To the honorable and wise

Lords, the Mayor and Council of the royal City of Lewenberg in Silesia, my favorable dear lords and patrons.

Honorable, wise, favorable lords and friends: The Son of God, Jesus Christ, must in this present time and world suffer no small offense and coercion against His holy Word and highly venerable Sacraments from the mobs and sects. The author uses "mobs and sects" (Rotten vnd Secten) as pejorative terms for radical reformers, likely Anabaptists or Spiritualists, who disagreed with mainstream Lutheran or Catholic views on the sacraments. As pious Christians see and know with great sorrow, these mobs and sects—although they let themselves dream that they hold the Word and Sacraments in some regard—actually hold less than nothing of them. For as far as the Word is concerned, they not only venture to falsify it through false interpretation, but also brazenly and boldly claim that the Scripture is of no account; original: "es sey nichts mit der Schrifft" they claim that man must be enlightened by the Spirit of God from above, directly. Thus, they reject and abolish the external means The "external means" (eusserliche mittel) are the physical elements of the faith—the spoken Word, the water of Baptism, and the bread and wine of the Eucharist—which mainstream Reformers argued were the only tools God used to provide grace. of the teaching of God's Word, claiming that God works nothing toward righteousness and salvation through them. And they want to [lead] us... The text breaks off here at the end of the page; the catchword indicates the next page begins with "blessed" or "salvation."