Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/59

 ZWINGLI the Confederacy. This was what they calculated upon.

And if any one should inquire, How are we to deliver ourselves from these evils, and return again to union?—I answer, By abstaining from selfishness. For, if this base passion did not reign among us, the Confederacy were more a union of brothers than of confederates. If one rejoins to this, Selfishness is implanted in the human heart, from whence it can not be eradicated, for God alone can know and change the heart, then I answer, Do earnestly that which lies in your power. Where you find it punishable, punish it, and let it not grow. And that it may be extirpated out of the very hearts of men, give heed that the divine Word be faithfully preached.

For where God is not in the heart there is nothing but the man himself. Where there is nothing but the man himself, he cares for nothing but that which serves to his interests, pleasures, and lusts. But when God possesses the heart, then man has regard to that which pleases God, seeks the honor of God, and the profit of his fellow man. Now, the knowledge of God can come to us in no way clearer than from the Word of God. Will you, then, have the knowledge of God spread among you, so that you may live in peace and in the fear of God? Then see to it that the Word of God is purely preached, according to its natural sense, unadulterated by the glosses and inventions of man.