PRAECONIS EVANG.

For all those whom you see present in this gathering surpass me either in doctrine and the knowledge of the most important matters, or in the practice and faculty of speaking, or in the things I have already mentioned. What then? Am I the most audacious of all? I confess that, when I was previously not yet daring to approach the authority of this position due to my age, and when I had determined that nothing should be brought here unless it were perfected by talent, elaborated by industry, and filled with the knowledge of the greatest things, I would have remained silent even if I had been invited. However, now I do not know by what means I am moved by the authority and judgment of Dr. Bullinger, led by the awareness of my respect toward you, and uplifted to speak by the hope and trust of your goodwill toward me. Therefore, that I may be able to sustain and defend the expectation of a useful and salutary exhortation which I have stirred up, I shall bring forward in this assembly of yours that exceptional servant of Christ, the divine Apostle Paul, who will compensate for all those things in which I am deficient in a most abundant manner. For he, as you know, was a σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς vessel of election, that is, an excellent instrument of God; he was caught up even to the third heaven and understood divinely what our duty is; he explored by long experience what our roles are; and he testified by his bravely endured death how much he had progressed in this doctrine.