Declaration of Huldreich Zwingli Regarding Original Sin, Addressed to Urbanus Rhegius.
(August 15, 1526)
[DE PECCAI TO ORIGINALI DECLARATIO | Huldrychi Zuinglij, Ad Vrbanum | Rhegium. | 48 unnumbered octavo pages, of which pp. 2, 45-48 are blank. Signed on p. 44: Tiguri quintadecima die Augusti. An. I M.D.XXVI. Tigvri. Ex Aedibus Christophori Froschouer, i. e., “Zurich, August 15, 1526. From the press of Christopher Froschouer.” Printed in Opera Zwinglii, torn. II, fol. 115b-122b; Jo. Oecolampadii et Euld. Ztcinglii epist. libr. IV (Basileae, 1536) fol. 54b-61b; Schuler and Schulthess ed.. Vol. Ill, pp. 626-645; Finsler, Zvnngli Bibliographie, No. 72. The following English translation, based on one made by Mr. Henry Preble, was revised throughout by the editor.
This pamphlet was in answer to a letter of Rhegius to Zwingli, which has not been discovered thus far. (See Zwingli’s Werke, Vol. VIII. (1914), 633, note 4). Rhegius had some doubts as to the soundness of Zwingli’s views regarding original sin. This appears from a letter which he wrote on January 14, 1526, to Ambrose Blaurer of Constance, in which he expressed himself rather vigorously: “I am sorry Zwingli was not at Baden [i. e., the Baden Disputation, May 21-June 18, 1526]. He would have defeated all the Papists once for all, except in the matter of original sin, which he seems to treat in a very unsound fashion. In regard to the Lord’s Supper, though he might be criticized, he certainly could not have been defeated by those counterfeit theologians.” Nor was his mind
2 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli altogether set at rest by this treatise, for he expresses in a letter of September 28, 1526 (Zwingli’8 Werke, VIII, 726-8) the fear that Zwingli might be accused of Origenism. Zwingli tried to remove his doubts by a letter dated October 16, 1526 (Werke, VIII, 737-9).]
Huldreich Zwingli to Urbanus Rhegius,* Preacher of THE Gospel at Augsburg.
/^RACE and peace through Jesus Christ, our Lord. You ^^-* wrote me very recently a letter which, though it was very long, was not long enough, most learned Urbanus, for it so abounded in new and learned things and showed with clearness that you had been in no way offended by the letter which I had combined with the one in which I discuss the Eucharist with Billicanus in no unfriendly wayf, as I think.
Yet I have not been able to answer before those things which I think ought by no means to be passed over in silence, though I have constantly and eagerly desired to answer them. I am so badly driven by occupations, nay by those furies, who, kindling everywhere the fires of contention, will some day suffer a punishment worthy of Castor and Pollux. But now, having secured, or, if the truth may be told without shame, having stolen, a little leisure time, I will do my best to say at least something if not altogether enough with regard to the question you raise in your letter. For you are not the only one who thinks that I hold and write an unusual doctrine with regard to the pollution of human descent. There are other great men who entertain the same idea. I have myself seen letters of certain men to myself and to others, some of which beg me to explain my view more clearly, while others warn their friends not to
•The reformer Urbanus Rhegius (Koenig) was born in 1490 at Langenargcn. near Lindau. He studied at Freiburg and at Ingolstadt. At the latter place he became professor of poetry and rhetoric. In the year 1520, he became cathedral preacher at Augsburg, where he accepted the principles of the Reformation. In 1530, he was called as superintendent to Celle and as such was the reformer of the Duchy of Luncburg. He died March 23, 1541. His works appeared in 1562 at Nuremberg, four volumes in German, three volumes in Latin. His biography was written by Heimbuerger (Gotha, 1851) and by Uhlhorn (Elberfeld, 1861).
See the Rcsponsio H. Zwinglii, to the letters of Theob. Billicanus and U. Rhegius. Scbuler and Schulthess ed., Ill, 646-670.
On Original Sin 3 suffer themselves to be dragged to destruction by me. They are both of them overcautious, not to say anxious. For those to whom the question is so clear that they think I need to make a declaration of doctrine, ought to bring out publicly their own clear teaching forthwith, for I do differ somewhat with those who have so far been thought to have hit the nail on the head in this matter; and, on the other hand, those to whom my view seems so dangerous that they think they ought to warn their friends to beware of it, should caution all men, or at least try to make me explain like those who were before me. I will, therefore, with the help of Christ, try to make all men see clearly that what I have said upon this matter briefly but plainly, was not said at random or without authority from the sacred Scriptures ; and that, on the other hand, much has been said by many people in regard to this matter which has little foundation in the truly sacred [canonical] writings. For what could be said more briefly and plainly than that original sin is not sin but disease, and that the children of Christians are not condemned to eternal punishment on account of that disease? On the other hand, what could be said more feebly or more at variance with the canonical Scriptures than that this disaster was relieved by the water of baptism, while through want thereof it was intensified, and that it was not only a disease but even a crime? Therefore, my dear Urbanus, believe that I treated such reasoning so concisely and lightly in my work upon Baptism and Catabaptism* because otherwise the book would have grown to interminable length. For I had determined even then, to treat the whole subject more at length and with greater precision if circumstances should demand it. But I had a hope that the thing would be settled by those few words, for in these days men’s minds are so happily constituted that if you offer them a slight opportunity or give them a handle to take hold of, they straightway press on to the very end. Yet some are of a more sincere spirit than others. We often say we do not understand a thing when we do not want to understand it. Or we are ashamed to appear ignorant. We sometimes forget both God and ourselves,— that it is impossible for anything to escape Him or for us to know everything.
But do thou, to come at length to the subject, most fair-
*See Zwingli’s Werke, Schuler and Schulthesg ed., vol. II, 1, p. 287.
4 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli minded priest of the truth, accept my argument in this manner : Let us first of all come to an agreement as to these terms, “sin” and “disease.” Then let us define the disease itself, and attempt to discover the appropriate name for it, and show how it damns and whom. Thirdly, let us show that it cannot be cured by any other medicine than the blood of Christ, the Son of God, so far am I from denying Christ’s efficacy. Therewith I shall also search out whether the evil can be averted by anything else than that blood, for instance, by the water of baptism.
That “sin” is properly used of a wrong committed through negligence or thoughtlessness, I think everybody is aware, such as the Greeks call irapd-n-Tuna dirb Tov TTTaieij’,* the Latin theologians “delictum a deliquendo vel negligendo,” the Hebrews “asham,” like.those wrong-doings from which St. John says no man is freef, and which Christ bids us atone for by constant prayer, saying, “Forgive us our debts.”
For since they are of daily occurrence, they drive the pious man, like constant goads, to self -debasement and depreciation of his faults. Or it is used for the misdeed which any one commits and enters into knowingly and with his eyes open, after mature deliberation and thought, such as the Greeks call a.napT’ia,i. e., a failing or fault, because, if we may believe Origen, it is done “contra conscientiam,” in conscious opposition to conscience, while the Latins call it “scelus,” “crimen” or “flagitium.” In this category are included highway robbery, homicide, war (voluntary sins these), treason, excessive lust, mercenary judgments, oppression of the innocent, and all this class of monstrous wrongs, such as the sins of David, Ahab and Judas.
Now the word “disease” I do not use here according to the pattern of those learned in the law, who, as Gellius tell us,t distinguish it from “defect” only in that the first is temporary, the other lasting ; I use it as combined with a defect and that a lasting one, as when stammering, blindness, or gout is hereditary in a family. Such an infirmity or natural defect we are in the habit of calling “einen natiirlichen Bresten” in German — a natural infirmity. On account of such a thing no one is thought the worse or the more vicious. For things which come from
*i. e., a false step from the verb ptaiein, to fall.
Probably I John 1 : 8 is intended.
JA. Gellii Noctium Atticarum Libri XX, Bk. IV, 2.
On Original Sin 5 nature cannot be put down as crimes or guilt.
For this reason, I have said that the original contamination of man is a disease, not a sin, because sin implies guilt, and guilt comes from a transgression or trespass on the part of one who designedly perpetrates a deed. I will give an example. To be born a slave is a wretched condition, but it is not a fault nor a crime in him who is so born, for when born one has not yet committed any trespass or transgression. If, then, any one should say, “But his ancestors’ acts caused them and their descendants to be reduced to slavery, hence there was wrongdoing involving fault, and slavery followed it as fine or penalty,” he would be right assuredly. I say so, too. The sin involved in the wrong-doing of our first parent is called “original sin,” not in the real sense of the words but metaphorically, and is nothing else than a condition, wretched to be sure, but much milder than the crime deserved. For as prisoners of war, when they might have been slain with impunity, have sometimes been saved through mercy and grace on condition that they and all their descendants shall be slaves, so the originator of the human race, having deserved utter destruction,* was by the goodness of God driven into exile, and made subject to death, and so was exiled not only from a most charming garden, but from the most delightful sight of the divine countenance and the glad companionship of the angels.
And this disaster fell upon his descendants also. For a dead man cannot beget a living man, nor a slave a free man. Adam, therefore, being justly dead and an exile, could not generate offspring who should be living in the sight of God or a citizen or heir of the heaven from which he had utterly fallen.
Now, what I say shall be proved by the testimony of Paul. In Romans 5 [ : 14], f he says: “Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” By these words it becomes plainly apparent that Adam perpetrated the crime upon which the
- navuXe^pia. Zwingli put the Greek words into the text. We prefer to add them as footnotes.
The verse division of the Bible, that is, the numbering of the verses, was first introduced into the Latin Bible in a small octavo edition, printed by Robert Stephanus, in 1555. Hence the earlier quotations are usually by chapters only. We have added the verses in square brackets.
6 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli penalty of death was so rigorously inflicted that it clung to all his descendants, but that they who afterwards died in consequence of this defect of birth did not sin as Adam had sinned. The disease, therefore, and defect, brought upon man by the fault of the first parent, is what has vitiated the offspring, the offspring did not vitiate itself. When, therefore, it is called “sin” in the Scriptures, it is clear enough, I think, that this is done by metonymy. Hence, when you also, most learned Urbanus, quote the testimony of Paul, Rom. 7 [: 17], “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,” and show that Paul also called that disease “sin” rather than serious disorder, and ask then why I, too, will not suffer it to be called “sin,” as Paul and all have called it, you are right to ask it. But now, I hope, you see clearly that I am not contending for a name, but wish to bring out the thing itself a little more plainly and significantly. I allow you, therefore, and everybody who is not satisfied with calling this disaster a sin to call it a heinous, criminal, and disgraceful offense, but on the understanding that by these terms are meant the disease, defect, or condition of mortality, and that boundless tendency to self-love of which I shall speak later. And this is not contradicted by what Paul again says, Eom. 3 [ : 23] , “All have sinned,” for in the same way the word for sinning is used figuratively, so that the meaning is, “All are in this wretched condition of having been deprived of the glory of God through the fault of their first parent.” Thus far, I think, we have come to an understanding or an agreement if you prefer, that I shall suffer this defect of human depravity to be called “sin,” but you shall understand by this term a condition and penalty, the disaster and misery of corrupted human nature, not a crime or guilt on the part of those who are born in the condition of sin and death. Now we have come to the place to define the disease itself and to give it a name according to the definition, which I undertook to do as the second part of my task. If, then, we can find the source of this evil, we shall by one and the same stroke reach the definition and the name. The source, then, ah ovo, as they say, was this : When the Creator of all things had installed in paradise, as in the palace of Alcinous,* that man •The king of the Phaeacians, whose gardens had become proverbial. Mentioned in the Odyssey, Bk. VII, 112-132.
On Original Sin 7 whom he had set over all living things, He bound him to Himself by this law, “Of every tree in the garden thou shalt eat without fear, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil shalt thou not eat, for on the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.” [Gen. 2:16-17].
This law he suddenly transgressed in this wise. That supreme Architect had built woman from a single rib of Adam — while he slept, an exceedingly unpropitious omen. For what will not woman dare in the hope of deceiving and eluding her husband, after having at birth seen him sunk so deeply in sleep that he did not feel it when his side was torn open and a rib taken out? Having discovered her nature the Devil determined to attack the man through her, and though he believed her capable of any recklessness, he yet saw that newly born she was still unacquainted with wiles. Hence, the clever pleader got around her by the ambiguity of the name of the tree. For inasmuch as God had forbidden them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the intent that they should never try to know anything of themselves, but should depend upon Him alone in all their thoughts and reflections and designs, the Devil distorted the reason for the name of the tree into this, that it received its name of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” because he that should eat of it would straightway become thoroughly skilled in good and evil. He also charged God with treachery in that he had said that immediate death would threaten those that would eat. The foolish woman, therefore, forthwith began to be suspicious of God, as if He had been insincere in forbidding a thing from which such advantage would arise and as if He feared for His dominion. Beside this, the rare beauty of the tree allured her, the fruit -whetted her appetite, the desire to know good and evil drew her on, and being at once insolent, glad, and filled with great hopes, she seized the apple and persuaded her husband to try how these hopes would issue, having promised him everything that was most fair. And he, overcome not so much by the blandishments of the woman as by his eagerness, both to know good and evil and to become equal with God, put his teeth into the fatal fruit, and immediately his eyes were opened, not to see what he had hoped, but to gaze upon the whole band of evils that awaited him, and straightway he fell. What other cause can we think
8 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli this most indiscreet act had than self-love ? Adam viewed himself with admiration, thought himself not unworthy of greater dominion than that which he had, over the beasts namely, searched his mind and found it capable of more than he thus far knew. Nay, overstepping and surmounting all things, he represented himself in imagination as a sort of judge and dictator in the matter of good and evil. These expressions captivated his ear ; these arguments shattered the law in regard to not eating; these battering-rams leveled the citadel of innocence with the ground, and the fate the Lord had foretold fell upon the thrice and four times wretched creature. For he had perished utterly, having deser’ed the extreme of all punishment, and as the Hebrews say, had died the death, only the Lord in His own kindness, rather than because of Adam’s deserts, found a means of propping up the fallen, of which I shall speak in the third part.
We have now the source of the transgression, namely (piXavTia, that is, self-love. From this have flowed all the evils which exist anywhere among mortals. Given over to death by this, man must by no means be thought to have begotten sons unlike himself, any more than a wolf begets a sheep or a crow a swan. For thus it is written, Gen. 5 [ : 3] , “And Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, etc.” The children of the first parents, therefore, were in no more excellent condition than they themselves, and so with all their posterity. And Adam was made the chattel of sin by transgressing the divine law. For he that doeth sin, is the slave of sin. Into the same condition, therefore, we have all been born after him. Hence, whatever we meditate for our own sakes, we consult only our own interests, and simply walk through the universe eager to have all things our own, serving us, and eager to be ourselves over all things. Hence, again, the Lord says. Gen. 6 [: 3], ‘My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh.” Flesh, therefore, scorns God and loves itself. And a little later he says, “And every imagination of the thoughts of the human heart is only evil continually.” Again God reiterates the same thing, Gen. 8 [ : 21], “I will no more curse the earth for the sake of man ; for the imagination
*Gen. 6: 5, slightly changed by Zwingli.
On Original Sin 9 and thought of man’s heart are prone to evil from his youth.”* All these things tend to prove this one point that our nature was vitiated in our first parent, so that it is constantly sinning through excessive self-love, and if God should leave it to itself, could meditate nothing sincere and generous, any more than runaway slaves. This propensity to sin, therefore, from selflove is “original sin;” the propensity is not properly sin, but is a sort of source of and disposition to it.
I have usedf as an illustration, a wolf still a cub. It is in all respects still a wolf as far as its disposition is concerned, and is an animal that would slaughter everything in its savageness, but it has not yet carried off any plunder because its age prevented it. The hunters, therefore, no more spare it than they spare the wolf, from whose jaws they rescue its prey, because its nature, though it is so young, is so well known to them that they are sure it w^ill follow the instincts of its kind when it grows up. The disposition, therefore, is the original sin or defect, the plundering is the sin which flow^s from the disposition. The sin itself consists in the act, which recent writers call, ”actual deed,” and this is properly the sin. And this Paul explains most clearly of all in the fewest words, Rom. 7 [: 14], ‘T,” he says, “am carnal,” (here you have the “flesh” of Genesis and the disposition of the young wolf), “sold under sin,” (here you have the condition of slave, the corrupted nature, the propensity to sin, and, in a word, the defect or disease). “For that which I do, I allow not” — the Hebrews use the word for knowing all the time instead of the word for approving or allowing, J as in Psalm 1 [ : 6] . “The Lord knoweth,” i. e., approveth, “the way of the righteous,” and Psalm 36 [ : 18].** “The Lord knoweth the days of the upright,” and Num. 14: 31, “and they shall know the land which ye have despised,” (where we read “et videbunt, and they shall see,” but wrongly, for there is the same word
*Thus according to the Vulgate, which Zwingli quotes.
Zwingli used this illustration in his book on Baptism, see Schuler and Schulthess ed., Vol. II, pt. 1, p. 288.
$Paul was writing Greek, not Hebrew. Hence the Vulgate and English version translate correctly, “I know not.” The Greek word ought not to be translated “I allow not.”
**Psalm 36 in the Vulgate; but Ps. 37, in the Hebrew and English translations. The difference is due to the fact that in the Septuagint Pss. 9 and 10 are counted as one Psalm.
10 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli
VT’ [to know] in all the passages). “For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it” (that, namely, which I hate in my inner man) ”but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing, etc.” [Rom. 7:15-18]. y. Now the sin that dwelleth in us is nothing else than the defect of a corrupted nature, which from self-love constantly desires things contrary to the spirit. For the spirit strives for the general weal, the flesh for its own particular welfare. For God does not take thought for Himself, but for those He has created, for He needs nothing but all things need Him. Thus all flesh, however much it pretends to be good, in as far as it is flesh, attributes all things as for its own good; but if it perceives a different sentiment in itself, it should attribute it to God as His blessing anji gift. For the works of the flesh are manifest. The flesh, then, is one thing, its works another, and the flesh is ;)not sin, but that which the flesh doeth is sin. The flesh, therefore, the disposition of man, the original defect or sin, this propensit}^, is that which desires things contrary to the spirit. But this desire is not without a cause, and since no man hath such desire except for his own sake, this propensity can only come from ^Xaurta, that is, self-love. When Catiline lavishes his possessions, he is striving for a reputation for liberality ; when he plunders what belongs to others, his aim is the same. See by what opposite means the defect pushes its way to its own desires. In a word, self-love devises and combines all these schemes ; it is itself the disease or defect from which all our ills come forth as from a Trojan horse.
Now that we have searched out the source of our ills, and the name of the disease or defect, the next thing is to inquire, as the thesis of this second part of our work, whether this disease condemns all mortals to the woes of everlasting death. In considering this question I think we should not fail to note the following: — The bliss of everlasting life and the pain of everlasting death are altogether matters of free election or rejection by the divine will. Therefore, all who have ever discussed this question seem to have drawn the lines rather incautiously in damning all infants or all grown persons who have not been cir-
On Original Sin 11 cumcised or washed with the water of baptism. For what else is Paul after, in Romans from the ninth to the twelfth chapter, than to show that blessedness cometh to those elected of God, not to those who do this or that? For he loved Jacob and, according to the words of the prophet [Mai. 1:3], hated Esau, when they were still being formed in their mother’s womb. Since, therefore, everlasting life belongs to those who have been elected to it by God, why do we form rash judgments about any, since God’s election is hidden from us? Were we in His counsels when He made the election, so that He might not rashly pitch upon some unworthy person unawares, forsooth?
Again, as to those who have grown to mature age, why do we in our indiscretion damn those who have not been marked with the external sign? For again Paul says in Romans 2 [:25], that he whose foreskin is intact, (for he calls him aKpo^varla, that is, the foreskin [or the uncircumcision] ) is preferred to and excels him who boasteth of a circumcised foreskin, if only he doeth what the law enjoins. For he shows that the works of the law are written in his heart when he doeth that which the law enjoins. But who writeth upon the human heart anything worthy of God, but He who created him, as Jeremiah 31 [: 33] witnesseth? When, therefore, we see the uncircumcision do what the law directs, why do we not recognize the tree by its fruit? Why do we not perceive that God hath engraved the works of the law upon his heart? If, therefore, he doeth the work of God under impulse from God, why do we damn him because he has not been baptized or circumcised, especially when, again, the apostle attributes to such accusation or absolution of conscience in the day of judgment [Rom. 2:15-16], and it is nowhere written, “He that is not baptized, is damned ;” and the words in Gen. 17 [ : 14], “the uncircumcised man-child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people,” were said unto the people of Israel in order that no one should omit that sign, not in order to destroy a man (by whatever accident it was that the sign had not been received) nor to indicate that the sign had any power. But all things occurred to them under figures, and God ordered rites of this kind of them that they might be constantly reminded of spiritual things. He demanded circumcision of the heart, and therefore directed that that member be circumcised, which was
12 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli the fittest symbol of the passions, that men might be always reminded of the internal circumcision. He wished the law to be ever before their eyes in every thought and every act, and therefore He ordered them to make phylacteries.*
This nation alone, therefore, which was descended from Abraham or lived with his descendants and, confessing the same faith, made one Church with them, was prohibited from omitting the sign of the covenant and not because a merciful God had so bound His grace and spirit and election to that sign that he refused to draw unto Himself any but those that were signed with this sign.
Since, I say, (to come back to the main discourse) everlasting life has nowhere been promised on the terms that unless one has been circumcised or baptized he shall in no wise attain it, there is no reason why we should at random consign to the lower regions them that have not been marked by these signs. All these things are gathered from the second chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Nor did Christ say, “He that is not baptized, shall not be saved.” I have brought forward these arguments for the purpose of showing that they are wrong by the whole diameter of heaven f who, even if they have names not only great but ancient, are in the habit of consigning to everlasting damnation, now the children of Christians when they have not been baptized, now all those whom we call “the Gentiles.” For what do we know of the faith each one has written in his heart by the hand of God?
Who does not admire the faith of that holy man Seneca, as his letter XXXIV to Luciliust discloses it? He says, “We should certainly live as if our lives were in plain sight, think as if some one could look into our inmost souls. And some one can, for what profiteth it that a thing is kept secret from man? Nothing is closed to God. He is present in our minds and in the midst of our thoughts. So in the midst of them, I mean, as never to depart from us.” Thus Seneca.
Who, pray, wrote this faith upon the heart of man? Let no one think that these things point to the taking away of Christ’s office, as some men charge me with doing ; they magnify
*They are supposed to be referred to in Deut. 6 : 8.
ti. e., they are entirely mistaken.
$In the edition of Hense (1914), it is Letter LXXXIII.
On Original Sin 13
His glory. For through Christ must come all who come to God. On this a little later. Hence I do not even suspect that the father-in-law of Moses came to God by any other way than through Him who said, ”I am the way, and the truth, and the life” [John 14 : 6] , as also Moses and all men came. For the words, ”He that believeth not shall be damned” [Mk. 16: 16], are not to be understood absolutely, but only of those who having heard the Gospel refuse to believe. Hence children and those who have not heard the Gospel are not bound by this law, but with grown persons the point is whether the law of God is written on their hearts or not. For thus again they stand or fall unto the Lord, through Christ Jesus the only way to salvation.
And this is also the case with those who, like the children, have not heard, Rom. 9 [ : 11] , “that the purpose or ordination* of God according to election might stand,” and, ”I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy” [Rom. 9 : 15], and “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” [Rom. 9:16]. For Christ himself says : “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin” [John 15 : 22] . Let their ignorance, therefore, not be counted against them to whom none hath come to preach the myt-tery of Christ. They stand or fall unto the Lord. Paul treats the same point, Rom. 10: 18, (and this is not against me, but on my side) , “Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth.” This counterblastf the apostle hurled at the Jews and thereby took away from them the opportunity to answer by making a pretext of ignorance and saying, “We have not heard ; w^e do not know.” “The whole world,” he says, “resounds with the Gospel, and ye have not heard?” In a word, election is unshaken and the law written on the hearts of men, but so that those who are elect and do the works of the law in accordance with the law written on their hearts come to God through Christ alone. For he is the son for whom the master of the house prepared the wedding and invited many [Lk. 14: 16]. And if any man ask me whether we should not make a statement concerning those about whom we have the declara- f avTininrov.
14 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli tions of the divine word, I answer, “By all means, but where have we this word, ‘Every child, nay, every mortal, who was not circumcised of old or washed with the water of baptism in modern times, shall be consigned to the lower regions?’ For it is damnation to have been born in this condition.” To the solving of this problem, I now turn (for there was a second part to this thesis) — whether the inborn corruption condemns all mortals to the woes of everlasting death?
To this question I answer without difficulty, first of all by the words of the Lord Himself, in which He foretold that as soon as man should eat of the forbidden fruit, he should straightway die. He ate ; hence, he is dead. For as he became the slave of sin by transgressing, he could not beget children who were in a better condition. From a sinner we are all descended as sinners. If sinners, therefore, enemies of God ; if enemies, therefore, also damned.
Again we are damned by the testimony of the prophets, of which I will content myself with a single example, Psalm 14 : 2, “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable altogether.” Finally, Paul in many passages and in many words touches this question, especially in the Epistle to the Romans: — “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” [Rom. 3:4]. “All have sinned,” that is, have become the slaves of sin and death through the guilt of the first parent. “As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” [Rom. 5: 12], that is, have been born in sin, or, as he says in another place, “sold under sin” [Rom. 7: 14] (by pollution of birth). And that “to have sinned” and “to be dead” are used by Paul for “to be damned,” he himself shows, Rom. 5 : 18 [5 : 16] . “For,” he says, “the judgment was by one” (sin, namely) “to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.” And a little later,* “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came unto all men to condemnation ; even so by the righteousness of one the justification of life came unto all men.” As far, therefore, as the force of sin is concerned, the first man and all
•Following the reading of the Vulgate, Rom. 5: 18.
On Original Sin 15 who are descended from him are damned by it.
From this answer, in which I grant that by original sin all that is born infected with it is damned, a two-fold objection arises against me, first, for what reason I said a little while ago that those ought not to be rashly damned who have not been circumcised or baptized, when they are of tender years or show by their works that the law of God is written on their hearts, while I now damn all men altogether, second, for what reason I said in the book on Baptism that original sin does not damn. To the first I answer that I have thus far spoken of the nature and force of original sin in such terms to show according to my poor ability what it is, whence it is, and what its power is; in order that we may understand thoroughly that which we are discussing. But I have not yet begun to speak about the remedy by which this disease is met. However, justly do I condemn those who, without having thoroughly studied the disease or the remedy, damn what they do not know.
Original sin damns, to be sure, so far as its force and nature are concerned, but a very present remedy saves and supports, and it has been applied not too late but just in time. We are all going to destruction through original disease, but we are on the way to restoration to safety through the remedy which God has discovered against the disease. Given over to the flesh we consider only the things of the flesh ; filled with the divine Spirit we are lifted up to the things of heaven. When we speak of the nature of the flesh, all is lost and ruined, nay, deplorable and hopeless ; when of the grace and light of the Spirit, all things are bright in the gladness of sure hopes. It is not strange, therefore, if I have said, that as far as the force of original sin is concerned all are damned by it, but that, since a remedy has been found which restores every thing, they are wrong who rashly damn all men. For I am going to show that this remedy has so abundantly restored all things as the disease would have ravaged all things far and wide, if it had not been checked. On this, therefore, now hear first my opinion, or rather the voice of truth.
God had said to the man, “The day thou eatest thou shalt die the death” [Gen. 2: 17]. Thus spake the true Zeus, whose orders all the things that are obey so implicitly that they would rather be destroyed than not fulfil them. The man, therefore.
16 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli died, for what He had foretold had to be. Let us, then, gradually trace the death he died. It was not that death of the body or flesh which an impious but vigorous speaker might perhaps say had been better than propagating such a disaster-laden race. For he lived more than nine hundred years longer. Everlasting death, therefore, followed, as far as the deed itself and guilt are concerned, that is, he deserved not only the death of the body but everlasting death. And this his fear and the display of nakedness show. For when Adam said, “I was afraid when I heard thy voice, for I was naked” [Gen. 3: 10], he betrayed by his fear the guiltiness of his conscience which accused itself of its treachery, and in its self-love trembled at the death of which it felt itself worthy. Yet he still ventured to make up a new pretext, to deceive Him, forsooth, who knew that the man was going to do this before He created him, and said, “I am naked.” What of it? He had created him naked. ”Let Him see me naked,” should have been his thought. But all this is the reasoning of *a despairing conscience, which by its fear and vainly-sought escape admitted its damnation righteous.
We have then a transgressor and a runaway who is damned by his own judgment. For if he had not been damned in his own eyes, he would not have taken to flight. Then the goodness and mercy of the Creator brought out the remedy which it had provided before man fell. Through sinning he had deserved eternal death by the righteous judgment of God. God had determined to satisfy His righteousness by the death of His Son who cannot sin, that we might see at once most cleayly His righteousness and His mercy — His mercy in that He hung upon the cross His own Son for fallen man. His righteousness in that He redeemed him at such a price, for He shows that it could not have been satisfied more cheaply. He thus enters upon the path of clemency, in order to set us the example of doing nothing rashly or impulsively: — He turns immediate death into lasting disaster ; He banishes from Paradise, where all things sprang up unsown,* to a rebellious and intractable land, that what should have been at hand in a moment might be drawn forth by long toil. For this belonged to man’s discipline.
But the everlasting death, for which He found no remedy
On Original Sin 17
(since all things in the visible world were less than man, and all things in the invisible world were less than that price which His inviolate righteousness demanded), He remedied with His own Son. And that at just the right moment, as some prophet — (or is not a Christian poet a prophet? I say he is) — once sang, “He Himself then marked out the wood [the cross] to undo the damage of the wood” [the tree in Paradise].* Presently, when supreme wisdom saw that man was going to make shipwreck by wood, it determined to throw him wood to cling to and bring him to shore, and promised that there should be born of woman one who should bruise the head of the general enemy, for through his wiles the incautious had been ruined. And God would have been unfaithful to this promise, if no fruit of the victory had returned unto Adam. For what could it have done but increase the man’s pain to know that a deliverer was to come, but he was to have no part in him ?
Adam understood, therefore, that this seed was to bring salvation not only to his posterity but to himself also; yet he did not know the particular time that it was to come. Both of these statements are proved by the following testimony: Gen. 4: 1, “She [Eve] bare Cain” (and gave him this name) “and said, I have gotten a man with [the help of] the Lord,” or through the Lord. In these words are seen as in a mirror the desires of the woman. “I have gotten,” she says, that is, I have found, obtained, or acquired (for that is the force of the Hebrew — “I have obtained,” I say) “a man” — him, that is, whom God had promised under the name of “seed,” — “with God,” or “through God,” that is, by the goodness of God. Here you have the view they had of the promise of God. Here also the ignorance of the time, for they thought that he was already at hand who was hardly to come after the course of many years. In the same book, 5 : 28 and 29, we see the same desires in Lamech. When Noah had been born to him, he said, “This same shall
•The Latin verse : “Ipse lignum tunc notavit, Damna ut ligni solveret,” quoted by Zwingli, is taken from a hymn in honor of the sacred cross, by Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus, who lived in the sixth century. See his Miscellanea, Lib. II, cap. 2, in Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. LXXXVIII, col. 88; also Wackernagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied, Vol. I, p. 61. For the life and work of Fortunatus, see DuflSeld, Latin Hymnwriters and their Hymns, (1889), chap. IX, pp. 88-96.
18 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands,” thinking likewise that it was he who had been promised, because he was the tenth and a thousand years had now passed since the creation of the world. This pious man erred twice, but innocently, for the time was not yet at hand, nor was this he who was promised, but only a type of him, as Peter witnesseth [I Pet. 3:20-21].
My object in all this is to show that the promise made to the first mortals was carefully kept in mind by them, even if expression was given to this in few words, and that the hope or confidence they had in this seed did not deceive them. On this matter I shall speak more distinctly in the third division. I have given a foretaste of it here as far as was necessary to justify me in myself pronouncing judgment when I was forbidding others to do so. For I do not deny that the damnation of all who had come from so contaminated a source would have followed, if the^ goodness of God had not counteracted the evil. Since it has done so, the problem must evidently be solved in this way — we must admit the great power for damnation that sin would have had, and we must likewise recognize how much of its strength has been taken from it by the remedy which God has provided.
To the second objection 1 answer that I never said without qualification that original sin cannot damn. For in the book upon Baptism I bore witness that I was speaking only of the children of Christians, saying that the original guilt could not damn them. The book itself plainly bears witness to this in two passages.* Hence I was not a little surprised at the theatrical cries, “Do ye see where Zwingli is going in the matter of original sin?” and “What is this but making Christ void?” This I have added simply because I am sure about the children of Christians, that they are not damned by original sin ; as to those of others I am less sure, though, to confess frankly, the view that I have taught seems to me the more probable one, that we have no right to pronounce rashly about the children even of
*See ed. of Schuler and Schulthess, Vol. II, 1, p. 287: “For what we say here of the original sin of children, refers to the children of believers only.” Also p. 288: “Hence it is clear, contrary to all theologians, that the children of believers cannot be damned because of original sin, for they do not know the law.”
On Original Sin 19
Gentiles and those who do the works of the law according to the law written in their hearts by the finger of God. This conclusion, then, that the children of Christians are not damned by the original disease, I establish in the following manner:
The condition of those who are born of Christian parents is on a par with that of those who were descended from Abraham. But the original disease did not destroy these ; therefore, this disease will not destroy the others, I mean ours. The first proposition I prove thus: Those who are of the same Church are under the same condition, just as those who belong to the same commonwealth, share the same fortunes. Now the Church which is made up by joining Gentiles and Jews is one and the same. Therefore the condition is one and the same. Proof of this you will find all through the Scriptures and so richly that there is no need of tarrying long in setting it forth. Christ Himself testifies that he is the cornerstone which unites the two walls, Matt. 21 : 42. Again He says there is one shepherd and one fold, again, that the vineyard is the same, and He fixes equal wages for the husbandmen, even though a large part of them had come late. Again, He says, “They shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.”* Therefore we are joined to them, not they to us. Again, He says that peace t came to the house of Zacchaeus, because he was a son of Abraham.
Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, ch. 11 [ : 17], says that they were cut off that we might be grafted in. In Gal. 3 : 7, he says, “They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham,” and in the same chapter, “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” Peter teaches the same thing, I Peter 2 : 10. If, then, Abraham’s faith and ours are one (for he trusted in God just as much as we do, through the seed which had been promised him, rather than because he was now at hand in whom they trusted when only promised), it is clear that the Church of both is one. The lot and condition of this Church will, therefore, also be the same.
Now the second proposition, namely, that original sin has not consigned to everlasting damnation those who were born
•Matt. 8: 11. The words “God of” are not in Matthew. fLuke 19: 9 speaks of “salvation,” not “peace.”
20 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli of Abraham according to the promise, I estabUsh thus : — Jacob was beloved by God before he was born ; original sin, therefore, cannot have damned him. So Jeremiah, John and others. If you say that this has nothing to do with the case in hand, but concerns election and predestination, you are altogether right. Therefore, blessedness and grace are from election, so also is rejection, not from the participation in signs or sacraments. But let us hasten to plainer facts. In Gen. 17 : 7, God thus speaks unto Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.” If, therefore, He promises that He will be a God to Abraham’s seed, that seed cannot have been damned because of original guilt, and He is speaking of the seed born to him according to the promise. For between those whose God He is and Himself there is established a friendship ; if there is established a friejidship, no damnation because of the condition of birth can intervene.
Now, whatever is said of the seed according to the promise, is to be understood of us likewise who are born of Christiati parents. For we are sons of the promise as Isaac was. Gal. 4 : 28. From the initiation by the token it is clear that the children of the Hebrews had not been damned because of original sin. For the token of circumcision was the token of the covenant. For so it is considered. Gen. 17 : 10-12, ”This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money, etc.” I have quoted this passage at length because there are many profitable things contained in it, not only for the present argument, but for the present day, all of which I will briefly point out. First, we see the symbol of the testament, circumcision, called here the “covenant” or “testament.” Why, then, do we wrangle so fiercely about the cup of the Supper of thanksgiving, which is a testament, since Christ [Luke 22 : 20] called it a “testament” in exactly the same way in which circumcision is called the “testament” here, metaphorically
On Original Sin 21 namely, for the name of the thing signified is transferred to the sign. So the bread is called “the body;” the wine, “the blood;” by metonymy, because they are symbols of these.
Now it is the Hebrew habit to use frequent figures of speech more than other nations. For their language, though of meagre vocabulary, is imposing through use of tropes. Indeed, scantiness of vocabulary forces one to turn to the use of tropes, as it were. Why do we devote study to language if we are to return to the point from which we have driven the pontifical party? They refused to accept tropes when you said there was a trope in, “He that eateth my flesh” [John 6: 54], and “My flesh is meat indeed” [John 6 : 55] , and they kept insisting, “The words are clear, are simple, are in harmony with the sacraments of the Church.” If we ourselves now cry out in the same way about the words, “This bread is my body,” “We won’t have a trope; the words are simple, plain, inviolable, clear as glass,” are we not like unto them? Nay, why do we object so mightily to their taking literally the much clearer words, “My flesh is meat indeed” (for they include the distinguishing mark “indeed”),* when in the passage, “This is my body,” we do the same thing as the pontifical crowd themselves? But of this elsewhere. This is not the place to speak more at length than I have done before of this subject of Hebrew metonymy.
Second, we see the same token called “a token of the covenant,” which had just been called the “covenant.” Third, it is the token of that covenant which existed between God and Abraham. Therefore, the infants were included in the covenant, for the token was given to them, that it might be an indication that they were just as much in the covenant as Abraham. Therefore, also, our children are included in the covenant just as much as they were, for we are sons of the promise, as I showed from Galatians a little while ago. Fourth, even the slaves were circumcised, whether born in the house or bought, whence we see that the household was counted with its master or lord. And this is very hard upon the Catabaptists, but they do not look to the free election of God, but think salvation is
•This point becomes still more effective if we translate the Vulgate: “My flesh is truly meat.” The Greek text reads literally: “My flesh is true meat.”
22 The Works of Huldreich Zwin^li bound up with symbols, as the pontifical party does.
Paul says, Gal, 4:26, “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” This mother is nothing else than the liberation through Christ. For a little later [Gal. 5 : 1] he says, ”Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you* free.” If, therefore, we are not made free from original sin, being born of Christian parents, the condition of those who are in Christ after the coming of Christ is worse than that of the people of old, which is even more impious than it is foolish. For Paul is not speaking of carnal liberty, but liberty from the law. And if we have been freed from the law, original sin cannot damn us, for that would damn us through the power of the law that had been transgressed. Paul likewise alludes so plainly to this idea in Rom. 11 : 16, that, though treating another topic, namely the election of Jews and Gentiles, he yet seems to have held this idea of mine most distinctly when he says, “If the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy ; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.” And here I am not tying up the immunity of infants from original sin with the holiness of their parents but with that of God who elects, just as among the ancients children had immunity from it, not on account of the special holiness of the lump or dough, though they were partakers in the testament, but in consequence of the goodness of God who elects and calls.
He touches upon the same point Rom. 5 : 19-21, and most plainly of all, when after many things that make for this view he says at length, “For as by one man’s disobedience so many of us were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many of us be made righteous,”! (for “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”), “that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ.”
Here I ask, whether origmal sin proceeded from Adam or not? If not, why is Pelagius damned? But he is rightly damned in accordance with this testimony and the others of which mention has been made above. If so, then all the evil
•The Greek text has “us” instead of “you.”
Quoted by Zwingli in a slightly different form from that found in the Revised Version.
On Original Sin 23
Adam did in sinning has been made good through the grace of Christ. For the first Adam was made a living soul, but the second a quickening spirit [I Cor. 15 : 45] . In a word, as Adam’s sin so corrupted our birth that nothing is born but what is vitiated, so Christ’s righteousness has renewed it so thoroughly that the corruption does not harm us unless when we have grown up we again become faithless and ruin ourselves by our own guilt, acting in contravention of the law. For they that trust in Christ are not damned even if they have transgressed the law. How much less are they damned who are in Christ and have done no wrong ! Original and actual sin must be admitted to have been made good through Christ, just as we admit it to have come about through Adam. The words are in themselves so plain that they resist much elaboration.
And here it is proper to ask whether Christ restored the whole race or only the church of the faithful? Though I might have answered this question in a few words to the effect that Christ benefited by His healing power exactly as much as Adam injured by sinning; that, further, Adam infected the whole lump with original sin, therefore Christ restored the whole, I have preferred not to put forth this opinion, both because some things seem to contradict it, and because I do not know whether anybody has held it. But I have said this only, that original sin cannot damn the children of Christians, because although sin would, to be sure, damn according to the law, it cannot damn on account of the remedy provided by Christ, especially it cannot damn those who are included in the covenant which was concluded with Abraham. About these we have other strong and clear testimony ; about the others, who are born outside of the Church, we have nothing but the present testimony, so far as I know, and things similar to this fifth chapter of Romans, by which it can be proved that those who are born outside of the Church are cleansed of original pollution.
But if any one shall say in regard to these also that it is more probable that the children of the heathen are saved through Christ than that they are damned, certainly he will diminish the work of Christ less than those who damn those born within the Church, if they die without the washing of baptism, and he will have more basis and authority for his view in the Scriptures than those who deny this. For he would be maintaining
24 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli nothing more than that the children even of the heathen are not damned in tender years because of the original defect, and this through the blessing of Christ, while for grown persons there was no grace left because they did not trust in Christ. But if they show by their works that the law is written in their hearts, and that without hypocrisy, then it has already been shown plainly enough that they are to be reckoned among the circumcised. For where works worthy of God are done, there the fear of God existed before. This is proved by Jethro, whose heart was so imbued with the heavenly wisdom that he was of assistance in establishing the law even to Moses who talked with God face to face [Ex. 33] ; and by Cornelius the centurion, whose alms and prayers God regarded before the Gospel had been explained to him [Acts 10: 31]. Should one say, therefore, that their nature had been renewed through Christ, these things that I have said would follow. If, on the other hand, only the Church is restored, it will follow that salvation through Christ does not extend so widely as the ravages of the disease that began with Adam. For no one, I think, denies that the children of the heathen are just as much born with inclination to sin as our children. But however the case may be with the children of the heathen (for one might maintain, and perhaps rightly, that the words of Paul, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,” and “as sin hath reigned unto death, even so grace reigneth unto eternal life by Jesus Christ” [Rom. 5 :20] and the like, were said by synecdoche and are not to be understood of others than the faithful and their children, and, therefore, I also attribute liberation from original sin to them only, leaving others to the judgment of God), so be it that we poor mortals in our boldness consign to everlasting death some about whom we have no clear word of God; are they on that account really damned?
This point also arises: — If a heathen shows by the works of the law that the law is written in his heart, and Paul really prefers him to the circumcised, then the office of faith is done away with and everything comes back to works. To this I answer, that Paul presupposes that he who does the works of the law, does them in consequence of faith, for he wrestles with the fact that many boasted the faith of Abraham on the ground that they had been circumcised. He is proving that they have
On Original Sin 25 not faith if they do not the works of faith, and so also is James to be understood. On the other hand, he argues that if the uncircumcised doeth, in consequence of faith to be sure (for who could approve what is done from hypocrisy?), the works which the law orders, he shows clearly that the fear of God is written in his heart [Rom. 2 : 29] . He demands, therefore, faith before all things. And he says this ”is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” [Rom. 9: 16]. Therefore, the fear of God and piety,* as well as holiness, are not bound up with signs, although it is fitting that those who have been taught should not be without the signs, that they may give evidence to the rest as to whom they have given their allegiance, and be enrolled in the unity of the Church.
This point must not be passed over, either, that whether our children only or those of the heathen also, if that view should prevail, are altogether restored in nature through Christ as far as the original pollution is concerned, they are in the state of innocence as long as they are too young to know the law, as I have unhesitatingly maintained, relying for support upon the authority of Paul to the Romans, 4 : 15, “For where no law is, there is no transgression.” And those of tender years who know not the law are just as much without the law as Paul was. Therefore, they do not transgress, and consequently are not damned. And Paul says, Rom. 7 : 9, that he was alive without the law once, but that is to be understood of no part of his life except infancy and boyhood. At that time, therefore, sin was dead to him. But when the law had come to life, he testifies that he died. In the same way, we ourselves do not sin, as long as we are ignorant of the law because of our age, but when the light of the law has shone upon us, we become liable to it. And if faith is in us we cease not to strive for what the law orders, and at the same time failing in all our efforts cry, “Forgive us our debts,” and cling with sure confidence to the Lord, who pardoneth all things through His Son.
Now I will come to the last part of the discussion, in which I undertook to prove this thesis, that the original defect is removed only by the blood of Christ and cannot be removed
26 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli by the washing of baptism. The first part I establish thus: — The ancients thought of everything in symbols; especially was this the case with the varied ritual of the animal sacrifices, the mysterious symbol of the universal sacrifice which was to complete the old order in its consummation, as Daniel foretells more clearly than the other prophets, chapters 9 and 12. [Dan. 9 : 27 ; 12 : 11] . But in these sacrifices soundness and cleanness were the first requisites demanded. When, therefore, God says plainly in various passages of the prophets that He is not pleased with these offerings, it is clear that the cleanness of the animals signified nothing else than that the sacrifice which was to cleanse our consciences must be absolutely clean. But what created thing is so clean that it can be made a sacrifice for the unclean in the sight of the Supreme Good, or that it would not have become unclean by the very fact of having been offered in sacrifice for sinners? For the sacrifice had to be voluntary and free, as the free offerings of old fore-shadowed, and Paul in the Letter to the Hebrews,‘10 [: 1] teaches. Adam also had sinned voluntarily. Since, therefore, no created thing could without arrogance take this upon itself, it is manifest that the divine righteousness could not have been reconciled by anything but the Son of God who had created man, that he might be restored through Him by whom he had been made.
The first essential for a physician is knowledge of the disease he is to cure, as nobody denies. When, therefore, the soul of man was sick, none could apply a remedy to it save one who accurately understood the disease. And this none could do but God. For He alone knoweth the heart of the sons of man, ni Kings* 8 : 39. The human heart, therefore, could be restored to health through no other physician or medicine than God.
When the divine Baptist says [John 1 : 29] , “Behold the lamb that taketh away the sins of the world,” he shows plainly that there is nothing else whatever that can atone for the world but this lamb. For this is what he means.
Finally the Truth itself bears witness that He had to die.
•Ill Kings in Vulgate, but I Kings in English Version. In the Septuagint and the Vulgate the books of Samuel are counted as I and II Kings.
On Original Sin 27
Since, therefore, He had to die, no other could in any way remedy the evil. Thus Matth. 26 : 24 says, ‘The Son of man goeth as it is written of him.” In the same chapter, “thus it must be.” Luke 24: 26, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” Mark 8: 31, “The Son of man must suffer.” John 3: 14 and 15, “The Son of man must be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Divine Providence, therefore, determined to reconcile the world to Himself through His own Son. Let it be, therefore, a sacrilege to inquire whether the thing could have been accomplished by other means or another author.
From this it is easily proved that absolutely no sin is taken away by the washing of baptism. For Christ the Lamb taketh away the sins of the world. And I John 2: 2, cries out thus: “He is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Also chapter 1 : 7, “The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin.” He ^ who says, “from all,” omits nothing. The blood, therefore, cleanseth from original sin also, not the washing of baptism. If we had not divine testimony to this, yet it would be witnessed to by the spirit, the water, and the blood, of which I John 5 : 5-8 speaks thus: “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness — the spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three are one.” The water, therefore, that is, the heavenly teaching which the Spirit maketh to grow in our hearts that we may trust in the blood of Christ, shows well enough that these external things cannot cleanse the conscience. Otherwise the death of Christ were superfluous, if by corporeal things the incorporeal substance of the soul could be purified. And we have witness to this view in Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews, 9 : 9 and 10, “Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience ; which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.” By these
28 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli words of the apostle we see clearly that such externals have no efficacy towards perfecting the conscience.
Yet this must be noted at the same time, that baptism is sometimes used for the blood or passion of Christ. This, again, by metonymy, the name of the sign being transferred to the thing signified, for metonymy is a transposition of names. For instance, when I Peter 3: 20 and 21 teaches that we are saved through baptism in the same way that men were saved of old in the ark, we are not to understand, by heaven, the washing of baptism, but Christ Himself or His blood and death, for by these we have been redeemed, as the apostle himself immediately explains. We see here again incidentally the sign used for that of which it is the sign. How foolish, therefore, would any one seem, who because of these words should maintain that we were washed clean of our sins by the baptismal waters ! Thus, consequently, what is said in Eph. 5 : 26 of the washings of water by the word, and in Romans 6 : 3 and 4, is not to be taken literally, but the force of these figurative expressions is to be judged by faith and our knowledge of heavenly things.
And this also we ought not to suffer to go unnoticed, that baptism is the sign of the Church of Christ, just as an army has its sign ; not that this sign unites one to the Church, but that he who is already united to it receives the public badge, just as no one is enrolled in an army because he has the sign upon him (otherwise enemies and traitors, who sometimes exchange signs by stratagem, would belong to the army), but he who has been already enrolled in the army is thought worthy of a public sign that all men may see that he has promised allegiance to that leader under whom he has agreed to serve. We have fine proof of this view in Acts 2 : 44 and 45, ”And all that believed were together, and had all things common ; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need,” etc. But those who were together in this fashion, had already heard preaching and had been baptized. There is no doubt that their children also were with them. Otherwise those first fruits of the faithful would have been wilder than wild beasts. This gives me a two-fold argument, first, that these children were reckoned with the Church just as much as their parents; second, that they were baptized equally with their parents, of which more another time.
On Original Sin 29
Furthermore, that by baptism nothing is achieved but the marking with a sign him who is counted a member of the ^ Church, is effectively testified to by what Paul writes in I Cor. 10: 1-4, “All our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea ; and did all eat the same spiritual meat ; and did all drink the same spiritual drink,” etc. Now, it is an accepted fact that they were not initiated with the same rite of baptism which we use. When, therefore, he says that they were baptized by the cloud and the sea, it is manifest that baptism has no more power towards our justification than the sea and cloud had towards theirs. Those who had come out of Egypt and were in the congregation of the people of God were moistened by these waters; in like manner those who through Christ have come out of the bondage of the Devil are washed with the water of baptism. For St. Augustine proves* that they had different signs from ours but the same faith. Signs, therefore, are nothing but externals, by which nothing is effected in the conscience, but faith is the only thing through which we are blessed — that faith which clings truly and firmly to the promises of God. The external things, therefore, are symbols of spiritual things, but they are by no means themselves spiritual, nor do they perfect anything spiritual in us, but they are the badges, as it were, of those who are of the spirit.
I had purposed to put all this together more carefully than time allowed. The nearness of the market-time has forced me to hurry, and that habit of postponing things, by which countless occupations crowd all that I write into some brief moment, in which then I have to fulfil all of a sudden what I have promised.
I will, therefore, sum up in a few words by way of conclusion. This is my view in regard to original sin, that it is a defect and disease, which was inflicted upon our first parents as a penalty. Their progeny is so polluted by their transgression that whatever is born of them has inclination to sin, and, unless
*This thought is found in Augustine’s Homilies on the Gospel of John, Tract 45, §9: “See then how that while the faith remained, the signs were varied. There the rock was Christ; to us that is Christ which is placed on the altar of God… Under different signs there is the same faith.” See Schaff, ‘Sicene Fathers, First Series, VII, 252.
30 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli
Divine Clemency had provided for an effective remedy at the right moment, all who have been born from that source would have perished. The goodness of God, therefore, met this catastrophe through the death of His own Son, so that, although the remnants of original sin, namely the disposition to self-love,* cling tenaciously to us, yet they cannot harm those who are in Christ Jesus. For original sin cannot damn in any other way than the law does, and that can damn no more, even if we sometimes sin, for “there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,” Eom. 8: 1.
Our birth is, to be sure, contaminated by inclination to sin, but the contamination harmeth not, for its poison has been taken from it through Christ. And in Christ are not only the parents whom Divine Mercy has brought into the light and grace of faith, but also their children, no less than those who were born of Abraham according to the promise. For the faith is the same and the testament or covenant the same as far as the inner man is concerned. For those men of old leaned upon the mercy of God through the promise of Christ just as much as we do now that He has appeared. He, therefore, by His blood so thoroughly atoned for whatever could damn that there is nothing left that can exercise tyranny over us — not the flesh, nor the law, nor the Devil, the Prince of this World. So completely also did He obtain all things from the Father by His death that whatever we ask in His name is granted. Hence no created thing ought to be worshipped or held in such esteem as if it had any power for the cleansing of our consciences or the salvation of souls. And all this I hold in such a way that if any man shall convict me of manifest error by the testimony of the really Holy Scriptures, I am determined not only to let myself be torn from my error, but to be grateful to him who shall tear me from it.
This is what for some time, most learned Urbanus, I have been turning over in my mind about original sin. I have at times also looked into the ancient writers on this matter, but how dark and involved their utterances are, not to say, based upon human rather than celestial teaching, I think you also will remark when you go to them again. I have had no leisure to go back to them for several years. For on what testimony of
On Original Sin 31
Scripture, pray, does it rest that by baptism original sin is taken away or grace conferred, unless under the symbol of baptism you understand Christ who is symbolized by it? For in Him are all things saved unto us. How much harsher is it that the children of Christians, if they have not been baptized, are irretrievably doomed to everlasting damnation, and that without any authority from Scripture! For how much I ask do the Scriptures which they twist differ from this their opinion !
Let us, then, I beg, preach Christian piety with solicitude and purity, and let us not be prematurely troubled as to the abolition of the mass or the casting out of the images, but let us labor to restore to their Creator the hearts that are given over to this world. The mass has fallen already ; the images will, I think, disappear of their own motion. For we shall banish in vain one or the other unless public piety ratify the decree. And when that shall be done, all the princes of the world will try in vain to restore them. For they will get no spoil except to run against some wall like Balaam and hit their feet rather sharply. For he lieth not who said “him that falleth upon this stone it shall break, but upon whom it shall fall it shall grind him to powder” [Matth. 21 : 44]. We must so live under God’s protection secure and undaunted that if the world should break into fragments the ruins would strike us unafraid. How many of the heathen do we see honored and glorified by that death from which we all flee when life is prosperous, but for which all call when life is dark! For they have met nobly what in the belief of the crowd is the bitterest of all things. And shall we hesitate, we the soldiers of a commander so faithful and so devoted to us that He threw himself into the danger before us, especially when our hopes look not to the empty gain of winning a name but to the possession of an everlasting inheritance of no mean order, unless those things are trifles which God has given us in His only begotten Son? For we are co-heirs with Him.
Let us, therefore, fight vigorously and prudently on a fair field, for we are defending a most righteous cause, in which we feel sure there is no hidden wrong. Let them hurl upon us from the hostile camp those soldiers’ insults — “traitors,” “robbers,” “weaklings.” Let us care nothing for them, trusting completely to our cause. Things have come, alas, to such a pitch of boldness that we accuse others of that of which we are
32 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli ourselves chiefly guilty, by a beautiful anthypophora,* i. e., a reply made to a hypothetical objection, anticipating what can fairly be hurled at ourselves, that our enemy may be kept busy caring for his wounds and have no time to strike back. But though such weapons are sharp, they do not penetrate any more than the beards of grain, than which nothing is sharper and at the same time less eflPective.
Do you, dear Brother in the Lord, take all this in kind and good part. Let us pray the Lord for each other, that He finish His work which He has begun, and so strengthen our hearts that we shall nowhere lack His glory. Farewell, and greet Rana and Agricola,t whom I am so far from wishing any ill that I anxiously implore the Lord to make their ministry faithful in the Gospel and sustain them.
Zurich, August 15th, 1526.
- av^vTTOKpopd, is lit. something put up against (ai)Ti) an excuse or ob. jection ( vKOipopQ).
fBoth of them preachers at Nuremberg, along with Rhegius, and devoted to Luther. Rana’s real name was John Frosch.
An Account op the Faith of Huldreich Zwingli Submitted TO THE German Emperor Charles V, at the Diet op Augsburg.
(July 3, 1530)
[AD CAROLVM | ROMANORVM IMPERATO- | rem Germaniae comitia Augustae cele- | brantem, Fidei Huldrychi | Zwingli j ratio.] Then a woodcut of the Emperor Charles. Below: VENITE AD ME OMNES QVI LABORATIS I et onerati estis, et ego reficiam uos. | Anno M.D. XXX. Mense Julio. | Vincat ueritas, | At the end (p. 39) Tigvri apvd Chri- | stophorum Froschouer. | 40 unnumbered quarto pages. Signed, p. 39: Tiguri, tertio die Julij, M.D. XXX. A copy of this edition is in the library of Union Theological Seminary, New York. A second Latin edition of 72 octavo pages appeared in 1530, signed: Tiguri, XXVII. die Augusti. Anno M.D. XXX. Two German editions of 52 unnumbered octavo pages appeared also in 1530, the first entitled: Zu Karoln RomiscJien Kei- | ser, jetzund vff dem Rychstag zu Augsburg, | Bekenntnuss des Oloubens, durch | Huldrich Zuinglium. | Then a woodcut of Charles V. Below the verse: Kummend zu mir alle die arbeitend vnd beladen sind, vn \ ich wil iich ruio geben. Christus Matth. XI. | Die Warheyt sol den sig haben. | Signed at the end, p. 51 : Oetrukt zu Zilrich by Christoffel Froschouer. Finsler, Zwingli Bibliographie, Nos. 92-93. A modern German translation appeared in R. Christoffel’s, Huldreich Zwingli, ( 1857) Vol. II, pp. 237-262; an abbreviated translation in modern German in Ulrich Zwingli, Fine Auswahl aus seinen Schriften, Zurich, 1917, pp. 739-757. An early English translation was published at Zurich in 1543. Its title is as follows: “The Rekening and de- | claracion of the faith and beleif of Huldrik | Zwingly, bischoppe of Ziiryk the cheif | town of Heluetia, sent to Charles V. that | nowe is Emprowr of Rome: holdinge a | Perlemente or Cownsaill at Aus- | brough with the cheif Lordis & | lerned men of Germanye. | The yere of our Lorde | M.D.XXX. In the | monethe of | Julye. | Come ye to me all that labour, & | ar laden: and I shall refres- | she you. Mathe. XI. | The verite will haue the victory : | Presse ye it down neuer so strongly. | Translated & Imprynted at | Ziiryk in Marche Anno | Do. M.D.XLIII. | 68 unnumbered small quarto pages, of which five are “The Preface of the
34 The Works of Huldreich Zwingli translatour, unto the reader.” It concludes with five pages of “The complayninge Prayer of the pore persecuted maryed Preistis with their wyuea & Children chased owte of Englond into sondry places of Germanye : crying vnto God in their harde desolate exyle and greuouse affliccion.” A copy of this edition is in the library of Union Theological Seminary, New York City. A later English rendering by Thomas Cotsford appeared in Geneva in 1555.
The following English translation is based on that of Prof. Dr. H. E. Jacobs, in his Book of Concord, Vol, II, pp. 159-179. It was revised throughout by the editor.
When Charles V. had concluded peace with the king of France and the Pope, he held, in the summer of 1530, the Diet of Augsburg, which was of fundamental importance for the Reformation in Germany. At this Diet a confession of faith, known as the “Augustana,” which had been written by Melanchthon and signed by the Protestant princes of Germany, was submitted to the emperor on June 25, 1530. The feeling against the adherents of Reformed principles was so strong that neither the Catholics nor the Lutherans would have anything to do with them. On June 23, Bucer wroto to Zwingli: “Nothing more intolerant can be imagined than the hatred which the Lutlrerans have against us.” Hence the Reformed cities of South Germany were compelled to hand in a separate confession of faith. In the name of Strassburg, Constance, Memmingen and Lindau, Bucer and Capito drew up a confession, known as the “Tetrapolitana,” which was handed to the emperor on July 11th. Jacob Sturm had sent Zwingli a copy of the Augsburg Confession on May 31st, and he had expressed the hope that Zwingli would also submit to the emperor a confession and defense, in which he would “as piously as possible and without ofTending anybody give an account of his faith.” The harsh condemnation of the Reformed faith by Melanchthon made such a statement seem even more necessary. On June 28th, Sturm repeated his suggestion and added: “Who knows but that in this way the emperor may be led to see the truth, which has been wrongly represented thus far by the Papists” (Zwingli’s Werke, VIII, 359, 469 ) . As there was no time to assemble the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland and as silence might be open to misconstruction, Zwingli was compelled to compose a confession in his own name, which he did in three days. He sent it to Augsburg by special messenger. It was handed to the emperor not by one of Zwingli’s friends, but by a most violent opponent, the provost of Waldkirch, who was then Bishop Designate of Constance (Zwingli’s Werke, VIII, 477). This was on July 8th, five days after it came from the press. About this event Bucer and Capito wrote to Strassburg. on July 12, 1530: “On the 8th day of July Zwingli’s manly confession of faith was handed to the emperor by a special messenger.” The Diet paid no attention to it, the emperor probably never read a line of it. The Lutherans belittled it, while John Eck, the Catholic theologian made it the occasion of a violent attack.]
An Account of the Faith of Zwing-li 35
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