Ad insidiosum Lucae Osiandri scriptum

As if, Osiander, they were dying foolishly and rashly for an unknown God and a doctrine unknown to themselves. For Cyprian said excellently: The punishment does not make the martyrs, but the cause. Nor can anyone truly be called a martyr and witness of Christ who is ignorant of the doctrine of Christ for which he dies. For it is with the heart that one must first believe unto righteousness, before confession is made unto salvation.

But this smooth-talking monitor excuses them. For he teaches that the blame for their error should not be laid upon the little sheep themselves, but entirely upon their Pastors, who did not teach a sufficiently sincere doctrine to that flock which was so pious and so ardent in its love for God. But whether we, as Pastors, taught in this way prudently and knowingly, or whether, ignorant of that purer doctrine, we were unable to teach a better one, this crafty persuader does not explain. For if he were to say that we taught otherwise prudently and knowingly, he would impudently usurp what belongs to God, so as to judge our consciences. But if he were to write that we were ignorant and could not, he would certainly render us excusable by that very fact, or he would diminish our crime itself, which he nevertheless wants to appear most grave.

Page 8 & 4.

Page 4.

Perhaps he wished to spare us, moved by that charity by which he denies that he takes pleasure in our miseries and sufferings. For the charity of these men toward us and toward you yourselves is of this kind (whatever he may dissimulate), the sort that they are not ashamed to testify to in public writings, namely, that they publicly denounce us before all as Atheists, worse than the Turks themselves, and seditious, and despisers of magistrates, and deceivers, and Schwärmer fanatics/enthusiasts, and executioners, and most foul heretics, and sacramentarians, and what else?

Pappus, Selneccerus, & Pouchenius.