lve Cantons: "We have examined your letter
touching ourselves and our preachers, and are filled with great
surprise, grief and regret. We and our preachers are attacked therein
with haughty, sharp, and violent words, although in our own opinion we
are innocent. We had indeed thought that the many things, which he and
we have sent to you from pen and press, would have been honorably
considered and well received by you and your advisers. Nevertheless,
Master Ulric will vindicate himself. But to you, dear Confederates,
because you desire an answer from us at the next Annual Reckoning, we
send what follows: We have violated no treaty, given ear only to the
Divine Word, and invited any one to prove us in error. No one has come
to do this. It is well known how we have been excluded from the Diet,
and how, without consulting us and in the face of our protest, the
Conference was transferred to Baden. You ask us to prohibit Master
Ulric Zwingli from publishing books and writings against you, because
it is contrary to our treaties, and yet it is clear to you and all men,
that Doctor Eck and Faber, and their adherents, have issued sundry
little books and writings for the dishonor, shame and derision of us
and our preachers, which were carried, sent over and circulated at the
Diet, and in many other places, far and near, with boastful pomp and
rejoicing, and have been read and listened to with evident relish; and
truly it ought and must deeply pain and grieve us, as pious, honest,
faithful Confederates, that such strange, foreign, slanderous and
wicked people, who, beyond doubt, wish not only to lessen and obstruct
the profit, honor, piety and welfare of our glorious Confederacy, but
according to their race and nation, under a false show of good, to
obliterate and utterly destroy it, should receive almost more respect,
confidence and esteem than we. And yet, God knows, we have never had
any higher wish than to live on friendly terms with you, our dear
Confederates, and assist in all things, which might serve to the
praise, profit, honor and welfare of the United Confederacy; and as
formerly, in the pressure of war and other secular affairs, we
faithfully pledged to you our persons, honor and property, like good,
honest Confederates, and poured out our blood, so would we now do,
without looking back, as our pious forefathers, when our country calls
for it. If then, you had written, that you wished to appear before our
congregations,