Treatise on the Free Investigation of the Canon

—orable silence, I was permeated there! But just as words almost completely failed me then, so it is for me now in this public letter; I must likewise count more upon your great, noble heart than upon any service I might expect from my own decorous skill. All Latin or scholarly art is, in any case, almost repugnant to me when I think of the spiritual gift original: χάρισma πνευματικόν (charisma pneumatikon). A New Testament term referring to a gift of grace or a spiritual endowment given by the Holy Spirit. which I found in these estimable persons—and which, as I imagine, flowed quite easily from them down to me when they called me their friend! And truly, I think of it unceasingly, and for my great encouragement, I shall keep everything within a fine, good heart that I experienced there of divine power in life and conduct, and in worthy, great judgments. Already I have praised this far and wide; not because you three Refers to the recipient, Abbot Jerusalem, and the previously mentioned Sack and Spalding. seemed to attach any value to me—even if I, as such a modest beginner in this noble school of the spirit This phrase suggests the 18th-century "theology of experience," where faith was viewed not as a set of dogmas to be memorized, but as an internal education or development of the soul., could have tolerated it—but because truly God was among us, and that we [honored/glorified] His great name from the heart... The text cuts off here at the syllable "ver-"; the catchword "herr-" on the original indicates the word "verherrlichten," meaning glorified or praised.