Preface of the Translator.

It is well said by an ancient, upright good reader, that no provision is pleasing, without a companion whom he understands, not among the greedy or envious, but among the good-hearted and generous: for with such (not with others) is love, whose delight is to make the good common. Such delight one might have seen in the four lepers of Samaria Refers to the biblical account in 2 Kings 7:3-9, where four lepers discover a deserted Syrian camp filled with provisions and realize they must share the good news with the starving city., when they were more eager to gladden the hungry and sad city with an abundance of food than to gather for themselves, with royal treasures, a glorious wealth for them all: do you think, Reader, to what this saying is tending? Know then that I now also notice a harvest or store of divine grain, owing to the manifold and various sectarian weeds, not only in one city but in the whole country. Now this following little book came to my hands in Latin, alongside more others by the same writer, which so pleased me, and was such upright grain, that I could not help but make it common to my countrymen who cannot understand Latin, just as I likewise intend to do with the other following little books and other writings of his, if the Lord spares me, and I notice that this my service is fruitful and acceptable. What the little book deals with, the writer himself has indicated so briefly and clearly at the beginning of the book that it is unnecessary to write anything about it here: not that I always deem it necessary that one should know what the speaker is like if the statement is true, but because I know that some writers of status have...