When first, O Joachim, thou didst begin so petulantly to inveigh against men who had merited no such thing either concerning the Church of God or concerning thee privately, although we read the inscription of thy little book not without grief (because it was not difficult to understand whither these thy endeavors were tending, namely that thou mightest shake the foundations of peace and concord which had been laid), nevertheless we read thy little book diligently, certainly with this mind: that if thou shouldest bring forward some new argument whereby thou couldest detect some error of ours, we would rather pass over to thy opinion than pertinaciously defend our own.

But when in that little book of thine we observed nothing else besides the utmost ignorance of that very argument which thou hadst undertaken to treat, and that joined with the utmost malevolence toward us, learned and pious men rightly thought that it was permitted to them by much better right to defend the truth than it had been permitted to thee to draw thy pen against us to assail that same truth. For, to omit other reasons, they had not cast away all hope that it would come to pass that as soon as thou shouldest learn from their response (in which they wished also to spare thy name) how greatly thou hadst been hallucinating both in explaining our opinion and also in defending thy own, thou wouldest thereafter prefer to be quiet, or certainly, if thou wert not satisfied, to take some milder counsel rather than to stir up again those inauspicious tragedies which had already been for the most part laid to rest.

But when this hope had so deceived us that we saw thee made no more sound neither by D. Calvin’s more vehement oration nor by D. Bullinger’s most humane response, but indeed even spreading these fires far and wide: what else should we do than what Paul commands, that is, that we should henceforth abstain from thee, a man so obstinate? For what could be established with thee, who seemest once to have decreed rather to move Acheron itself than not to proceed with the same foot? This was the one cause, Westphal, not why we should cast thee out of the communion of the Church (which is not even in our power), but why we resolved not to contend with thee any longer.

For what thou dost feign—that we hoped by this threat that thou wouldest henceforth be silent—would that thou thyself had long ago not caused us to despair of hoping! But here thou, as if succeeding thy wearied patrons, how greatly dost thou rage? But with me, I beseech thee, if thou canst, think a little more moderately than for what just causes I am moved.

How many times hast thou with thy faction cried out against us as heretics, worse than the very Papists, Turks, Anabaptists? How many times have ye said that we should be refuted not with the pen but with the magistrate’s sword, to be cast out of the world, or certainly to be banished beyond the Scythians? How many times would ye have accomplished this very thing if there had not still hindered you both the very humanity of the most illustrious princes and the equity of those theologians who surpass you in infinite degrees both in prudenceand piety and doctrine?

But we, although we have always ingenuously professed what we felt, yet with what even the smallest appearance of bitterness were we using when thou didst suddenly emerge as if a son of the earth to provoke us? But even in the very responses, although the truth was defended more sharply than thou wouldest wish, what of such a kind didst thou read? Recently at last Calvin declared to thee, not the thunderbolt of excommunication, as thou speakest, not the sword, not exile, but that henceforth he would have no business with thee. This thou canst not bear.

What therefore shall we do, Joachim? If we respond, thou seemest as if to contend by formal challenge unless we be silent first. If we threaten that we will be silent, thou canst not bear this either with equanimity. Indeed, that modesty of thine, which alone thou sayest thou dost oppose to our revilings (as thou callest them), carries thee away even to this point, that thou darest to call him the most blessed Pope whom thou thyself knowest that no one today lives who attacks Papistic tyranny either more sharply or more successfully.

Therefore what else can that bile of thine excite than laughter? Certainly it renders thee ridiculous among those who have either greeted Calvin’s books from the threshold or have once beheld Calvin himself. But nevertheless, howsoever unwilling thou mayest be, we shall follow Calvin’s judgment and give thee warning that we shall henceforth desist from appealing to thee, since we are ashamed and weary of washing an Ethiopian.

In the meantime, however, we shall not hesitate to set forth the truth itself, which very thing I have now resolved to do, and indeed, as to the order and series of the disputation, following thy footsteps, that thou mayest know we wish to gratify thee. But even now remember, Joachim, that I so respond to thy arguments as to have regard not so much for thee as for those whom I trust will bring much more judgment and equity to weighing these things than thou hast brought to devising these things which we have decreed to refute at this time.