A20920:27
Certain letters, translated into English, being first written in Latin. Two, by the reverend…Certayne letters, translated into English, being first written in Latine. Two, by the reverend…
Certain letters, translated into English, being first written in Latin. Two, by the reverend and learned Mr. Francis Junius, divinity reader at Leiden in Holland. The other, by the exiled English Church, abiding for the present at Amsterdam in Holland. Together with the confession of faith prefixed: where upon the said letters were first writtenCertayne letters, translated into English, being first written in Latine. Two, by the reverend and learned Mr. Francis Iunius, divinitie reader at Leyden in Holland. The other, by the exiled English Church, abiding for the present at Amsterdam in Holland. Together with the confession of faith prefixed: where vpon the said letters were first written
Amsterdam : Printed, in the year. 1602Amsterdam : Printed, in the yeare. 1602
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The preface to the Christian Reader.
IT may seem strange unto thee (Christian Reader) that any off the English nation should for the truth of the Gospel be forced to forsake their native country / and live in exile / especially in these days / when the Gospel seemeth to have free passage / and flourish in that land. And for this cause have our exile been hardly thought of by many / and evil spoken of by some who know not (as it seemeth) either the true estate of the Church of England or causes of our forsaking and separating from the same / but hearing this sect (as they call it) to be every where spoken against have (with out at all further search) accounted and divulged us as heretics / or Schismatics at the least.1 Yea some (and such as worst might) have sought the increase of our afflictions / even here also if they could, which thing they have / both secretly and openly attempted. This hath Satan added unto all our former sorrows / envying that we should have rest in any part of the binhabited world / and therefore ceaseth not to make war with the remnant of the woman's seed / which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. But the Lord that cbrought his former Israel out off Egypt / and when they walked about from nation to nation / from one Kingdom to an other people / suffered no man to do them wrong / but reproved kings for their sakes: the same Lord yet liveth to maintain the right off his afflicted servants / whom he hath severed / and daily gathereth out off the world / to dbe unto himself a chosen generation / a royal priesthood a peculiar people and Israel off God: He eis our hope and strength and help in troubles ready to be found / he will hide us under his wings / and under his feathers we shall be sure until these miseries be over past. And though we could for our parts well have borne this rebuke off Christ in silence / and left our cause to him who judgeth justly all the children off men: