Zwingle was anxious, disquieted, and filled with the most painful forebodings as to the future. He saw the storm gathering on all sides. Those who had been his friends turned against him; his enemies, taking courage from the ebbing tide of affairs, beset and tormented him; for there were many at Zurich whose hearts still clung to the hereditary despotism, though they had professed some zeal for the principles of Reform. The partisans of the monks, the friends of foreign service, pensioners, and the malcontents of every class, united in pointing out Zwingle as the author of all the sufferings of the people. Seeing his actions were misrepresented, and the measures he had counseled were rejected, he felt he had only to withdraw from public life.
The magistrates were dismayed. Both Zurich and the Reformation are in danger. if Zwingle cease to pilot the ship; they were now in the same vessel, and on the stormy waters of religious contention. Immediately the council sent to him a deputation of honor, and entreated him not to forsake them at so critical a moment. Three days and three nights he spent in prayer, earnestly seeking divine guidance. All the tenderness of friendship, and all the ardor of patriotism were employed in vain by the deputies; but when they represented to him the blow that the Reformation would sustain if he left Zurich, he yielded and consented to retain his post.
By thus consenting to remain at the head of affairs, he had thought to recover all his former influence and restore harmony and courage to Zurich; but he was bitterly disappointed. A strange infatuation seemed to possess both rulers and people. They daily became more and more indisposed towards the war which they at first so importunately demanded, and identified themselves with the passive policy of Berne. But as the Conference still professing pacific objects was held at Bremgarten, Zwingle, attended by two ecclesiastics, secretly repaired thither. He endeavored to persuade his friends to raise the blockade; representing to them the many evils which it had occasioned, and the fatal catastrophe in which it was likely to terminate. But his pleadings, though with tears and anguish of heart, were all in vain. On this occasion he took a mournful and last farewell of his young friend Bullinger, the pastor of the place, and commended to his charge the tottering church of God.