Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/469

 son?] favour Luther. Duke George is a good Catholic, and when able to catch a heretic he disposes of him without mercy, for from this Lutheran root six or eight diabolically heretical sects have sprung up, more opposed and hostile to each other than to the good Catholics. At Zurich in Switzerland there is one Zuingle, who seduced Zurich, Berne and Basle, and who also seduced a great part of Constance/ and chose to hold a disputation about certain articles.* The controversy was attended by but a few persons ; and when King Ferdinand and the other Cantons wrote stringent letters to the effect that it did not appertain to them to dispute or judge about faith, and they must persevere in that faith in which they and their ancestors were bom, and whereby they swore to their con- federation, they refused to do so, and remain in their errors.

The most important of the articles are as follows :

That human precepts, not being based on the Word of God, are not binding.

That Christ is the only redemption and atonement for all sins, and to acknowledge any other is to deny Christ Him- self.

That the consecrated Host does not essentially contain the true body and blood of Christ.

That the mass which is in use is contrary to Scripture, and a scandal to the atonement — ^an abomination to the passion and death of Christ.

That Christ alone is mediator between God the Father and man, and the intercession (suffragia) of the Virgin Mary and other saints is to be abolished.

That to no class or condition of persons is matrimony for- bidden.

There were also some other dogmas, so that at these dis- putations they proceeded from words to blows (de verbis devenerunt ad verbera) ; the magistrates withdrew, and the plague interrupted their controversies; they (the Reformers)

^The text in Sannto reads: "Ale qiial ha sedutto molto Costansa." Brown reads "ale qual ha veduto molto costanza," and translates *'where he found great firmness."

'The disputation between Protestants and Catholics held at Berne, in Jamiftrj, 1528. The articles as here given agree substantially with the official list, as printed in Miiller: Bekenntnisschriften der reformierten Kirche, 1903. Pp. xriii, 30, See Lindsay, ii, 1908, 4 iff.

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