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

17
SECOND BOOK.
THE SWISS REFORMATION.
CHAPTER 1.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. SWITZERLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION.
SWITZERLAND belongs to those countries whose historic significance
stands in inverse proportion to their size. God often elects small things for
great purposes. Palestine gave to the world the Christian religion. From
little Greece proceeded philosophy and art. Switzerland is the cradle of the
Reformed churches. The land of the snow-capped Alps is the source of
mighty rivers, and of the Reformed faith, as Germany is the home of the
Lutheran faith; and the principles of the Swiss Reformation, like the waters
of the Rhine and the Rhone, travelled westward with the course of the sun
to France, Holland, England, Scotland, and to a new continent, which
Zwingli and Calvin knew only by name. Compared with intellectual and
moral achievements, the conquests of the sword dwindle into
insignificance. Ideas rule the world; ideas are immortal.
Before the sixteenth century, Switzerland exerted no influence in the affairs
of Europe except by the bravery of its inhabitants in self-defence of their
liberty and in foreign wars. But in the sixteenth century she stands next to
Germany in that great religious renovation which has affected all modern
history. f7
The Republic of Switzerland, which has maintained itself in the midst of
monarchies down to this day, was founded by “the eternal covenant” of the
three “forest cantons,” Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, August 1, 1291,
and grew from time to time by conquest, purchase, and free association.
Lucerne (the fourth forest canton) joined the confederacy in 1332, Zurich