The Impact of Zwingle's Preaching

[GHansen]

On Sunday the 19th of January [1528], the day on which the doctrine of the mass was attacked, Zwingle, desirous of acting on the people also, went into the pulpit, and reciting the Apostles’ Creed, made a pause after these words: “He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” These three articles,” said he “are in contradiction to the mass.” All his hearers redoubled their attention; and a priest, clothed in his sacerdotal vestments, who was preparing to celebrate the holy sacrifice in one of the chapels, stopped in astonishment at Zwingle’s words. Erect before the consecrated altar on which lay the chalice and the body of the Savior, with eyes fixed upon the reformer, whose words electrified the people, a prey to the most violent struggles, and beaten down by the weight of truth, the agitated priest resolved to give up everything for it. In the presence of the whole assembly, he stripped off his priestly ornaments, and throwing them on the altar, he exclaimed: “Unless the mass reposes on a more solid foundation, I can celebrate it no longer!” The noise of this conversion, effected at the very foot of the altar, immediately spread through the city,  and it was regarded as an important omen. So long as the mass remains, Rome has gained everything: as soon as the mass falls, Rome has lost all. The mass is the creative principle of the whole system of Popery.

D'Aubigne, History of The Reformation, book 15, chapter 2