up quick,and torn us with their teeth.
Till now they have merely called us Hussites, heretics, ventingtheir wrath upon us by calling us evil names, and attackingour
Christian profession.But let them do it, dear friends.
We may rejoicethat so far we have never dreaded the light, as they do " even as an evil conscience trembles before a law court.
It must be a great trial to them that I have three times appearedbefore my enemies to testify of our faith :
Augsburg,before the Cardinal ; then at Leipsic, before those who would gladlyhave extinguished us, and yet their rage and cunningwere of no avail ; and now at Worms, where bishopsand doctors did their best to get me to recant.
God enabled me to resist the efforts of princesand dignitaries, so that I withstood all their power.
Had it been otherwise, I should have been ashamed of my German land,allowingthe Papal tyrants thus to befool us.
But we all know that the devil was at the bottom of it.
I do not boast of these three appearances, as if the glorywere ours ; but to acknowledgethe grace of God in order to trust
I do not pretend to be St. Paul,who out of the abundant riches of his spiritcould comfort his spiritualchildren,I have taken it upon me to put into 37th Psalm, which is full of consolation, and send it to you, it being so suited to our circumstances, for it exhorts us to " cease from anger, and forsake wrath," assuring us
" that yet a littlewhile,and the wicked shall not be."
Certainly our enemies resemble those who are rebuked in this Psalm, and we are comforted.
For we, who by God's grace cleave to the Scriptures, are those who are feared and hated by those who blaspheme the truth.
Had they been worthy of the truth they would long ago have been converted through my numerous writings.
; they despisemy prayers. for Christ says, "As he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him ; he clothed himself with cursinglike as with a garment."