Of this stuff are those who make the neglect of the canonical hours[18] an almost irremissible sin, while they easily remit fornication, which is against the commandments of God, or the neglect of duty toward our neighbor. These are they who so approve of that dream or story about St. Severinus[19] that they think they cannot read their Hours in advance, or afterward make them up without sin, even if they have been hindered at the proper time by the most just cause, such as ministering to the necessities of a neighbor, which is of six hundred times more merit than their worthless and all but damnable prayers. So far do they go in their failure to observe that the commandment of God, in the service of one's neighbor, should be preferred to the commandment of men, in the thoughtless mumbling of the words of the Hours. To this class too belong those who think it a crime to speak or to call a boy during the Canon of the Mass even in case of the greatest necessity or danger. Finally, these men make the fasting of nature one thing, and the fasting of the Church another thing, and if one has thoughtlessly swallowed some drops of liquid, or has taken some medicine, they exclude him utterly from the sacrament, and make it a sin, even the very greatest sin. I wonder whence these men have the authority to set up such laws as these and to trouble consciences with sins of their own invention. By these illustrations other, similar cases may be judged.
Of the laity, one confesses that he has tasted sweets, another that he has listened to jests, smelted perfumes, touched things that were soft.
Let us come to greater things! The common people are persuaded that to eat butter or eggs on fast-days is heretical; so cruelly do the laws of men rave in the Church of God! And we unconcernedly profit by this superstition of the people, nay, by this tyranny of ours, caring nothing that the commandments of God are taken in jest, so long as men tremble and turn pale at our laws. No one calls an adulterer a heretic; fornication is a light sin; schisms and discords, inspired, preserved and increased by the authority and in the name of the Church, are merits; but to eat meat on Friday is the sum of all heresies. Thus we teach the people of Christ, and permit them to be taught! But I am disgusted, wearied, shamed, distressed at the endless chaos of superstitions which has been inflicted upon this most salutary sacrament of confession by the ignorance of true theology, which has been its own tyrant ever since the time that men have been making its laws.
ELEVENTH [Sidenote: Communion Without Confession] I advise, therefore, as John Gerson[20] used to advise, that a man shall now and then go to the altar or to the Sacrament "with a scruple of conscience," that is, without confession, even if he has been immoderate in drinking, talking, or sleeping, or has done something else that is wrong, or has not prayed a single one of the Hours. Would you know why this advice is given? Listen! It is in order that a man may learn to trust more in the mercy of God than in his own confession or in his own diligence. For enough cannot be done toward shaking that accursed trust in our own works. It should be done for this reason, too, that if a man is assailed by some necessity, whether temptation or death, and those hidden sins begin to appear which he has never been able to see or to confess, then he may have, ready and prepared, a practice of trusting in the mercy which God offers to the unworthy; according to the word, "His heart is prepared to trust in the Lord." [21] [Ps. 57:7] How shall a man hope, in the face of the sudden inroads of such a great mass of sins, if he has not learned in this life, while there was time, to hope in the Lord against the smallest, nay, against even an imagined sin? If you say, "What if this were despising the sacrament and tempting God?" I answer, It will not be tempting God if it is done for the glory of God; that is, if you do it, not because you despise God's sacrament nor because you want to tempt Him (since you are ready to make the fullest confession), but only in order that you may accustom a troubled conscience to trust in God and not to tremble at the rustling of every falling leaf. Do not doubt that everything pleases God which is done to the end that you may have trust in Him, since it is all His glory that we trust with our whole heart in His mercy.
I do not wish, however, that a man should always go to the altar without confession; but I say that it should be done sometimes, and then only for the arousing of trust in God and the destroying of trust in our own act of confession. For a man will hardly go to mass without guilt, if he thinks his forgiveness sure because he has confessed, rather than because God is merciful; nay, this is altogether an impiety. The _summa summarum_[22] is, "Blessed are all they that put their trust in the Lord." [Ps. 2:12] When you hear this word, "in the Lord," know that he is unblessed who puts his trust in anything whatsoever that is not the Lord Himself. And such a man those "artists of confession" make; for what has the "art of confession" done except to destroy the art and practice of confiding, until at last we have learned to confess a great deal, to confide not at all.
TWELFTH [Sidenote: Reserved Cases--No Hidden Sins can be Reserved] In the matter of reserved cases,[23] many are troubled. For my own part, because I know that the laws of men to be subject to mercy, and be applied with mildness rather than with severity, I follow the custom and advice of those who think that in hidden sins no case is to be reserved, and therefore all penitents are to be absolved whose sins are hidden, as are the sins of the flesh, that is to say, every form of lust, the procuring of abortion, and the like. For it should not be presumed that any pope would be willing, in matters of hidden sin, to set so many snares and dangers for men's souls. But when a sin has been public, an open reserved case, it should be left entirely to the authorities of the Church, no matter whether they are just or unjust. In such case, however, the confessor may so moderate the power of the keys[24] as not to let the penitent depart without absolution, for those sins at least which he knows to be not reserved. Just now, to be sure, I am in doubt, and have not yet found a place for the proper discussion of it, whether any sin can be reserved, or ever is reserved, so far as the remission of guilt[25] is concerned; that the penalty can be reserved is not doubted; but of this let others judge. But even in the remission of the penalty, neither the confessor nor the penitent should be too much troubled by scruples. The penalty I have especially in mind is excommunication, or any other censure of the Church--what they call their lightnings and thunders. Since excommunication is only penalty and not guilt, and can be laid upon the innocent and allowed to remain upon the man who has returned to his senses, and, furthermore, since it is sometimes necessary to put off satisfaction, because of the length of the journey required or because of poverty; therefore the penitent who is excommunicated or under censure should be absolved from all his sins, if he seeks absolution, and be dismissed to the higher authorities to be loosed from excommunication and to make satisfaction. Thus he should be absolved in the judgment of God and of conscience from guilt and sins, and sent to the judgment of the Church to be freed from the penalty. This is what is meant when it is said that the desire to make satisfaction[26] suffices for the absolving of a sinner.
LAST [Sidenote: Vows] The subject of vows should also have consideration, for it is almost the greatest question involved in this whole matter, and gives rise to much more confusion than does the reservation of cases, though this, too, rules its Babylon with great tyranny. If one would wish to speak freely on this subject, "the land would not be able to bear all his words," [Amos 7:10] as the impious Amaziah says of Amos.
[Sidenote: Their Abuse] The first and best plan would be for the pontiffs and preachers to dissuade and deter the people from their proneness to the making of vows, to show them how the visiting of the Holy Land, Rome, Compostella,[27] and other holy places, as well as zeal in fastings, prayers, and works chosen by themselves, are nothing when compared with the works commanded by God and the vows which we have taken in baptism.[28] These vows every one can keep in his own home by doing his duty toward his neighbors, his wife, his children, his servants, his masters, and thereby gain incomparably greater merit than he can find by fulfilling vows to do works chosen by himself and not commanded by God. The foolish opinion of the common people and the ostentation of the Bulls[29] have brought it to pass that these vows of pilgrimages, fastings, prayers, and other works of the kind far outweigh in importance the works of God's Law, although we never have sufficient strength to do these last works. For my part, I could wish that there should not henceforth be any vows among Christian people except those which we take in baptism, and this, indeed, seems formerly to have been the case; and I would wish all to understand what is required of them, namely, that they be obedient to the commandments of God. For the vows of baptism seem to have been altogether cheapened by the too great practice, parade, dispensation, and redemption of these other vows. Let us put all our strength to the task, I say, and we shall find that we have vowed in baptism more than we are ever able to perform.
Some vows, including oaths, are made to men, others to God. Those made to men are admitted to be binding, so far and so long as he may desire, to whom the vow is made. Accordingly, it should be known that, as Gerson correctly thinks, the oaths and vows usually taken in the Universities or to worldly lords[30] ought not to be so rigorously regarded that every violation of them should be regarded as the breaking of a vow or an act of perjury. It is more just not to consider vows of this kind broken unless they are violated out of contempt and obstinate malice. It is otherwise in things that are vowed to God.
[Sidenote: Vows Made to God] In vows made to God, I see dispensation granted by the pontiffs, but I shall never be persuaded that he is safe to whom such a dispensation is granted. For such a vow is of divine law, and no pontiff, either mediate or supreme, has any more authority in this matter than any Christian brother, though I know that certain of the Decretals and the Glosses on the Decretals venture many statements about it which I do not believe.
This, however, I would readily believe, that a vow of chastity given before puberty, neither holds nor binds, because he who made the vow was ignorant of what he was promising, since he had not yet felt the "thorn of the flesh." [2 Cor. 12:7] It is my pious opinion that such a vow is counted by God as foolish and void, and that the fathers of the monasteries should be forbidden by a general edict of the Church to receive a man before his twentieth, or at least his eighteenth, year, and girls before their fifteenth or sixteenth, if we are really concerned about the care of souls.
[Sidenote: Commutation of Vows] It is also a great piece of boldness, in commuting or remitting vows, to impose what they call "a better work." In the eyes of God there is no difference in works, and He judges works not according to their number or greatness, but according to the disposition of the doer; moreover, "the Lord is the weigher of spirits," [Rom. 8:27] as the Scripture says, and He often prefers the manual labor of the poor artisan to the fasting and prayer of the priest, of which we find an illustration in St. Anthony and the shoemaker of Alexandria.[31] Since these things are so, who shall be so bold and presumptuous as to commute a vow into some "better work"? But these things will have to be spoken of elsewhere, for here we have undertaken to speak of confession only as it concerns the Commandments of God, for the quieting and composing of consciences which are troubled by scruples.
[Sidenote: Abuses of Penance] I shall add but one thing. There are many who set perilous snares for married folk, especially in case of incest; and when any one (for these things can happen, nay, alas! they do happen) has defiled the sister of his wife, or his mother-in-law, or one related to him in any degree of consanguinity, they at once deprive him of the right to pay the debt of matrimony, and nevertheless they suffer him not, nay, they forbid him, to desert his wife's bed. What monstrous thing is this? What new remedy for sin? What sort of satisfaction for sin? Does it not show how these tyrants make laws for other men's infirmity and indulge their own? Show me the law-giver, however penitent and chaste, who would allow such a law to be made for himself. They put dry wood on the fire and say, Do not burn; they put a man in a woman's arms and forbid him to touch her or know her; and they do this on their own authority and without the command of God. What madness! My advice is that the confessor beware of tyrannical decrees or laws, and confidently sentence a sinner to some other penance, or totally abstain from punishing, leaving free to him the right of matrimony which has been given him not by man, but by God. For no angel in heaven, still less any man on earth, has the power to enjoin this penance, which is the burning occasion of continual sin. Wherefore they are not to be heeded who wish such things to be done, and the penitent is to be freed from this scruple and peril.
But who may recount all the tyrannies with which the troubled consciences of penitent and confessing Christians are daily disturbed, by means of death-bringing "constitutions" and customs, administered by silly manikins, who only know how to bind and place on the shoulders of men burdens grievous and heavy to be borne, which they themselves are not willing to move with a finger? [Matt. 23:4] So this most salutary sacrament of penance has become nothing else than a mere tyranny of the great, then a disease, and a means to the increase of sins. Thus in the end it signifies one thing and works another thing for miserable sinners, because priestlings, impious and unlearned in the law of the Lord, administer the Church of God, which they have filled with their laws and their dreams.
_Here follows, in the original, a paraphrase of the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh._ FOOTNOTES [1] Luther quotes from the Vulgate and frequently from memory, a fact which should always be remembered in comparing his quotations from the text of Scripture.
[2] Vulgate, _Justus prior est accusator_.
[3] The apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh was included by Luther as an appendix to this treatise.
[5] i. e., Forced to confess hidden sins.
[6] The so-called "science of casuistry," by which the moral value of an act is determined and the exact degree of guilt attaching to a given sin is estinated.
[7] Cf. _Small Catechism_, "Of Confession," Ques. "What sins ought we to confess?"
[8] The decrees of the Popes collected in the Canon Law. The decretal here referred to is _C. Omnis Utriusque, X. de poententiis et remissionibus_.
[9] Anecdotes illustrating the doctrines of the Church were favorite contents of the sermons in Luther's day. Various collections of these edifying legends are still extant. Cf. p. 224, and note.
[10] i. e., By thinking of the nature of confession.
[11] The reader of this minute classification of sins, which could be duplicated out of almost any manual of casuistry, may judge for himself whether Luther was correct in calling it a "riot of distinctions."
[12] Luther steadily maintained that the Ten Commandments were a complete guide to holy living and that every possible sin his prohibited somewhere in the Decalogue. See, beside the various smaller treatises (_Kurze Unterweisung wie man beichten soll_ (1518), _Kurze Form des zehn Gobte_ (1520), etc.), the large Discourse on Good Works, below, pp. 184 ff.
[13] The writings mentioned are found in the _Weimar Ed._, Vol I, pp. 250 ff, 258 ff, 398 ff. See above, p. 75, note 1.
[14] The _Sentences_ of Peter the Lombard was the standard text-book of Medieval theology.
[15] "On True and False Penitence," now universally admitted not to have been written by St. Augustine, but passing under his name till after the Reformation.
[16] That part of the liturgy of the Mass in which the miraculous transformation of the elements into the Body and Blood of Christ is believed to take place.
[17] i. e., Of the sacrament of confession.
[18] The fixed hours of daily prayer observed in the monasteries, afterward applied to the liturgy for these services, viz., the Breviary. The daily reading of this breviary at the appointed hours is required of all clergy.
[19] An Italian saint, d. 482, noted for the strictness and severity of his ascetic practices.
[20] Professor of the University of Paris; one of the most popular and famous of the later Scholastics. He died 1429.
[21] Vulgate, "_Cor ejus paratus est_."
[22] We would say, "the whole thing in a nutshell."
[23] i. e., Sins for which the confessor was not allowed to grant absolution without reference to some higher Church authority, to whose absolution they were "reserved." See Introduction, p. 79.
[24] The power to "bind and loose" (Matt. 16:19), i. e., to forgive and to retain sins (John 20:23).
[25] The Roman Church distinguished between the "guilt" and the "penalty" of sin. It was thought possible to forgive the former and retain the latter. Submission to the penalty is "satisfaction." See Introduction to XCV. Theses, p. 19.
[26] _Votum satisfactionis_. It was and is the teaching of the Roman Church that, where the actual reception of any sacrament is impossible, the earnest desire to receive it suffices for salvation. The desire is known as the _votum sacramenti_.
[27] In Spain. The shrine of St. James at that place was a famous resort for pilgrims. Cf. below, p. 191, and note.
[28] See the _Treatise on the Sacrament of Baptism_, above, pp. 68 ff.
[29] Luther doubtless refers to the decrees of the popes by which special rewards were attached to worship at certain shrines.
[30] The oath of office and the oath of allegiance.
[31] The story is repeated by Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Ch. XIII, Art. xxvii, 38 (_Book of Concord_, Eng. Trans., p. 288). The "Alexander Coriarius" of text is misleading.
THE FOURTEEN OF CONSOLATION FOR SUCH AS LABOR AND ARE HEAVY LADEN (TESSARADECAS CONSOLATORIA) 1520 INTRODUCTION 1. When Luther's Elector, Frederick the Wise (1486-1525), returned to his residence at Torgau, after participating in the election of Emperor Charles V, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in the summer of 1519, he was stricken with a serious illness, from which there seemed little hope of his recovery Concerned for his noble patron, and urged by Dr. George Spalatin, his friend at court, to prepare a "spiritual consolation" for the Elector, Luther wrote "The Fourteen of Consolation," one of his finest and tenderest devotional writings, and, in conception and execution, one of the most original of all his works.
Its composition falls within the months of August and September of the year 1519. On August 29th, the Day of the Beheading of St. John Baptist, we find him writing in Part I, chapter vi: "Does not the example of St. John Baptist, whom we commemorate on this day as beheaded by Herod, shame and amaze us all?" On September 22d, he sends the completed manuscript (in Latin) to Spalatin, requesting him to make a free translation of it into German and present it to the Elector. By the end of November Spalatin had completed his task (one marvels at the leisureliness of this, in view of the serious condition of the Elector; or was the manuscript translated and administered piecemeal to the noble patient?), and early in December he returned the original, doubtless together with his own translation, to Luther, who had requested its return, "in order to comfort himself therewith."
The work was, therefore, in the strictest sense, a private writing, and not in the least intended for publication.[1] But the importunities of those who had seen it, particularly of Spalatin, prevailed, and on December 18th Luther writes to the latter that "the Tessaradecas, in both Latin and German, is in the hands of the printer." On February 8th, 1520, he sends Spalatin a printed copy of the Latin, and six days later, one of the German edition. The latter contained a dedicatory letter to the Elector, which, however, by an oversight of the printer, and owing to Luther's absence at the time, was omitted in the Latin edition.
In 1535, fifteen years after its first appearance in print, Luther issued his Tessaradecas in a new and final edition, adding a brief prefatory note. He no longer holds many of his former views, and there is much in his little book that he has outgrown and might now correct. But with characteristic unconcern, he lets it all stand, and even restores many passages that had been corrupted or omitted to their original form. It is a revised edition, with the errors, as it were, underscored. It is to be chiefly an historical record, to show the world how far he has progressed since its first writing (1 Tim. 4:15), a mile-post on the road of his inner development.[2] And more than this--and here one fancies he can see the sardonic smile on the battle-scarred face--it is to furnish his enemies with weapons against himself; he desires to show a favor to the hunters of contradictions in his works, "that they may have whereon to exercise their malice."
2. The plan of the work is in the highest degree original and artificial. The title, _Tessaradecas consolatoria_, which we have rendered "The Fourteen of Consolation," [3] is explained by Luther in the dedicatory epistle to the Elector, pp. 110 ff. The "Fourteen" were the fourteen patron saints of medieval devotion, called the "Defenders from all evils" (_defendores_, _auxiliatores_). Whence the cult arose is not altogether certain. It is said to have become popular in Germany since the vision of a Franconian shepherd, in 1446, to whom there appeared, in the fields, the Christ-child surrounded by the fourteen saints. The _Vierzehnheiligenkirche_ at Staffelstein, a famous shrine for pilgrims, marks the spot. The names of the "Fourteen," each of whom was a defender against some particular disease or danger, are as follows: Achatius (Acacius), Aegidius, Barbara (cf. St. Barbara's cress), Blasius (the "defender" of those afflicted with throat diseases), Catharine (cf. St. Catharine's flower), Christopher (cf. St. Christopher's herb), Cyriacus, Dionysius, Erasmus (Italian: San Elmo; cf. St. Elmo's fire), Eustachius, George the Martyr (cf. St. George's herb), Margaret, Pantaleon, and Vitus (cf. St. Vitus's dance). Luther's Sermons on the First Commandment (1516) may be compared lot references to some of these saints and to many others.
As over against these saints, Luther also invents fourteen defenders or comforters, and arranges them in this writing in the form of an altar tablet; but his is not a tablet such as those found in the churches, representing the fourteen defenders, but it is a spiritual tablet or painting, to uplift and strengthen the pious heart of the Elector, and of all others who are weary and heavy laden. The first division, or panel, of this figurative altar-piece contains the images or paintings of seven evils (_maia_); the second, those of seven blessings (_bona_). The contemplation of the evils will comfort the weary and heavy laden by showing them how small their evil is in comparison with the evil that they have within themselves, namely, their sin; with the evils they have suffered in the past, and will have to suffer in the future; with the evils which others, their friends and foes, suffer; and, above all, with those which Christ suffered on the cross. Similarly, the contemplation of the blessings will help them to forget their present sufferings; for they are as nothing compared with the blessing within them, namely, their faith; the blessings they enjoyed in the past, and those that await them in the future, as well as those which arc enjoyed by their friends and foes, and, finally, the highest blessing of all, which is Jesus Christ, risen and glorified.
We can only conjecture as to the origin of this unique conception of Luther's. Of course, the evils and blessings came to him from the passage in Ecclesiasticus 11:26.[4] The order and arrangement may follow some contemporary altar-picture of the "Fourteen Saints." There was a famous altar-painting of the "Fourteen," by Lucas Cranach, in St Mary's at Torgau, the residence of the Elector. The fact is suggestive.[5] 3. The Tessaradecas was favorably received by the Elector, was highly praised by Spalatin, who urged its publication, and must have been dear to Luther's own heart, since he desired the return of his manuscript for his own comfort. The little work soon became very popular, and passed through numerous editions, both in Latin and in German. During the first two years five Latin editions were printed, and up to 1525 seven German editions. A translation was published in the Netherlands in 1521, and one in England in 1578. Erasmus commended it to Bishop Christopher of Basle, in 1523; "I am sending your Highness Luther's book of the fourteen pictures, which has won great approbation even from those who oppose his doctrine at every point." Mathesius, Luther's pupil and biographer, judged that there had never before been such words of comfort written in the German language. The Franciscan Lemmens speaks of "the beautiful and Catholic thoughts" in it.
4. Our translation is made from the Latin text, as found in the Weimar edition of Luther's works, volume vi, with continual reference to the German text, as given in the Berlin edition. We regret our inability to obtain a copy of the old English translation (A right comfortable Treatise conteining sundrye pointes of consolation for them that labour and are laden...Englished by W. Gace. T. Vautrollier, London, 1578, sec. ed. 1580), although the form of the title would seem to indicate that it was made from Spalatin's translation, and not from the original.[6] The many Scripture quotations, all naturally from the Latin Vulgate, and most of them freely quoted from memory, and sometimes "targumed" and woven into the texture of the treatise, are rendered by us, unless the sense should thereby be affected, in the words of the Authorised Version. Important or interesting variations are indicated in the foot-notes.
5. The Tesseradecas deserves to be more widely known and used. Its value is more than merely that of an historical document, representing a transition stage in Luther's reformatory views. It gives us, besides this, a deep insight into the living piety of the man, his great heart so full of the peace of God that passeth all understanding. When we remember that this little work was composed in the midst of a very "tempest" of other writings, chiefly polemical (e.g., the savage onslaughts on Emser), it will appear akin to the little book of Ruth, lying so peacefully between the war-like books of Judges and First Samuel. At the Leipzig Disputation, earlier in the same year, Luther was seen to hold a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and to smell of it when the battle waxed hot. The Tessaradecas is such a bunch of flowers. Its chief glory, however, that of a devotional classic, has been somewhat dimmed by Luther himself, who with the carelessness of genius refused to revise his outworn views in it; and yet, despite its relics of mediævalism, particularly by reason of its firm evangelical foundation, its scriptural warp and woof, its fervent piety, and its fresh and original treatment, it is not less entitled to a high place in the devotional and ascetic literature of the Church than the much better known _Imitatio Christi_. In this sense it is herewith offered anew to the English reader, with the hope that "the diligent reading and contemplation of these 'images' may minister some slight comfort."
6. Literature.--(1) The literary and historical introductions to the Tessaradecas in the Weimar, Erlangen, and Berlin editions. (2) Köstlin-Kawerau, _Martin Luther, sein Leben und seine Schriften_. 5th ed., 1903, vol. I, pp. 280, 281. (3) H. Beck, _Die Erbauungslit. der evang. Kirche Deutschlands_, 1883. (4) On the fourteen Defenders see articles in Wetzer und Welte and the Catholic Encyclopaedia, and especially the article _Nothelfer_, by Zöckler, in PRE3, where also see further literature.
A. T. W. Steinhaeuser Allentown, PA.
FOOTNOTES [1] Cf. the first sentence of the Prefatory Note, p. 109 of this volume; also the dedicatory epistle of the _Treatise on Good Works_, p. 184.
[2] We have noted a few of the more glaring relics of mediævalism in the footnotes; the attentive reader will discover and dispose of others for himself.
[3] The title furnishes peculiar difficulties to the translator. Cole has simply transliterated it, "The Consolatory Terradecad." Spalatin paraphrased it "Ein trostlichs Buchlein," etc. The Berlin Edition renders it, "Vierzehn Trostmittel," etc.
[4] See p. 113.
[5] Did the comment of Bernard of Clairvaux, on Romans 8:18, perhaps contribute its quota to the general conception? "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the past guilt, which is forgiven (_remittitur_); with the present grace of consolation, which is given (_immittitur_); with the future glory, which is promised (_promittitur_)."
[6] An English translation, with some omissions that Luther himself did not care to make is found in Henry Cole's _Select Works of Martin Luther_, vol. II, London, 1824.
THE FOURTEEN OF CONSOLATION (TESSARADECAS CONSOLATORIA) 1520 PREFATORY NOTE[1] This book was written, early in my career, for that most excellent prince, Frederick, Duke of Saxony, when he was stricken with a dangerous illness; but many desired that it be printed. After passing through various editions it has now become so sadly corrupted and mutilated that many passages are missing, whose original form I myself have clean forgot. However, I have restored the sense of them, as well as I was able, taking care to set down only such views as I held when the work was first written. I did not care to revise them now, as I might well do. For it is my purpose in this book to put forth a public record of my progress,[2] and also to show a kindness to the "Contradictionists," [3] that they may have whereon to exercise their malice. For me it is enough if I please my Lord Christ and His saints; that I am hated of the devil and his scales, [4] I rejoice with all my heart, and give thanks to God.
DEDICATORY EPISTLE[5] To the Most Illustrious Prince and Lord, Frederick, Duke of Saxony, Arch-Marshal and Elector Of the Holy Roman Empire, Landgrave of THuringia, Margrave of Meissen, his most gracious Lord.