he would fulfill his promise which he had sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yea, he gave it as a permanent possession, if they should abide by his holy word and should walk in his divine commands, statutes, and righteousness, as Moses the faithful servant had, in divers instances, taught and commanded. Besides, that he gave them corn, oil, wine, peace, freedom, religion, and fame above all the people round about; for there was no people under all the heavens which was like unto them, Deut. 4. He led them by the hand, as a young child; carried them in his blessed arms; and girded himself round about them as a lancer, as Jeremiah says; raising up among them his righteous men and prophets who spake unto them the words of the Lord, fraternally reproving all disobedient transgressors, and mildly consoling the pious hearts with the gracious promise of both temporal and eternal life.
O, had the children of Israel sincerely realized all these favors and many others, they would never have deviated so shamefully from the word, law, will, and commandments of God their Savior and Deliverer, who in every respect treated them with such a paternal spirit. But because they did not acknowledge the gracious beneficences which the Lord showed unto them, and because they did not fear the righteous judgments against them, therefore the wicked, blind flesh and the adulterous spirit of idolatry has so misled them, so estranged them from God, and made them so drunk and mad that they acted worse than the Gentiles which were before them, whom God had, on account of their sinfulness, rejected and scattered, as the holy prophets in divers Scriptures show and proclaim.
O, fearful wrath of God! We can never escape it. If we do not desire grace, light, truth, righteousness, salvation, true religion, life, the kingdom, blessing, and God himself, we must, by his righteous judgment, doubtlessly, inherit disgrace, darkness, falsehood, unrighteousness and idolatry, and hereafter eternal damnation, death, hell, malediction, and the devil himself.
Sincerely beloved readers, God know that I love you with pure love in Christ Jesus. Inasmuch as I find in proof of many Scriptures how severely God has, from the beginning of the creation, ever punished all transgression of his divine word and disobedience thereto, as every intelligent reader may clearly understand from the history of Israel; and as I clearly see that the whole world, from east to west, from south to north, in the course of time, has been misled by ignorant teachers and preachers, who seek nothing but carnality, aided by unfaithful lords and princes, and that they have lost their faith in and knowledge of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, the ever blessed Savior, his holy gospel and sacraments, true religion, and the pious, unblamable life which is of God; and as they are falsely led, under the name of Christ, to put faith in a man of proud, unclean, idolatrous, and ungodly flesh, in useless fables, doctrines, and human commandments; in an idolatrous baptism and supper; in images, wood, stone, gold, silver, water, bread, and wine; in a shameful idolatry; in mere vain, false, and useless promises, so that it has gone so far among those who boast of the name of Christ, that there is nothing left them, neither in regard to faith, love, sacraments, nor in their life of which it can be truthfully said that it comports to the life and doctrine of Christ, judge for yourselves whether or not I speak the truth; and although some of them, to-day, boast of the holy gospel of Christ, yet there is nothing preached but that is useless and vain, and this no stronger than the temporal lords and princes allow them to do; and, as the princes are, so are the preachers; and, as the preachers are, so are the people; and as by this we are asked to abandon Christ and his holy apostles and humble them in their doctrine and believe and adhere to the princes and the learned, if we do not want to be tortured or burned, at their hands, or be murdered by some other tyrannical means; as if the preachers were sent by the princes, and not of Christ—therefore, for the sake of the chosen of Zion and of Jerusalem, I can no longer hold my tongue, but must tell the truth; that their righteousness may go forth as a light, and their salvation burn as a torch; and that thus all mankind may acknowledge the righteousness of the Lord, and all
