Zwingli - Father of Swiss Reformation Issue 4 | 1984 Purchase this issue

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Professor Fritz Büsser commented on Zwingli’s powerful and lengthy sermon (see “The Shepherd: Who is the True Pastor”) delivered on the third day of the Second Disputation in Zurich (1523) when the City Council instituted many of the reforms Zwingli had been preaching since the Council granted him freedom to speak his convictions earlier in the year. The following are excerpts from Zwingli’s sermon. (The complete work can be found in Huldrych Zwingli: Selected Writings, Vol. 2; Pittsburgh: Pickwick Publications, 1984, edited and translated by H. Wayne Pipkin.)

Therefore Christ teaches to be ready to bear the cross daily, for persecution grows the more the divine word grows. The more that grows, the more the flesh is angered. Therefore they are wrong who think they will soon obtain rest, that they will not have to suffer great persecution for the sake of the word of God. Even though the people come to the Word of God in droves, nevertheless there will be opposition enough from the high ones of this time. Even if they were not there, then all the more the false teachers will stand up, who have more knowledge than love, and for the sake of a hazelnut, will wound all the simple and quiet ones to show how learned they are. Hereby the cross becomes very burdensome and requires new strength; for offense of the simple does not take place without great concern by the strong who are concerned on behalf of the simple. As Paul also says in 2 Corinthians 11:29: “Who is offended that I am not burned?” In short, every day there is a new cross; it must be so. Here the soul is not only taken for the bodily life but for human feeling, intention or counsel. Whoever retreats from the Word of God for the sake of this ephemeral life will lose ...