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

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of his countrymen. Dr. Faber, the general vicar of the diocese of
Constance, after a visit to Rome, openly turned against his former friend,
and made every effort to unite the interests of the aristocracy with those of
the hierarchy. “Now,” he said, “the priests are attacked, the nobles will
come next.” f159 At last the Diet resolved to settle the difficulty by a public
disputation. Dr. Eck, well known to us from the disputation at Leipzig for
his learning, ability, vanity and conceit, f160 offered his services to the Diet in
a flattering letter of Aug. 13, 1524. He had then just returned from a third
visit to Rome, and felt confident that he could crush the Protestant heresy
in Switzerland as easily as in Germany. He spoke contemptuously of
Zwingli, as one who “had no doubt milked more cows than he had read
books.” About the same time the Roman counter-reformation had begun
to be organized at the convent of Regensburg (June, 1524), under the lead
of Bavaria and Austria.
The disputation was opened in the Catholic city of Baden, in Aargau, May
21, 1526, and lasted eighteen days, till the 8th of June. The cantons and
four bishops sent deputies, and many foreign divines were present. The
Protestants were a mere handful, and despised as “a beggarly, miserable
rabble.” Zwingli, who foresaw the political aim and result of the
disputation, was prevented by the Council of Zurich from leaving home,
because his life was threatened; but he influenced the proceedings by daily
correspondence and secret messengers. No one could doubt his courage,
which he showed more than once in the face of greater danger, as when he
went to Marburg through hostile territory, and to the battlefield at Cappel.
But several of his friends were sadly disappointed at his absence. He would
have equalled Eck in debate and excelled him in biblical learning. Erasmus
was invited, but politely declined on account of sickness.
The arrangements for the disputation and the local sympathies were in
favor of the papal party. Mass was said every morning at five, and a
sermon preached; the pomp of ritualism was displayed in solemn
processions. The presiding officers and leading secretaries were Romanists;
nobody besides them was permitted to take notes. f161 The disputation
turned on the real presence, the sacrifice of the mass, the invocation of the
Virgin Mary and of saints, on images, purgatory, and original sin. Dr. Eck
was the champion of the Roman faith, and behaved with the same
polemical dexterity and overbearing and insolent manner as at Leipzig:
robed in damask and silk, decorated with a golden ring, chain and cross;
surrounded by patristic and scholastic folios, abounding in quotations and