On Providence and Other Essays

307 pp. This volume contains a number of the later writings of Zwingli beginning with his treatise on original sin (1526) and concluding with his "Short and Clear Exposition of the Christian Faith" (1531). The longest and most important of the treatises collected here is his essay on providence which began as a sermon delivered by Zwingli at Marburg during the Marburg Colloquy, October 1-4, 1529. As rewritten by Zwingli in 1530 the sermon has become a philosophical treatise. In his philosophy he follows principally Aristotle and the Stoics. The doctrine of God, starting from the conception of the highest Being, is developed into a cosmological argument for the Being of God. Upon this basis the discussion of divine providence proceeds, culminating in the question of divine predestination. The volume also contains Zwingli's "Account of the Faith," submitted to the emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg, together with the "Refutation" of that account by the Roman Catholic polemecist, John Eck, and Zwingli's reply to the refutation.--rear cover