of all. Indeed, the Anabaptists generally held that the church must be "pure" and that discipline even to the complete bann, shutting the unrepentant completely off from all intercourse, was a Christian duty. It is also claimed that Schwenckfeld was on the side of complete freedom of conscience,' but the evidence is not given, and certainly Schwenckfeld believed in the bann.

Nor does liberty of conscience lie generally along the line of an outward authority, even when interpreted by an infallible spirit, for each one deems his particular spirit the infallible one, and the others are only "lying spirits." Hence the great fanaticism and the endless divisions and absurd and even dangerous positions taken up (bigamy, strange dresses, etc., etc.) by many of the Anabaptists. Nearly all the reformers talked at one time or another about Christian liberty. But that meant the liberty to accept the new evangelical doctrines. And all really approved heartily of persecution, including Zwingli, Bucer, and Luther. They themselves of course suffered most frightfully. No mercy was shown them by either Protestants or Roman antagonists; and, divided and distracted by the countless differences of opinion as to what the Spirit spoke or the Scriptures really taught, the Anabaptist movement lost ground steadily and directly. It failed to capture the Reformation, and it sank back into the humble but not unfruitful, though narrow, sectarian life in which it still survives wherever circumstances favor its survival. The great Baptist movement in England and America can hardly be called its direct outcome, for it is a child of the evangelical revival and has only superficial resemblance to the Anabaptist religious-social struggle.

IV. THE ETHICS OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES

Luther's instinct that Zwingli was a man of another spirit was undoubtedly right. Whether the difference was so great that co-operation was impossible is another question. The

1 Professor Hartranft, in "Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum," vol. I, p. xxii of introduction (very badly done).

moment we enter upon the examination of the ethics of the reformed churches as distinguished from the Lutheran churches we enter into a quite different atmosphere.

The essential being of Protestantism cannot be sought in any theological formulæ. The later creeds of Protestantism are both too various in character and too unprotestant and scholastic in spirit to be regarded as really expressing the true inward character of the Reformation. Cult was, also, never a bond of unity but rather a cause of division. Neither in England nor on the Continent has Protestantism succeeded as yet in expressing herself in any satisfactory way in a cult. The later movements in Protestantism, Pietism in Germany and evangelicalism in England, sought to define Protestantism in terms of feeling, using that term broadly; but the analysis was incorrect, and so far as success was attained the church simply reverted to types of expression long familiar in the Roman communion.

The reformers themselves hardly clearly realized what separated them so widely from Rome. They were so much engaged in concrete struggles against visible evils that the inner quality of the revolt was hidden in large part from themselves. In point of fact Protestantism was a long step forward toward spiritual and intellectual autonomy. It was a rebellion against external authority in the spiritual realm; and a splendid attempt to relate the spiritual adult as a self-conscious member in the family of God to the great spiritual experiences of the past. The essence of Protestantism is not its elements of immediacy in experience of God (mysticism as generally defined, and the sentimental phases of evangelicalism), but personal access to him and experience of him in all life and all history.

As Protestantism, therefore, has come more and more to selfconsciousness it has become increasingly historical and critical. It has definitely widened its conceptions of God in history. It has slowly come to recognize the need for vast variety of experiences and the legitimacy of great varieties of interpretation of them.

From this point of view it was a fortunate thing that Protestantism had many roots in the past and that from various directions leaders came to give form to her energies. Humanism had as such no quarrel with the Roman imperialism, although exceedingly critical of her ways. But humanism gave a Protestant leader who was more than a humanist ere he had done his work. Huldreich Zwingli,' though primarily religious, remained

1 Zwingli, Huldreich or Ulrich, the great reformer of German Switzerland, was born January 1, 1484, in Wildenhaus, in the Toggenburg Valley, about forty miles from Zürich. His parents were well-to-do and their connections good. He was almost raised in Protestantism. His patriotism carried him completely over. He died on the battle-field at Cappel, October 11, 1531, where Zürich lost the day to Rome's Forest Cantons.

A critical edition of his works is in preparation, but will not be completed for some time to come. ("Huldreich Zwingli's sämtliche Werke unter Mitwirkung des Zwingli-Vereins in Zürich herausgegeben von Emil Egli und Georg Finsler" ["Corpus Reformatorum," vol. LXXXIX, etc.], Leipsic, Heinsius, 1908, seq.; third volume appearing in parts, 1910.) The best edition (accessible) is that of Melchior Schuler and Johannes Schulthess, 8 vols., in 11 parts, with a supplement (1861), Zürich, 1829–1842. The best English biography is that of Samuel M. Jackson ("Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland, 14841531" ["Heroes of the Reformation" series], New York, 1901); a somewhat smaller handy biography is that by Samuel Simpson (“Life of Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss Patriot and Reformer," New York, 1902). The best in German is that of Rudolph Staehelin, "Huldreich Zwingli, sein Leben und Wirken nach den Quellen dargestellt," Basel, 1895-1897, 2 vols. A good life, though older, is that in the series "Väter der Reformirten Kirche," by Raget Christoffel "Huldreich Zwingli, Leben und ausgewählte Schriften," Elberfeld, 1857, of which the first part, the "Leben," has been translated into English by J. Chochran, "Zwingli; or, the Rise of the Reformation in Switzerland," a life of the reformer, with some notices of his time and contemporaries, Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark, 1858. Other literature is: Baur, August: "Zwingli's Theologie, ihr Werden und ihr System," Halle, 1885, 1889, 2 vols. Sigwart, Christoph: "Ulrich Zwingli: der Character seiner Theologie mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Picus von Mirandula dargestellt," Stuttgart und Hamburg, 1855. Zeller, Eduard: "Das theologische System Zwingli's in seinen Grundzügen dargestellt," in "Theologische Jahrbücher," edited by F. Chr. Baur and E. Zeller, Tübingen, vol. XII, 1853, PP. 94-144, 245-294, 445-560, and "Über den Ursprung und Character des Zwinglischen Lehrbegriffs, mit Beziehung auf die neueste Darstellung derselben" in "Theologische Jahrbücher," vol. XVI, 1857, pp. 1-59. Schweizer, Alexander: "Die Entwickelung des Moralsystems in der Reformirten Kirche," in "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1850, pp. 5-78, 288-327, 554-580; "Zwingli's Bedeutung neben Luther, Festrede," Zürich, January 1, 1884. Usteri, Johann Martin: “Initia Zwinglii: Beiträge zur

under the influence of humanism even after the religious, ethical, and patriotic elements had gained the hegemony in his practical activity. The patriotic character of Zwingli's Protestantism has often been pointed out. But this was characteristic of all the early reformers. Wyclif stood out for England against the papal cosmopolitan imperialism. The appeal of Luther was to Germany against papal exploitation, and Zwingli was aroused by the abuses of conscription and indulgences to give new ethical and religious life to his nation.

Zwingli nowhere works out any systematic ethics, and the writings in which he most systematically unfolds his thought, like "De vera et falsa Religione," 1 reveal a penetrating and splendidly furnished, but not a philosophically organizing mind. His exegetical works reveal the earnestness of his ethical interest, and much ethical insight but not ethical system.

2

Zwingli's thought starts from his conception of God. With him the greatness and the power of God, his righteousness and justice, his creative power, and his constant preserving activity are the leading notes. It is not just to charge him with leaning toward philosophical pantheism except in so far as all reformed theology, under the distinct influence of Stoicism, exalts God as all in all, and emphasizes rather his power than his goodness. This power shines as well in the election of men to life as in creation. At the same time Zwingli had a firm grasp of the fact that Jesus Christ had taught love as the final and only possible fulfilment of law. Following Paul in his argument in Romans, but still in somewhat too scholastic dress, he develops Geschichte der Studien und der Geistesentwickelung Zwingli's in der Zeit vor Beginn der reformatorischen Thätigkeit, nach bisher zum Teil unbekannten Quellen," in "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1885, pp. 607-672, and 1886, pp. 95-159. For other literature, see: Jackson's "Life,” pp. xxi-xxvi, or Simpson's, pp. 280-291.

1 In vol. III, p. 145, opera omnia.

'His exegetical works are contained in vols. V, VI, parts 1 and 2, opera omnia. • "De vera et falsa Religione," vol. III, pp. 155-165, opera omnia.

Cf. "Sermones in Psalmos" (German), vol. IV, particularly pp. 216–219.

"De vera et falsa Religione," vol. III, p. 178, opera omnia.

• "De vera et falsa Religione," vol. III, pp. 205 ff, opera omnia.

the conception of Christian freedom. Law is the eternal will of God,' but this law is deeper than the civil or ceremonial laws that concern themselves with the external man, and which change; in the true sense law never changes. Love alone enables us to keep this law, whose substance is contained in the injunction to love God and one's neighbor. There is in Zwingli, as in reformed theology later, a general confusion introduced by the Stoic conception on the one hand of a "natural law," eternal and unchangeable, and on the other of "a supernatural law," as in the written word.

Zwingli laid great stress on the written word as the sole authority, but even here he is not always clear. In 1522 he could write: "For who would not joyfully accept what was decided by the concurrent opinion of all Christians," although he was constantly laying stress upon the inward witness of the Spirit as needful even for the acceptance of Scripture. Nor is he clear in regard to the authority of the Old and the New Testaments. At times he seems ready to reject the Old Testament, but in fact it often is the real basis of his thinking, and through it there enters into his ethics a certain legalism which still haunts all ethics within Protestantism. The Old Testament is, in point of fact, taken over even in its ceremonial phases. For baptism is the continuation of circumcision, and the Lord's Supper of the Passover."

3

It is, indeed, a mistaken judgment that Zwingli was the most protestant of the reformers. He had a wider outlook in some respects than the others, due to his early humanistic training and the fact that he never was really Roman Catholic in his 1 "Lex nihil aliud est, quam æterna dei voluntas," vol. III, p. 203, opera omnia (Augustinian).

3

"Letter to Erasmus Fabricius," vol. III, pp. 7-16, opera omnia.

Cf. "De delectu et libero ciborum esu," vol. I, p. 8.

'See for the first the argument in "In catabaptistarum strophas elenchus, "Opera," vol. III, pp. 357-437 (translated from the Latin into English by Henry Preble and George William Gilmore, pp. 123-258, in "Selected Works of Huldreich Zwingli, . . . translated for the first time from the originals. . . edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson," New York, 1901), and for the second, see "Ein klare underrichtung vom Nachtmal Christi," "Opera,” vol, II, p. 458.