rn and Zurich now became, the less could a
reaction of the former upon the latter be prevented. The commercial
city was rather disposed to treat with her subjects, the knightly to
issue her commands. In Zurich the Great Council had, through Zwingli's
influence, become the ruling authority; in Bern, as might be expected
from her character, it was always the Small. As long as the Reformation
was confined to Zurich, the ecclesiastical tendency predominated; in
proportion as it passed over to Bern, Basel and other states, the
political gained the upper hand. The question, whether the Church or
the Holy Scriptures ought to decide in matters of faith, was scientific
and historical; that, as to how the Articles of Confederation should be
interpreted; what was the limit of the Diet's authority, and for what
single states might resist a majority of the others, belonged to the
sphere of public law. By the accession of Bern to Zurich, and the
common position, which they had now to assume and maintain against the
Five Cantons, Zwingli was obliged to take up this question touching the
Confederacy, to give counsel, to mingle in politics, to tread the
slippery path with one foot, as it were, whilst the other remained on
the firm foundation of religious principle. The consequences of this
vacillating course are apparent, from the beginning of the year 1528
onward, in the striking change manifest in his mode of dealing with the
affairs of his own canton. The same man, who hitherto had done homage
to the principle of absolute publicity, who expected in favor of
Christianity, as he found it in the Holy Scriptures and drew it
thence, a more lively acknowledgment from the sound sense of the
people than from learned craftiness; from the uncorrupted feelings of
men than philosophical arrogance, to whom Christianity was the most
elevated--the only worthy religion for a nation; who, therefore, had to
look to the people for the maintenance of his reformatory measures;
this same man began now to employ all the arts of a politician, for the
upholding and spread of these same measures of reform--a bold
undertaking, altogether too bold--one that compelled him to play a
double part, in which superhuman effort he at last fell a bloody
sacrifice. As we proceed, this will become more clear and evident from
authenticated facts.

At the time, when Zurich yet stood alone among her sister-confederates,
shortly after the Conference of Baden, when her repeate