Influenced, or rather misled, as we believe, by his republican education, Zwingle thought it but right for the Reformers and the Reformation to form a league of self-defense. Having long foreseen that the Reform movement would eventually divide his beloved country into two camps, he thought himself perfectly justified in promoting an alliance with the evangelical states. In the year 1527 he proposed what was called a Christian Co-Burghery, in which all the professors of the gospel might be united in a new Reformed confederation. Constance was the first to intimate her approval of the new league; Berne, St. Gall, Mulhausen, Basle, Schaffhausen, and Strasburg followed. "But this Christian Co-Burghery," says D'Aubigne, "which might become the germ of a new confederation, immediately raised up numerous adversaries against Zwingle, even among the partisans of the Reformation." The pastor of Zurich was now on dangerous ground, which the end too speedily proved. As a citizen he had been taught to consider the regeneration of his country as a part of his religion, and the church in which he was cradled had for centuries wielded two swords. Even in the present day we are surprised to find how much Continental Christians are governed by what is national.
Luther, who was an imperialist, was entirely opposed to the policy of carnal resistance. "Christians," he said, "ought not to resist the Emperor, and if he requires them to die they are to yield up their lives."