Assertio orthodoxae doctrinae de duabus naturis Christi, servatoris nostri, opposita blasphemiis & sophismatibus Simonis Budnaei nuper ab ipso in Lituania evulgatis

They are not always saints who suffer persecution.

he does not always defend the true cause, even if it seems so to him. For truth must be examined not by the opinion of men, but by the norm of the holy scriptures. There is no doubt that most of the Jews who persecuted Christ and the Apostles thought that they were defending a just cause and felt correctly about religion, and that those whom they were persecuting were the worst of all mortals. But this persuasion and the testimony of one's own conscience does not excuse them, nor does it condemn the Apostles, or render their cause worse. Similarly, the fact that Budnæus defends himself by the example of the saints who have always suffered persecution does not help him at all. For it is necessary that it be established from elsewhere, beforehand, concerning the goodness of the cause. Nor is it always a sign of a true Christian to suffer persecution. For even the good have sometimes persecuted the wicked, as Sarah did Hagar, and Elijah and Jehu the Baalites, and Josiah also the priests of idols. It is well known that it is the cause, not the punishment, that makes a martyr. And it is commonly said that the devil also has his own martyrs.
How scripture is to be weighed.

As to what he next advises, that there is need for labor, diligence, vigils, and prayers in weighing scripture, we also admit that. For scripture is an inexhaustible fountain of all wisdom, which the more often and attentively we turn through it, the more things we will find to be learned by and by. Nevertheless, the principles of faith are not handed down so obscurely that they have need of a kind of infinite investigation, nor are they subject to...