PREFACE

[mani]fest The text continues from the previous page's "corruptions w...", likely completing the word "manifest.": Or if they wish to be held as our associates (which they not infrequently pretend), they should openly—without further distraction and disturbance of the neighboring Churches—join our assemblies. They should individually subscribe to our Confession and its declarations, having first abolished their own Confession and the obligations of their society.

As long as this is not yet done, they should not think for a moment that they will now impose upon the wise men in our Churches what happened in former times to Dr. Luther Martin Luther (1483–1546), the primary figure of the Protestant Reformation. and others, who were far removed from their small gatherings (or "synagogues" original: "Synagogis"; the author uses this term polemically to suggest the Brethren's meetings were outside the mainstream Church) and were not correctly informed about their errors, etc.

In that same place, in the preceding sections, I responded to that which they so often object against me—among other buffooneries original: "βωμολοχίας" (bomolochias); a Greek term for coarse mockery or scurrilous jests—namely, that I am moved by no care for peace and charity. I showed, therefore, from the command of the divine word (to which I added supporting testimonies), that the harmony of charity is not to be preferred over the Concord Concord: A reference to the Formula of Concord (1577), a statement of faith intended to unite Lutheran territories of sincere faith. I argued that the peace of CHRIST and the Divine Spirit must be valued more highly than civil and external peace.

For Concord is a relative concept, the foundation of which is consensus regarding Religion and Doctrine; once this foundation is laid, agreement joined with charity follows naturally in other matters, etc.

With these very few points, maintaining a gentle tone, I decided then that those things should be noted which the Bohemian Brethren A Christian group originating in the 15th-century Kingdom of Bohemia, often persecuted by both Catholics and mainstream Protestants, with great harshness, had inserted into their Protest against me and my writing, and