did not feel my sins and the confusion of Christian people. For what harm can I suffer by the loss of this world’s riches, which are but dung?[1] Or by the withdrawal of the world’s favour, which makes us fall away from the path of Christ? Or by the attacks which, when humbly endured, cleanse and purify the sons of God, so that they shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father?[2] Or by the taking of my poor life, which is but death; for he that loses his life in this world puts death away and finds[3] his true life.
Yet men do not think of these things, being blinded by pride, fame, self-seeking, and greed; and some have been turned from the truth by fear, when there was nothing to fear. For bereft of patience, and thus of love and every virtue, they waste away in strange perplexity of mind, because they feel constrained on the one hand by their knowledge of the truth, on the other hand by the fear of losing their good name and risking their poor body even to death. I will risk my own, I trust, for the Lord Jesus, if in His mercy I have opportunity. I have no wish to live on in this evil world, if I cannot call myself and others to repentance according to God’s good pleasure. This is the burden of my prayer for you also, and I beseech you in Christ Jesus, with all your fellow-members of the University, to be prepared for a battle; for the reconnoitres of Antichrist have
already begun, and the fight will soon follow. The Goose also must needs flap his wings against the wings of Behemoth, and against his tail, which always conceals the abomination of the beast Antichrist. Who is the tail? The prophet showeth in the words:
