Protestant Thought before Kant. Contributors: Arthur Cushman McGiffert - author. Publisher: C. Scribner's sons.

Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1931. Page Number: 61. CHAPTER III
HULDREICH ZWINGLI
To the great Swiss reformer, Zwingli, is due a type
of Protestant thought very different from Luther's.
His figure has been unduly obscured by the fame of his
younger contemporary, Calvin. His place in the history
of thought is really more important than Calvin's, for he was
an originator where the latter was only a follower. At an
early day he came under the influence of humanism, and
gave himself with enthusiasm to the pursuit of the new
learning. He became a parish priest at the age of twenty-
two, but a year after Luther found his way into the
monastery at Erfurt. His motive in entering the priesthood
was not at all like that which drove Luther into monasti-
cism. An uncle and other relatives were clergymen, and he
was early destined by his parents for the same profession.
He had himself no objection to it, for he saw in it, as
many of his contemporaries did, opportunity and leisure to
carry on his classical studies and, through the instruction of
the young, to spread the influence of humanistic principles.
Of such a religious crisis as Luther passed through he
knew nothing. Entered upon his parish work at Glarus,
he soon found his interest enlisted in the religious and
moral welfare of his flock, and in spite of his scholarly
pursuits, he gave himself with uncommon zeal and devo-
tion to his pastoral labours. In 1516 he removed to
Einsiedeln, where there was a famous shrine to which
pilgrims resorted in large numbers. There he found

-61-

religious conditions even worse than at Glarus, and he

became aroused to the need of a reformation in the country
at large. He belonged to the humanistic circle of which
Erasmus was the great ornament, and it was natural that
he should share the ideals of the more serious and earnest-
minded humanists, and should make their programme of
reform his own. He differed from most of them, however,
in two respects. They were, as a rule, intellectual aristo-
crats, and looked down upon the uneducated multitude;
he had gained in his parish work a profound interest in
the common people. They were cosmopolitan in their
sympathies, and delighted in calling themselves citizens
of the world; he was a devoted patriot, not the least
of whose concerns was the welfare of his native land.
Both of these traits fitted him to understand Luther.

He became active in the cause of reform, and entered

upon a campaign against current religious abuses before
he knew anything of the older reformer. He remained
for some years a faithful son of the Church, and continued
to enjoy a papal pension, as many of his fellow humanists
were doing, but he found himself as time passed more
and more critical of the existing ecclesiastical system, and
in Zurich, where he became pastor of the principal church
in 1519, he preached such doctrines, and advocated such
practical innovations as to bring himself into open conflict
with the Roman authorities. The result was a permanent
break with the Catholic Church, not only for himself, but
for the municipal government as well, and the establish-
ment in the city of a new religious régime. The example
of Zurich was speedily followed by other cities, and the
Reformation movement was soon making rapid strides
throughout the country.

Before he left Einsiedeln, Zwingli had heard of Luther,

and had begun to read his writings. As a consequence
his religious views underwent a change. He had long
shared the common humanistic recognition of the supreme

-62-

authority of the Bible, and had appealed to it in support

of his reforming efforts. He had learned to emphasise,
as many humanists were doing, salvation by the grace of
God alone, and the futility of pinning one's faith to the
elaborate penitential discipline which had grown up during
the Middle Ages. He had read Huss on the Church, and
had been led to radical views upon that important subject.
When Luther's teaching came to his notice he was fully
prepared for it. It was a more definite and complete
formulation of ideas which he himself already held, and at
the same time in its over-mastering emphasis upon salva-
tion by grace alone, through faith, and not through works,
it supplied an organising and dominating principle hither-
to lacking. He was speedily convinced of the Biblical
character of Luther's teachings, and of their perfect
adaptation to the situation which he was facing. The
crying need was liberation from dependence upon human
authority as represented in the great mass of traditional
religious practices. Luther's gospel met the need in the
completest and most thoroughgoing fashion. Thence-
orth it was Zwingli's own, and upon its basis he insti-
tuted a campaign far more radical than he had hitherto
intended.

It is not surprising under the circumstances that

Zwingli should deny, as he frequently did, his dependence
upon Luther, and should insist that he had gained his
principles for himself. He was independent in no small
degree, and yet he certainly felt the influence of the Witten-
berg reformer, and accepted his gospel without reserve.
At the famous Zurich disputation of 1523, which resulted
in the open break with the Catholic Church, that gospel
found clear and unequivocal expression, and the growth
of the new movement in Switzerland meant the spread of
Luther's principles. Thus both reformers taught the
depravity of the natural man and his inability to save him-
self; the vanity of all human effort and the impossibility
 -63

of meritorious works on man's part; the gospel of

God's forgiving love in Christ, and of present salvation
through His free grace, by faith and not by works; the sole
activity of God in the work of salvation and the pre-
destination of some to life and others to death; the liberty
of the Christian man and his assurance of salvation; the
universal priesthood of believers and the true Church a
community of saints. They also maintained much of the
traditional system of theology, including the doctrines of
the person and work of Christ and the Trinity. They were
one in rejecting the authority of the Roman Church and
papacy, the hierarchical principles of Catholicism, the
doctrines of the mass and of purgatory, five of the seven
sacraments, including the whole penitential system, the
ascetic interpretation of the Christian life, monasticism
and the celibacy of the clergy, and the great mass of
ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies, feast, fasts, pilgrim-
ages, and the like. They introduced radical changes in
traditional forms of worship, Zwingli going much further
at this point than Luther, and they gave the civil govern-
ment a larger measure of control in ecclesiastical affairs
than it had hitherto enjoyed. There was thus a consider-
able area of agreement between the two reformers, and
their common thought was inherited by all the Protestant
churches.

But there were also divergences. Zwingli's training

and experience had been very unlike Luther's, and it was
inevitable that the gospel which he learned from him
should occupy a different place in his thinking, and should
be interpreted in other ways. Under the circumstances
it is surprising that the two men differed as little as they
did. But differences there were, and some of them are
historically important, for they represent permanent
differences between the Lutheran and Reformed wings of
Protestantism.

Zwingli's departures from Luther had a common root

-64

and were all of a piece. Humanist as he was, he had a

wider horizon than the Wittenberg reformer, and was
unable to look at matters so exclusively in the light of the
work of Jesus Christ. Religion he defined as the worship
of God and the doing of His will. 1 He recognised that
many besides Christians, and quite independently of the
Christian revelation, had been religious in this sense, for
instance Hercules, Theseus, and Socrates, and he main-
tained that they were saved as truly as Christian believers. 2

Under Luther's influence he frequently asserted that

salvation was through Christ alone, but the broader view
was truer to his own way of thinking, and was never
abandoned by him. God, he taught, has revealed Him-
self, not only through Christ, but in many other ways.
From the beginning He has been making His will known
to men, and has had His true worshippers and obedient
children.

Christianity is God's supreme revelation, and is there-

fore the highest and best of all religions. This revelation is
set forth in the Bible, which is the word of God, not because
it contains the gospel of God's forgiving love in Christ,
but because it reveals God's will. From it one can learn
as from no other source what God would have men believe
and do. It is not a means of grace in Luther's sense, but
a guide for Christian faith and life. His distinction
between the gospel and the Bible as a whole is lost sight
of, and the latter is treated as equally authoritative in all
its parts.

The work of Christ consisted chiefly in the revelation

which He brought of the divine will. Because of it He is
the Saviour of men. The contrast between God's dis-
closure of Himself in Jesus Christ and His general activity
as Ruler and Governor of the world largely disappears.
The same is true of the contrast between law and
gospel, of which Luther made so much. The gospel is

____________________
Works, vol. iii. p. 175sq.
1

Cf. ibid. vol. iv. p. 65.

2

-65

God's total revelation and includes the law. The two are
in principle one. 'The gospel is itself a new law.' 1 Both
of them are declarations of God's will, and the one supple-
ments and perfects the other. The ceremonial law is
done away by Christ, but not the moral law, which is
written upon the hearts of men as well as upon the tables
of stone. Christian liberty means release, not from all
law, but only from subjection to human enactments in
religious affairs, that is from the enactments of the Church.
The Christian is still bound to obey God, but not man.

Of a piece with his wider view of Christianity was

Zwingli's conception of faith. Faith is not only trust
in God's forgiving love in Christ, but also the acceptance of
His truth and confidence in His providential love revealed
in all His works. Much is made of the goodness of God
which controls all His activities, and manifests itself, not
simply in the salvation of sinners, but in the entire govern-
ment of the world. Heathen have believed in God as well
as Christians, though they have known nothing about
Christ, and the faith which the Christian has in God is of
the same general nature, though more intelligent and
better grounded.

It is consonant with this general way of looking at things

that Zwingli laid less stress than Luther upon the word
and the sacraments as means of grace. While ordinarily
faith and salvation follow the preaching of the gospel,
they may be independent of it; and still less are the
sacraments indispensable. For some time Zwingli repudi-
ated altogether the idea that the latter are means of grace,
and asserted that they constitute only pledges which the
Christian gives of his faith and discipleship. 2 Later,
however, he recognised that they might have value as
testimonies to God's forgiving love, 3 but he never made as
much of this aspect of them as Luther did, and so it was
easy for him to give up altogether the traditional notion

____________________
1
Works, vol. i. p. 211.
2
Cf. ibid. vol. iii. p. 231.
3
Cf. e.g.ibid. vol. iv. p. 57.

-66

of the real presence in the Eucharist, and to adopt the

symbolical interpretation of the rite first suggested to him
by the writings of Erasmus. 1 The current idea seemed
to carry with it the crass superstitions of the Catholic
faith in regard to the nature of salvation, and he de-
nounced it with increasing vigour. The result was a
serious controversy with Luther and a permanent and
disastrous division in the ranks of Protestantism. It
may seem that the controversy concerned only a minor
matter, and that the difference between the two reformers
was of no such importance as to justify a break, but in
reality the two men, as Luther himself clearly recognised,
were of an altogether different spirit, and the disagreement
touching the Eucharist was only the symptom of a far
deeper disagreement concerning the nature of Chris-
tianity and the way of salvation. Zwingli's humanistic
sympathies were alien to Luther, and his wider interpre-
tation of the gospel was contradictory of all he held most
dear. From Zwingli's point of view the difference was of
relatively little importance. It was easy for him to be
tolerant in his treatment of Luther. But for Luther to
tolerate Zwingli would have been to betray the very heart
of his gospel.

Consistent with his general attitude was Zwingli's

rehabilitation of natural theology which Luther's teaching
had threatened with destruction. He had no such con-
tempt for the natural reason as Luther had. On the
contrary, he treated it with the greatest respect and ac-
corded it a large place in the discovery of religious truth.
The Wittenberg reformer regarded all knowledge of God
apart from Christ as vain and worthless. Zwingli laid
great emphasis upon it, declaring that the 'knowledge of
God in His own nature precedes the knowledge of Christ.' 2

Accordingly, we find him elaborating a philosophical

____________________
1
See letter of "Melanchthon to Aguila" in Curpus Reformatorum, vol. Iv. Col. 970.
 2
Works, vol. iii. p. 180.

-67-

theory of God on a large scale. He thought of the Deity

in much more abstract terms than Luther. God was less
a personal Father than the Creator and Ruler of the world,
and the attributes which Zwingli ascribed to Him were
those of traditional theology. omnipotence and omnisci-
ence occupying a chief place. 1 This is particularly mani-
fest in connection with his doctrine of predestination,
which finds its most elaborate and systematic expression
in his De Providentia Dei. His acceptance of the doctrine
was due primarily to his desire to undermine all depend-
ence upon human merit in connection with salvation,
but having accepted it, he worked over his doctrine of
God in its light, and reached a metaphysical determinism
of the most extreme type, which became controlling in all
his theological teaching. Luther went as far as he in his
assertion of the inability of man and the absolute control
of God, but he did not make God's omnipotence the centre
of his system as Zwingli did. According to the latter
it belongs to the nature of God to be eternally active. In
reality he is the only active Being in the universe. He
is not merely the first cause, but the only cause. 2 All
activity is His activity; evil as well as good is His work. 3
If this be not admitted His power is limited, and He is
made less than infinite. He is above all law, and conse-
quently, though all the actions of men are His. He cannot
do wrong. What is sin to them who are under law is
no sin to Him. 4 Not only the deeds of all men, but their
destinies as well are determined by God. He predestines
some to eternal life and others to eternal death, that He
may display His mercy in the case of the former, and His
justice in the case of the latter. 5 Zwingli's doctrine of
predestination was more than a mere matter of abstract
speculation. It acquired practical importance by being

____________________
1
'We call God Father,' Zwingli says, 'because He can do what He pleases
with us'
2
Works, vol. iv. p. 96.
3
Ibid. pp. 108, 112
4
Ibid. p. 112.
5
Ibid. p. 115.

-68

given a fundamental place in his interpretation of the

conditions of salvation. The ground of salvation is not
faith or anything else in man, but the divine election. 1
'The elect are children of God,' he says, 'even before they
believe.' 2 'Election precedes faith, and so it comes to
pass that those who are elect, and do not come to a know-
ledge of the faith, as e.g. children, nevertheless attain
eternal blessedness, for it is election which makes blessed.' 3

This gives justification and consistency to his contention

that even heathen who have never heard of Christ may
be among the number of the saved; they may be sub-
jects of election even though they do not attain to Christian
faith. Thus his philosophical theory of divine omnipo-
tence fell in with his humanistic tendency to broaden the
range of God's saving activity and to make Him inde-
pendent of the ordinary means of grace. It was in election
that Zwingli found the ground of assurance, which he was
one with Luther in emphasising as absolutely essential
to Christian liberty, and so to genuinely Christian living.
The Christian is assured of salvation, not because he
believes in the forgiving love of God revealed in Christ,
but because he is conscious of his election. His faith is
a sure sign of election; for faith is given only to the pre-
destinated. 4 But faith is an uncertain and variable thing,
and only the eternal and unchanging predestination of
God is an adequate basis of assurance.

It was in accordance with his emphasis upon predestina-

tion that Zwingli supplemented his earlier notion of the
Church as a community of saints with Wyclif's idea of it
as the numerus electorum, or totality of the elect. 5 As
such it includes heathen as well as Christians, unbelievers
as well as believers, infants as well as adults, and the dead

____________________
1
Cf. Works, vol. vi. part i. p. 340; part ii. p. 106.
2
Ibid. vol. iii. p. 426.
3
Ibid. vol. iv. p. 123. Zwingli taught the salvation of all infants dying in
infancy; cf. p, 125 sq.
4
Ibid. vol. iv. p. 122; vol. vi. part ii. p. 156.
5
Cf. ibid. vol. iv. p. 8.

-69

as well as the living. Between this invisible company

and the visible church made up of professing Christians,
there is no necessary connection. 1 The tendency of the
notion was thus to take all real significance out of the
latter, and to give it a much less important place than
Luther assigned to it. At this point, as at many others,
Zwingli was influenced by hostility to the Anabaptists,
who were strong in Switzerland, and whose radical views
had sufficient kinship with Zwingli's teaching to make
him particularly sensitive in his attitude toward them.

It is evident that though Zwingli accepted the gospel

of Luther, and became one of the fathers of Protestantism,
the differences between him and the Wittenberg reformer
were many and far reaching. Though he came to his
death at an early day ( 1531), and though the influence of
other men soon became prominent among the Protestants
of Western Europe, his thinking gave permanent direction
to their theology. Instead of giving the controlling place
in Christian thought to a personal religious experience--
the consciousness of divine forgiveness--he gave it to a
theoretical doctrine--the absolute and unconditioned will
of God. Instead of viewing the Christian life as the free
and spontaneous expression of gratitude to God, he con-
ceived it as obedience to the divine will revealed in the
Scriptures. Instead of finding the significance of the
Bible in the proclamation of the gospel of God's forgiving
love in Christ, he found it in its revelation of the divine
will, and made it an authoritative code for the government
of Christian life and thought, rather than a means of
grace. In all these matters the reformed wing of
Protestantism followed him rather than Luther; in all
of them the distinctive character of its theology is clearly
revealed. From the beginning it has been more external,
objective, and legalistic, and in so far more Catholic than
Lutheran theology.

____________________
Cf. Works, vol. iv. p. 10.
1

-70-