Response aux cinq premieres et principales demandes de F. Jean Hay, moine jesuite, aux ministres escossois

Decorative woodcut initial 'V' featuring floral and foliate motifs.

TRULY a beginning worthy of you: that is to say, from one who takes the name of God in vain, placed before your demand. For, being accused of heresy by you people, if we remain silent, you take our silence for an admission. If we oppose your accusation with the holy Scriptures interpreted by themselves, you are not satisfied by it: If we have recourse to the summaries of these, namely to the Apostolic creed, the creed of Athanasius, the Nicene creed, that does not satisfy you, even though by word you acknowledge them, and even sing them, but in an unknown language and without interpretation. If, constrained by your importunity, we make some confession of faith, whether as an individual, or a city, or an entire nation, you want us to prove that it is not heretical: whereas, by all divine and human law, it would be