Dilucida explicatio sanae doctrinae de vera participatione carnis & sanguinis Christi in sacra coena, ad discutiendas Heshusii nebulas

DE VERA PARTICIP.

[...decided] to yield. Perhaps because the intemperance of his nature drags him there, or because he sees that no degree of praise is left for him in a moderate manner of teaching, although he is entirely aflame with ambition to the point of insanity. Certainly, in his little book, he reveals himself to be a man of turbulent spirit, and also of reckless audacity and rashness. I will touch only briefly on the preface, which may provide a taste for the readers. He does exactly what Cicero narrates the inept brawlers of his time did, that by some plausible introduction, which they had stolen from some old oration, they would stir up the expectation of the crowd. So this good writer, having occupied the minds of the readers, collects from his master Melanchthon apt and concise sentences, with which he may insinuate himself into favor, or acquire some majesty, as if a monkey were putting on purple robes, or an ass were covering itself with a lion’s skin. He preaches about his own immense dangers, he who has always cultivated his delights no less securely than luxuriously. He proclaims manifold hardships, he who, when he has large treasures stored up at home, has always sold his services for ample stipends, yet consumes everything alone. It is true, however, that when he has wanted to settle a tranquil nest in many places, he has been more often shaken out by his own restlessness. Thus, having been driven from Goslar, Rostock, Heidelberg, and Bremen, he recently retired to Magdeburg. And exiles should indeed be given credit if he had been more often forced to change his ground for a constant confession of the truth: but since he is a man full of insatiable ambition, dedicated to contentions and quarrels, and has been intolerable everywhere with his monstrous ferocity, there is no reason for him to complain that he has been vexed by the injury of others, he who, by his own importunity, has caused grave annoyances to a delicate man.

Meanwhile, however, [they] render reasons. [He] is rendered more [audacious], than [he] is sought [at] the [time, and he] atrocities [of] memory [of] I... He abstains from the name of our [supper], which [they] were in the Church, which [he] not Philip [Melanchthon]... the work of the master... [to have] snatched. Come: [he could not have treated his] teacher [more]... For [he] does not doubt [that he makes him] guilty of fallacy, because [he plays with] ambiguous [words], so that he may please both parties, and [tries to] compose this discord with Theramenic arts. The graver [thing] which follows afterward [is that he has] most filthily contaminated [himself] with a most pernicious crime, so that the confession of faith, which ought to shine in the Church, might be extinguished. Behold the pious gratitude of a disciple not only toward him from whom he learned if he has anything, but toward a man who has deserved so well of the whole Church! Furthermore, how truly he objects that this dispute is made perplexed by my quibbles will be more evident from the action of the case itself. But to call "Epicurean" the dogma by which I explain the mystery of the holy Supper no less religiously than usefully, what is this other than an obscene license of cursing to contend with gluttons and pimps? Let him seek Epicureanism in his own [morals].