we indeed would have made no objections; but since it is
contrary to treaties and old, praiseworthy custom and usage to do so
without our consent, we hope you will follow them. If complaints only
were to be made, truly we would have more reason to urge them than you.
What hard and unbecoming speeches are not we and ours compelled to
hear, when we meet you and yours in market-places, for buying and
selling! And did not that foreign monk. Doctor Murner of Luzern, for
the first time, at this Diet, publish against us a little book, full of
scandal and lies, and go to the furthest lengths of malice, when out of
an envenomed, envious heart, he defamed and abused us and ours in the
highest degree, in the presence of natives and foreigners, after the
disputation held at Baden, and all with such knavery, that, amid many
pious, honest men, who heard him, there was little displeasure, and yet
no one called him to order? Indeed it were much better if we sought to
put away such people, who bring no honor or profit to either party.
Heretofore matters proceeded very differently at the Diet, when we
conversed together about that which might promote the honor, the
happiness and the welfare of our Confederacy, and lived in old
friendship, brotherly fidelity and love."

The answer of Zwingli, who was the most aggrieved, was thought to be
more rude and independent: "That I"--he wrote--"have reviled the Twelve
Cantons, is, honorable Lords, unjustly charged against me; but that I
would expose the practices of Faber, who can justly blame me for that?
Faber himself could not stand, if he would visit me in the place, where
we have pledged sufficient security to Eck and him. That more words of
scandalous abuse stick in me than words of Holy Writ and truth, I must
allow you to say. You, the Five Cantons, have proclaimed me a heretic
before all the conferences or disputations, which cannot be made out,
though I should not stand up to answer you. If there be real, genuine
desire to learn the Word of God in truth, we must not attempt it with
_courtesans_, the whole Papacy and such dishonest people, who like Eck
have spoken so scandalously in regard to an estimable Confederacy. That
I have often been blamed by you for lying, falsehood and deceit, I must
likewise commend to God. But I do indeed think, if this letter of your
deputies were read at home before the Twelve Cantons, the smaller
number would be pleased with it. Pardon me, dear Lords, I also k