Quaestio illustris: an'ne renati de sua ipsorum et de aliorum Piorum aeterna electione, certo pronunciare, & per fidem, in Domino, de eadem gloriari debeant

complaining, and repeating for their own consolation and that of others the sayings of David concerning the Olive and the Palm: there is no reason for you to persuade yourself that these things are of no use to the heroic order of superior men, from which divine and propitious Providence willed you to derive your origin. For the greater each of you is, the more you are exposed to the many arrows of envy, hatred, and sycophancy. This is granted to few, as this most beautiful parable of Plutarch, expounded by Erasmus, warns: Just as the Sun, if it hangs over a man's head, either removes the shadow entirely or makes it minimal, so immense glory either extinguishes envy or diminishes it. Therefore, it will be of great value to prepare in time those ἀντίδοτα antidotes and remedies of theological and philosophical thought, which provide this: that you may be able to endure and preserve yourselves in prosperous affairs; and, what is certainly a prize, by your patience to possess your souls.

The eternal glory of your ancestors will remain, O generous Lord STANISLAUS, not only in the most ample and powerful Kingdom of all POLAND (for whose benefit, that a strong, prudent, and good King may be set over it by God at this time, it also greatly matters to our Germany) but also in other well-mannered provinces and kingdoms of our Europe: because it is clear that they were the first of all to prudently, piously, and constantly embrace and profess the sincere and uncorrupted doctrine of the Gospel, without the leaven of any τῆς ἑτεροδιδασκαλίας strange teaching: then that they persevered and stood firm in that same holy faith until the glorious end of a life well lived: and then that they handed down its holy and most luminous lamp to you, their descendants, to be carried constantly and sincerely.