A20920:99
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.
Besides, in that you send to me; yea that you send to public view, “your confession, I marvel, brethren, yea I greatly marvel, what your meaning should be, both in respect of the end and the fact. For if ye have set it forth to that end, that ye might purge your selves, I pray you brethren, wherefore do ye desire, to purge your selves with so many souls; who have not known you as yet to be accused; who can never take knowledge of the right or wrong of your accusation; and who are not called unto it by any lawful means? and (that which is worse) wherefore would ye have this done before so many“ deadly enemies to God and the Church, who thirst after nothing so much as the blood of the Church of God, and do rejoice that we undiscreetly make a publishing of these wounds: that they by these very wounds might spoil the Church, that precious body of Christ, of the blood of verity, and juice of charity? Finally, why do ye this before so many weak ones, who not yet knowing, that ye are borne (as I may so say) are offended, rather with a carcass like stink of schisms in the Church, before they know certainly the body whereunto they may cleave? ⟨p. 33⟩Alas brethren, is your purgation so much worth unto you that therefore the public good of the Church should be brought into so great danger? A Christian an humble, and godly mind ought to be otherwise affected, and setting aside the respect of their own private good, constantly thus to determine, let the earth rather first swallow me up (as the Poet saith) and let me rather be accursed for my brethren, then that by me, and for my credit sake even one of these little ones should be offended and kept from coming to Christ, and abiding in Christ my Saviour. Verily let what will of my estimation go to wrack, who am a Christian, let me be trampled under all mens feet, so that by my fact, I take nothing from Christ, from his body, no not the lest thing. “And that you my brethren are thus determined and resolved bending all your counsels to this end; I am as strongly persuaded, as he that is most. But the end which you have in common, alas for grief, in this particular case (pardon if I speak more freely, for ye would have me to speak) from it ye seem to have erred.