Prefatio Crimina III defense: Ignorance of the threat, praise for Consensus itself, and abhorrence of violence

Nevertheless (that, for Conscience before God Most High who searches hearts and kidneys, I may here defend even my innocence in the face of the whole Protestant Church) this must be said by me in this place:

(1.) That concerning that threatening accident which happened in the Sandomierz Synod, I knew nothing before I was preparing an Edition of that Consensus and prefacing it; nor had I read Hartknoch's History so attentively as to take account of that threatening deed — and that because, in vindicating the Sandomierz Consensus, I had to dispute not against Hartknoch, a mere Historian, but against Hornbeck's Lutheran theological Opponent, who in particular neither mentions those threats nor alleges Hartknoch or his Ecclesiastical History in a single word. Nor, if I had read and observed the fact, could I have stood safely enough on the man's credit (since more than once he has been caught by others writing from mere affections and disordered love of his Sect); nor, even if I had been free to rest securely on that Man's relations, would I have needed to attend to that accidental deed in this place, since — that very thing being left intact, posited, and even conceded — it would still remain open to me for the rest to honor the Sandomierz Consensus with due praises for many other excellent things. Just as it is also praiseworthy on this account: that by the unanimous votes of both Evangelical Parties it brought it about that Gericius, the importunate Disturber of the Consensus, was suspended from his office — Peace no less than Truth commanding him — and was also to be coerced by other Ecclesiastical penalties. So Hartknoch (p. 905): Gericius remained of his opinion, and because he would not let himself be moved either by entreaty or by threatening words, he was, with the consent of all present (Lutherans equally with Reformed), suspended from office, and it was resolved that he should be taken into custody and excommunicated. That this itself was decreed by the suffrages of all present — Lutherans as well as Reformed, Clergy as well as Politicians — apart from that Man's grave insolence having merited such a censure, can seem probable to no one.

(2.) That I celebrated and raised with due praises the Sandomierz Consensus under no other name than that of the Consensus itself and of the various circumstances and qualities of this Consensus, set out in express words in my Preface — not under the name of certain intervening threats of one Noble, and he perhaps a Lutheran (since the Lutherans present in the Synod urged that Consensus no less than the Reformed). Those threats meanwhile, if they happened (let the credit rest with Hartknoch), I grieve from the heart; so far am I from approving them, much less from judging that any praise can accrue to the Synod from their having arisen.

(3.) All who know me know that I so abhor every violence and truculent mode of proceeding — even by the very nature and temperament of my body — that there is nothing I detest and turn from with my whole breast more. Especially in Christian Ecclesiastical business, which I have sufficiently understood to rest on the authority and revelation of God alone, and so not to be thrust upon an unwilling man's Conscience; and most of all in the Dissensus of Lutherans with Reformed, which I (unlike the adversary, who for that reason rushes upon all else and sacrifices me together with all Calvinists even to Satan's most cruel violence and Tyranny) hold by fully convinced conscience to be beyond-Fundamental, and toward which not merely common but fraternal love is to be kept. Hence I may Christianly boast that, having lived among Lutherans for the greater part of my life, I never had to be reconciled with any of them, but have conversed hitherto most amicably with many, both Doctors and Hearers, and as fellow-members with me of one Christian Religion may by their own right, from Christ's own law, demand of me. I invoke as witnesses both the present Inhabitants of this whole City and, by name (one who has since migrated elsewhere), the celebrated and never-suspected-by-anyone of even the least neglect of Lutheran Orthodoxy Most Rev. Dr. Wegner, most deserving Professor of Theology at Königsberg, after he already nearly three years ago wished his testimony of this kind concerning me to be copied out even in public types, through express letters written to me — to be read in the Acts of the Jubilees of our University, Part 3, pp. 79–80.

So that from all these things, with best conscience, it is open to me, with truth itself voting, to weave the following argument to oppose to the Reviler's argument: Whoever of the Reformed detests with his whole breast every violence in any Christian Ecclesiastical matter — most of all that which touches the Evangelicals' Dissensus held by him only as beyond-Fundamental — never fell out with any Lutheran, but has lived most amicably with all who became known to him, the Lutherans themselves being witnesses, and for these causes set forth and praised with many praises the Sandomierz Consensus insofar as this Consensus was most amicable, not insofar as one Man contradicted it and one Polish nobleman's threats (whether he was Reformed or Lutheran is uncertain) — that man, so far, sought the Protestants' Ecclesiastical Union by no violent Counsels, nor had it in mind to seek it so. But Strimesius etc. Therefore.