Welche ursach gebind ze ufrüren, welches die waren ufrürer sygind, und wie man zu Christlicher einigheit und fryden kommen möge

Zürich: Christopher Froschauer, 1525. SOLE EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in modern quarter vellum and marbled paper over boards. A very good copy. Title lightly soiled and with two early ownership inscriptions (one of them with shine-through to the verso of the leaf), small hole in blank margin of leaf A2, faint staining at the head of a few leaves, upper margin cut a bit close but not affecting the text, stain in upper blank margin of the third-to-last leaf. Impression of bearer type on final leaf. With a woodcut on the title page showing Jesus receiving the lame. On A3 verso is a large (approx. 5 x 5 cm.) woodcut initial with a battle scene. The (truncated) block is from a series by Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, a friend and supporter of Zwingli who, like Zwingli, had served as a mercenary in the Italian wars. "The alphabet is not only Froschauer's largest, but also the most attractive. These are graceful, lively genre pictures." (Leemann-van Elck, Froschauer, Fig. 89).

Sole edition of Zwingli’s "Against those who cause rebellion and those who are the true rebels, and how to achieve Christian unity and peace" (Gegen die, welche Ursache geben zu Aufruhr und wer die wahren Aufrührer sind, und wie man zu christlicher Einigkeit und Frieden gelingen möge).

Zwingli wrote this work in December 1524 in response to the actions and beliefs of a “rebellious” group of Zurich Anabaptists that would come to be known as the Swiss Brethren. The group was led by Conrad Grebel, George Blaurock, and Felix Manz, all former adherents of Zwingli. They broke with Zwingli over infant baptism, which the Brethren rejected as an unbiblical abomination.

In 1524 there was as yet no unified movement against infant baptism but several pastors urged their parishioners to resist the practice. As the number of parents refusing to have their children baptized grew, the Zurich Council responded by mandating the baptism of infants and setting a fine of one silver mark for those who refused to do so.

“By late fall 1524, Grebel’s circle brought their discontentment with the practice of infant baptism to Zwingli and asked for a judgment that would lift the Council’s fines on parents who did not have their children baptized. Zwingli arranged two discussions with them and the two other people’s priests. The first discussion took place on December 6. At the first meeting, as Zwingli recalled several years later, ‘the battle was keen but without affront to us as we especially considered their accusations with calmness.’ But he started work after the discussion on a treatise against ‘those who give cause for rebellion’ in evangelical territories, and Grebel came away anticipating that Zwingli’s writings ‘may well hit us.’

“Indeed, when Zwingli published his text, ‘Against those who Cause Rebellion and Those who are the True Rebels’, he wrote of four types of agitators who created upheaval in the church. Some were so motivated by ‘envy and hate for the papacy’ that they were ready to reject even good practices and teachings that continued under the Roman church; the gospel was lost on people with spiteful motives, ‘like seed falling on a rock.’  Some used reformers’ teachings of Christian liberty as if they had license to sin or to refuse legal obligations. And finally, a fourth party were ‘more inflated with knowledge of the gospel than ignited with love,’ constantly quarreling ‘about external things,’ and condemning others who did not conduct church affairs precisely as they saw fit. He suggested that the critics of infant baptism were of this sort.

“Zwingli had also perceived that behind their objection to infant baptism, [the Anabaptists] held concerns of ecclesiological purity that challenged the state’s legitimate role—as he saw it—in binding Christian society together by setting church policies and deterring people from undermining proper doctrine with the threat of criminal punishment:  ‘First they reject the state; then they want to keep the state, and yet no one in government is a Christian. Now they want to have their own church, later the government shall not use force to protect the preaching of the Gospel.’”(Leaman, Zwingli Writes Treatise against Those Causing “Rebellion”)

“In response, Grebel appealed to the Council in January 1525 and declared that he had never provoked or taken part in rebellion; anyone who had ever listened to him could witness to this. He asked the Council not to stain their hands with innocent blood. The Council fixed January 17, 1525, as the date for a public debate on infant baptism. The result: Zwingli stuck to his opinion, and Grebel and his friends to theirs. The Council took Zwingli’s side just as Zwingli had come out on theirs. On January 18, 1525, the Council decreed infant baptism as a state law, and any person who violated the law was threatened with instant banishment.”(Arnold, The Early Anabaptists)

Undeterred, Manz, Grebel, and Blaurock gathered at Manz’s house on January 21 and re-baptized each other. A year later, in 1526 the Zurich Council passed an edict proclaiming adult baptism punishable by drowning. Felix Manz was arrested and drowned in Lake Zurich in 1527. Grebel was arrested in 1526 but escaped with the help of friends, thwarting the Zurich Council. In September 1529 Blaurock was burned at the stake near Klausen, South Tyrol.

“For Zwingli, the critics of infant baptism were not showing the charity and forbearance to attend church with neighbors who did not live up to Christian ideals for behavior as well as they did, and such a posture was based on pride in their own lifestyle. In ‘‘Against those who Cause Rebellion’, he addressed the objectors, ‘Why do you continually rage about purely external matters?’. Indeed, if your diligence is only that one live in a Christian manner, you must not infuse those who are not living in a Christian manner with disparagement and accusation, but with gentleness and unceasing love. In short, this is my request to you, that you work as hard on yourselves to kill the greatest monster and poison to Christian living—namely, spiritual pride.’ He thought a benefit of a territorial church, rather than a separatist one, was that members would know their body was imperfect and thus be reminded that they were imperfect individuals in need of grace, as well.” (Leaman, Zwingli Writes Treatise against Those Causing “Rebellion”). (Inventory #: 4749)