
due for military services, wrote thus: "If you do not forsake your new,
ungodly errors, how can you expect us to satisfy these claims, lawful
as they may be, without going counter to righteousness and the fear of
God, since that cannot be justly allowed to heretics, which they have
inherited from their forefathers?" In Freiburg, Zwingli's writings were
burnt, and his effigy in Luzern. Several states had given orders to
seize him, wherever he could be found. His brother-in-law, Leonard
Tremp, wrote to him from Bern: "As you value your life, take care you
go not to Baden; for no safe-conduct will be observed in your case;
that I know." Can the government of Zurich be blamed for not wantonly
exposing the man, in whose existence the entire development of its
political and religious life was closely bound up?

And yet, when we see how the Messiah, whose Gospel the Reformer
proclaimed, delivered himself up to the unjust judges; when we read his
declaration: "Whoso loveth his life shall lose it;" when we hear Martin
L