Twee brieven [...] aan Everhardus vander Hooght

...everything for my best, and gives me nothing but blows: what have I to expect from the worst, if this is now still the best? It is good that according to your own confession, Brother, you have never been offended by me, nor ever met with anything other than friendliness. Wherewith then have I deserved this encounter from you? Namely, the zeal for Religion makes you break every bond of love, as your Honor says all this in his post scriptum afterword. Am I then also regarded by you as one who perverts Religion, dear man? Truly this is your meaning, as appears from the whole Letter, and especially those pointed out samples. But I am conscious of nothing less than that. I have up to this hour cared for and worked toward the preservation of the truth and the unity of our Churches, and shall continue to do so (by the Lord's grace) as much as anyone, according to the measure of the gifts granted to me by God. In this I appeal to the testimony of your own conscience: whether you have ever known me otherwise, or suspected otherwise of me? Indeed, I never gave you reason to trust otherwise or less of me in this than of yourself. Is this judgment of my person now so quickly changed? From where does that come? Is it because I give God the Creator all the honor that I take from the Devil? That I teach to fear Him, above Devil, Hell and everything together; which without God are nothing at all? Or because I have the heart to call the Devil a bandrekel a chained dog; which your Honor so greatly disapproves? page 19. section 20. But I shall not express myself here in any particulars: in order to do no other than I declared in the beginning. I say only, that it is the least of things to be judged by you, if it cannot be otherwise; for I am conscious of nothing: but he who judges me is the Lord. 1 Corinthians 4: 3-4. One may freely read the 5th verse therewith; in which I am well satisfied: holding myself to the unshakable grounds of the teaching of our Churches, without bringing a single chapter thereof into doubt; which I have consistently taught and defended, all together and each in particular, for 4 years and 4 months now, and shall further defend throughout my life. To that Truth I wish also to add Love and Peace: and if someone hatefully fights me, I hope to endure him with gentleness through God, who is a God of Peace, and Love itself. Have I in the Book...