Protestantism in Switzerland - James Aitken Wylie

are not trusting but tempting God, and instead of
exercising faith are displaying fanaticism.
Zwingli, it has been further said, was a pastor,
and the call to combine and stand to the defense of
their liberties now addressed to the Reformed
cantons ought to have come from another than him.
But Zwingli was a citizen and a patriot, as well as a
pastor. His wonderfully penetrating,
comprehensive, and forecasting intellect made him
the first politician of his country; he could read the
policy of its enemies better than any one else; he
had penetrated their purposes; he saw the dangers
that were gathering round the Reformed cantons;
and his sagacity and experience taught him the
measures to be adopted. No other man in all
Switzerland knew the matter half so well. Was he
to stand aloof and withhold the counsel, the
suggestion, the earnest exhortation to action, and
let his country be overwhelmed, on the plea that
because he was in sacred office it did not become
him to interfere? Zwingli took a different view of
his duty, and we think justly. When the crisis came,
without in the least intermitting his zeal and labors
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