As the theses of Zwingle may be considered the creed of the Swiss Reformers, it will be satisfactory to the reader, briefly to state the most important of these propositions.
"That the gospel is the only rule of faith, and the assertion erroneous that it is nothing without the approbation of the Church of Rome; that Christ is the only head of the church; that all traditions are to be rejected; that the attempt of the clergy to justify their pomp, their riches, honors, and dignities, is the cause of the divisions in the church; that penances are the dictates of tradition alone, and do not avail to salvation; that the mass is not a sacrifice, but simply the commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ; that meats are indifferent; that God has not forbidden marriage to any class of Christians, and consequently it is wrong to interdict it to priests, whose celibacy has become the cause of great licentiousness of manners. To give absolution for money is to be guilty of simony; that God alone has power to forgive sins -the word of God says nothing of purgatory. The assertion that grace is necessarily derived from receiving the sacraments is a doctrine of modern invention; that no person ought to be molested for his opinions, as it is for the magistrate to stop the progress of those which tend to disturb the public peace."