Deduction Concerning the Free Exercise of the Augsburg Confession in Silesia

money / such as a ten percent tax original: 10. pro cento; a "departure tax" or Gabella Emigrationis often charged to those leaving a territory for religious reasons / the abandonment of all their underage children / as well as their appointment original: Constituir- and upbringing / indeed even the sufficient securing original: Assecurir- and insurance of their inheritance original: Patrimonii while the exiles original: Exulum, the parents, are still living / even amidst their own pressing misery and indigence, it should be made so difficult for them / that in effect original: in effectu they have little or nothing to hope for or rejoice in / but rather, that for them to live would be a punishment, and to die a solace original: vivere supplicium, mori solatium / should this be allowed to happen / all Christian hearts / who take the affliction of Joseph to heart original: quibus contritio Josephi cordi est; a biblical reference to Amos 6:6, meaning those who care for the suffering of their brothers / can easily imagine / what cries and moving sighs and shouts / what miserable, pitiful complaints original: Queruliren and lamentations original: Lamentiren / piercing through the clouds into heaven, would follow / how many thousands of hot, bitter tears, rising from the heart and flowing over the cheeks / would be shed by righteous, steadfast brethren in faith original: Religions-Verwandten and confessors / what great anguish of heart, soul, and conscience it would cause / even if one were well-founded in his religion and faith / and remained steadfast and undaunted in his confession / and what great and eternally irrecoverable disaster might be caused original: causiret for many people through despair and other accidents / as experience has already testified in many places.

Because of all this / the highly esteemed Protestant Electors and Princes / are most entreatingly and humbly called upon and petitioned for the sake of the honor of the righteous and merciful God and His most holy Word / that they might deign, in most gracious consideration of the precarious and extreme danger to souls / into which the Protestant inhabitants of the Silesian Hereditary Principalities territories ruled directly by the House of Austria, where religious suppression was most intense would more and more fall / to take them, as your own members of the household of faith original: domesticos fidei; a reference to Galatians 6:10 under your most gracious Electoral and Princely compassion / and during the still-ongoing peace negotiations original: Tractatibus pacificatoriis; referring to the talks leading to the Peace of Westphalia / to leave nothing undone in your most gracious foresight and cooperation original: Cooperirung / but rather, according to your well-known zeal for the faith / to strive to the utmost through your appointed ambassadors / that both the collective Protestant Princes and Estates / as well as specifically original: in specie the Hereditary Principalities in Upper and Lower Silesia / be included in the general amnesty original: generalem Amnestiam / [and] protected in their privileges original: Privilegiis in divine and worldly matters, well-earned through the most faithful service of their ancestors / especially in religious freedom and the free practice of the Augsburg Confession original: Exercitio Augustanæ Confessionis; the primary confession of faith for the Lutheran church on all sides / that those Estates and cities from whom this was taken / be fully restored original: in integrum restituirer / and those who still have it / be peacefully maintained and reliably secured original: assecuriret / and thus that one might collectively enjoy the oft-mentioned Letter of Majesty and the Accord a reference to the 1609 Letter of Majesty and the 1621 Accord of Dresden which guaranteed rights to Silesians in deed and in truth / unhindered and uninjured / with full effect original: pleno cum effectu / so that the same may be passed down without shifting to our dear posterity original: posteritet.