The Waldensian Confession

...certain pages, printed in the Bohemian original: "Bohœmica"; referring to the Czech language language, came forth with this inscription, translated here from their own tongue: A Brief Protest of the Unity of the Brethren Unity of the Brethren: The Unitas Fratrum, a pre-Reformation Christian movement in Bohemia and Moravia against the mocking writings published against it at this time. In this document, they attacked and harassed me and Master Nicolaus Selneccer Nikolaus Selnecker (1530–1592), a prominent German Lutheran theologian and co-author of the Formula of Concord by name—he who had provided a clear Preface to my German writing (though I was not given the opportunity to correct the whole of it before its publication)—and they did so quite hatefully indeed. Yet, they touched upon no specific point [or chapter] by which I had shown them to differ from the churches of the Augsburg Confession The primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church; instead, they attempted to escape either by being evasive, by denying things that are true, or by hurling insults at us.

Therefore, although I had already then written a certain Counter-Protest, and had distinguished by numbers those points which had been set forth by them in a confused manner—and not without "cabbage twice cooked" original: "crambe bis cocta"; a Latin idiom referring to a boring, tiresome repetition of old arguments—and had refuted them with briefer arguments, I nevertheless did not think it should be published publicly. Rather, I offered it at least to friends to be read, so that in this way I might declare by the deed itself, and not just in words, that I am by no means inflamed by a desire for brawling and disputing (of which my opponents original: "Antagonistæ" falsely accuse me many times in their Response), and that I do not descend into the arena A metaphor for entering into a public debate or combat with just anyone for unworthy causes or at every offered opportunity. I add nothing regarding the German rhymes, previously in the case of a denied (as they pretend) se-