CAMPEGIUS VITRINGA

JOHANNES D'OUTREIN.

Reverend Sir, very Honored Friend and Beloved Brother in the Lord.

A small decorative drop cap U begins the text. From the last received pages of the Work on the Parables, compiled through your Reverend's care and effort for the benefit of the public, I learn that it is coming to an end, and that its publication is at hand. I am therefore reminded of my duty to thank your Reverend from a full heart, as I do by this letter, for the great affection shown to me in this regard. I thank you for the heavy effort, diligence, and industriousness taken in overseeing, preparing, and publishing this Book. I also thank you for enriching it with your Reverend's appropriate notes and remarks where necessary, and for strengthening my thoughts, or providing others that are no less suitable. I am deeply obligated to your Reverend's affection and friendship for the honor done to me. I am humbled that a person of our order, of your Reverend's dignity and merit, has been willing to devote himself to a labor of this nature, which everyone shall judge to be far too minor for you. I would rather thank your Reverend for the fruits born from your own understanding and meditations, which are shared with the learned world and the Church for instruction or edification. Such many

Letter to Johannes D'Outrein.

and among them learned and respectable Works, including those on several Evangelical Parables Evangelische Parabolen Parables from the Gospels, are known everywhere. These have provided your Reverend with a good reputation among the Congregation of the Netherlands.

After satisfying the first impulses of youth, I find in myself a great moderation regarding the publication of my thoughts on Holy subjects. I had a set intention to bring nothing to light except that which I might deem necessary, and so worked that the durability of the work might justify the effort. It is true that the meditations on the Parables were dictated in a common exercise to the Academic youth Academische jeugt university students. This was done after preparation in a short and narrow time, which I was accustomed to set aside for that purpose. Therefore, never having been polished, they can only appear as imperfect. However, the respect I have for the Word of the Lord has never allowed me to do such things on a loose footing, and without the Assumption Onderstellinge premise of having well-considered the explanation. I say further, and speak to your Reverend as a knowledgeable person, that the correct explanation of the Parabolical, Prophetic, and Mystic Teaching of the Lord Jesus is a much greater matter than the common people imagine. In this, one must pay attention to two things, between which it is often difficult to find the middle ground. Namely, on the one hand, that one does not define the wisdom of the Lord Jesus and the goal he aimed at in these teachings too narrowly and tightly. On the other hand, while seeking a hidden wisdom in these parts of the Lord's Word, one must guard against extravagant and far-fetched explanations and applications. These cannot make themselves pleasant to modest and well-discerning minds, and they make the explanation of the Word of God contemptible to those who do not love it. To distinguish, sift, and weigh this well is the work of a healthy, reasonable, steady, and spiritual judgment, which is what matters most in the investigation of truth. Here, no passion, partisanship, or faction has a place, though so many people in the Congregations of our Fatherland are possessed by them. One seeks truth before the face of the Lord with a good conscience. One seeks it