Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/267

30* licentiousness, conjectural thinking, and who denied our Lord Jesus Christ. Such persons have harmfully distorted our faith. And if someone today would try to find out what it was that these deniers have discovered by their multiple distortion and confusion of faith (so that they are even unable to detect its beginning or end), he would certainly have ample reason to say: "Contend for the one holy faith which was given to the saints!"

But against whom should they contend for a faith which they not only deny but even dominate–just as they try to dominate people? – Who does not incur suffering from the deniers on account of faith will be a rare person indeed. For they are powerful enemies of faith underneath the skin of faith. If you are a man of no account, do not pick up a quarrel with them lest you meet their challenge. However, do not interpret this contending for faith as a sort of gambling wager; but whosoever is able to overcome the unwise enemies by truth, without querulous censoriousness, let him do so. In such a contending for faith we can gain advantage because we must resist all such who tear the net of faith, every one who tries to drag the net in his own direction forcing everyone else to  The original is difficult here; a literal translation would read: "shall have a short strife with them."