without my reminding, remain in the same teaching and faith until your end in the same manner, according to your testament; he answered this with a "Yes" repeated several times. He also commended himself to the dear God with many passages and prayers. Among others, on the same evening he passed away, he prayed from Psalm 143: Lord! Enter not into judgment with your servant, &c. To this it was answered that it is written in John 5:24: Whoever hears Christ's word and believes him who sent him has eternal life and does not come into judgment. Immediately after this, he fell asleep for a little while. When he woke again, he lifted up his eyes and said from the first chapter of John: We saw his glory, a glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Because his wife asked him when he had seen such glory, he answered: I have seen it just now. Oh, what a glory that is! Which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and has not entered into the heart of any human: this glory I have seen. From this it is evident how powerfully the Holy Spirit dwelt in his heart and awakened pure comfort, peace, and joy within it.

8. That same evening, when it struck eight, he asked what hour it was. When it struck nine, he asked again. When he was answered that it struck nine, he said shortly thereafter: Now I have overcome. And those were his last words. After that, he lay still until half past eleven, when he softly and blessedly fell asleep on May 11, Anno

1621. On that very day, a notable solar eclipse occurred. He was in his 66th year, but in the 38th year of his preaching office and his marriage, which he had shared with his wife, though without children, in a Christian and very peaceful manner. On the 15th of the same month, he was laid to rest in the parish church in Celle with Christian and magnificent ceremonies. His Serene Highness of Lüneburg graced this procession with his high presence, personally escorting the deceased body to its resting place as a testimony of the princely favor he held for the dear teacher during his life. In his honor and memory, a full-length, life-size portrait of him was erected in the aforementioned Celle parish church.

9. This is a brief report of the origin, Christian life, and blessed passing of this highly enlightened man. Without any doubt, his soul is now in the kingdom of eternal glory, where teachers shine like the brilliance of heaven, and those who have led many to righteousness shine like the stars forever and ever. Meanwhile, his memory remains with us in blessing. We wish that the Most High may preserve his bones in the earth and let them rest softly until the day of the great appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He will reunite them with the soul and lead them into eternal joy. May God grant each of us a blessed departure in our time, so that we may all arrive there, for Christ’s sake, Amen.

A horizontal decorative border strip features stylized floral motifs and geometric patterns.

Historical Report.

Regarding the remarkable event that occurred on April 24, 1697, during the Great Fire of Schwerin, involving the book On True Christianity by the godly Superintendent Mr. Johann Arndt.

Christoph Heinrich Westphalen /

A large decorative Fraktur initial E serves as a drop cap, featuring floral flourishes.
There remains always in pious souls a truly Christian endeavor, tending toward the honor of God, to record in detail and impartially, and to lay open clearly, those things in which the finger of God and His glory have exceptionally proven themselves.

Therefore, those miraculous occurrences that took place with the Paradies-Gärtlein Garden of Paradise by the converted and pious theologian Mr. Johann Arndt in fire and water are certainly worthy of public announcement. The wisdom of the wonderful God wished to set this small book, which is certainly great in spirit, most memorably above the visible elements in the various instances of fire and water hazards where it was preserved entirely undamaged.

Certainly, anyone whose mind is not accustomed to dismissing everything as mere accident will fix their heart in proper attention upon a more recent, highly memorable miraculous story. In this event, the omnipotence of the Lord preserved the spiritual book On True Christianity by the godly Johann Arndt unharmed in a strong blaze here in Schwerin.

They will convincingly acknowledge the unshortened hand of God and consequently deem this unadulterated historical report worthy of the present publication.

In order that those who at all times behold and believe in the divine miraculous hand with devout reverence may see and praise the finger of the Lord here more reliably and entirely without falsification; and so that other minds, to whom everything must simply be a matter of chance or nature without rational and Christian consideration, may receive a new, proven opportunity to judge modestly and according to Scripture about God and divine things: I will set and ground the entire true and remarkable event here solely upon an original testimony. This was written by the hand of the man in whose house the white hand of God saw fit to protect the aforementioned beautiful book above all flames and heat. He recorded it most laudably for the glory of God as a pious jurist and statesman.

This man was the late High Princely Mecklenburg Court Councilor and Archiva-