Preface.

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To make truth—if not actually hated—then at least declared an unnecessary and useless thing, indeed has a fair appearance in some respects. This view is greatly strengthened by the harmful abuse found among puffed-up and quarrelsome minds; nevertheless, it may be very easily answered. For when it is said that everything depends only on opinions, such a claim must be properly explained and understood. Those opinions that are grounded in God’s Word and can lead us to salvation original: Seeligkeit. In this era, this refers to the state of being saved and entering eternal life with God. are to be regarded as divine truths. It is not within our power original: potestät, from the Latin potestas, referring to the legal or moral authority to make a choice. to accept or reject them; rather, we are bound to accept and obey them, as they carry their own obligation original: obligation. A binding legal or moral duty that one cannot rightfully ignore. and necessity with them.

For the great and almighty God, who is the Lord of all mankind and who has revealed these truths to us, also has the power to command that we should accept them and obey them. Indeed, by revealing these things for our salvation, he has also commanded us to obey them. However, we are not speaking of those opinions that concern only such things as do not belong to the salvation of man, and which do not carry such an obligation with them. In those cases, one readily admits that it is not necessary, or perhaps altogether unseemly, [to make] much of them