For as it was our cause that went through its agony under
Decius, so our cause it was that came out triumphant under
Constantine.[5]
Let us look at the doings of the Turks. Mahomet and the apostate
monk Sergius lie in the deep abyss, howling, laden with their own
crimes and with those of their posterity. This portentous and
savage monster, the power of the Saracens and the Turks, had it
not been clipped and checked by our Military Orders, our Princes
and Peoples,--so far as Luther was concerned (to whom Solyman the
Turk is said to have written a letter of thanks on this account),
and so far as the Lutheran Princes were concerned (by whom the
progress of the Turks is reckoned matter of joy),--this frantic
and man-destroying Fury, I say, by this time would be
depopulating and devastating all Europe, overturning altars and
signs of the cross as zealously as Calvin himself. Ours therefore
they are, our proper foes, seeing that by the industry of our
champions it was that their fangs were unfastened from the
throats of Christians.
Let us look down on heretics, the filth and fans and fuel of
hell[6] the first that meets our gaze is Simon Magus.
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