Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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CHAPTER 5.
THE CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE ROMAN
CATHOLIC AND REFORMED CANTONS.
See the works of ESCHER, OECHSLI, and FENNER, quoted on p. 19;
MÖRIKOFER, Zwingli, II. 346–452; and BLUNTSCHLI, Geschichte
des schweizerischen Bundesrechtes von den ewigen Bünden bis auf
die Gegenwart. Stuttgart. 2d ed. 1875, 2 vols.
§ 42. THE FIRST WAR OF CAPPEL. 1529.
The year 1530 marks the height of the Zwinglian Reformation. It was
firmly established in the leading cities and cantons of Zürich, Bern, and
Basel. It had gained a strong majority of the people in Northern and
Eastern Switzerland, and in the Grisons. It had fair prospects of ultimate
success in the whole confederacy, when its further progress was suddenly
arrested by the catastrophe of Cappel and the death of Zwingli.
The two parties had no conception of toleration (except in Glarus and the
Grisons), but aimed at supremacy and excluded each other wherever they
had the power. They came into open conflict in the common territories or
free bailiwicks, by the forcible attempts made there to introduce the new
religion, or to prevent its introduction. The Protestants, under the lead of
Zwingli, were the aggressors, especially in the confiscation of the rich
abbey of St. Gall. They had in their favor the right of progress and the
majority of the population. But the Roman Catholics had on their side the
tradition of the past, the letter of the law, and a majority of Cantons and of
votes in the Diet, in which the people were not directly represented. They
strictly prohibited Protestant preaching within their own jurisdiction, and
even began bloody persecution. Jacob Kaiser (or Schlosser), a Zürich
minister, was seized on a preaching expedition, and publicly burnt at the
stake in the town of Schwyz (May, 1529). f255 His martyrdom was the
signal of war. The Protestants feared, not without good reason, that this
case was the beginning of a general persecution.