Front matter (continued 9)

[7] Roman Catholics do not read the Word, and the Reformed who are in faith apart from charity do not attend to those utterances in it which concern life, only to those which concern faith, and yet the Word as a whole is nothing else than a doctrine of life. Christianity obtains only in Europe; Mohammedanism and Gentilism are found in Asia, the Indies, Africa and America, and the people in these parts of the globe are ten times more numerous than those in the Christian part, and in this part few put religion in life. What then is more mad than to believe that only these latter are saved and the former condemned, and that a man has heaven on the strength of his birth and not on the strength of his life? So the Lord says:

I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out (Mt 8:11, 12).

[8] Fourth: That any of mankind are condemned by predestination is a cruel heresy. For it is cruel to believe that the Lord, who is love itself and mercy itself, suffers so vast a throng of persons to be born for hell or so many myriads of myriads to be born condemned and doomed, that is, to be born devils and satans, and that He does not provide out of His divine wisdom that those who live aright and acknowledge God should not be cast into everlasting fire and torment. The Lord is still the Creator and the Savior of all men and wills the death of no one. It is cruel therefore to believe and think that a vast multitude of nations and peoples under His auspices and care should be handed over as prey to the devil by predestination.