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-============================================================================================
-Jan Amos Komenský: The last will and testament of the dying mother The Unity of Brethren[*]_
-============================================================================================
-
-by which (in the middle of its nation and in its specificity) treasures entrusted to her by The Lord God divides among its sons and daughters and heirs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-.. [*] Published, and wrote introductiona and annotations, by Dr. JOSEF STANĚK
-    In Brno 1935
-    Published by The Havlíčkovo dědictví in Brno, HUSOVA 5 printed by F.
-    Obzina in Vyškov in Moravia
-
-    All following footnotes (not this one) are by the translator.
-
-The Year of Our Lord 1650. [#]_
-
-J. A. K.
-
-.. [#] This translation is based on the electronic edition of the Czech
-    text available on
-    http://www.dkd.cz/dila/_Ksaft_umirajici_matky_Jednoty_Bratrske_9216.TXT,
-    and corrected by checking against the 1928 edition by J. V. Klíma
-    mentioned above.
-
-    Biblical quotations used are from the The Holy Bible, English
-    Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of
-    Good News Publishers.
-
-    Quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version
-    Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the
-    National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of
-    America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
-
-
-Introduction
-------------
-
-The treatise of Jan Amos Komenský “The last will and testament of the
-dying mother The Unity of Brethren”, although not large by its size,
-still belongs to the most important works of his. President Masaryk in
-the first chapter of his book “The World Revolution” [#]_ indicated that
-the famous prophecy in the Komenský’s Testament was his guide in the
-foreign resistance.
-
-The Testament was created after the Thirty Years War, which brought
-a yoke to the Czech nation of the foreign rule and which thwarted by the
-Peace of Westfalia (1648) all hopes of our exiles for return back to
-their country. Despite all promises of the Swedish chancellor Axel
-Oxenstierna and despite pleading letter of Komenský to the chancellor
-before the peace has been agreed, the Czechs were abandoned by Swedish
-and nothing happened to help exiles. There was still a weak hope they
-will take care for the exiles, when the warring sides talked about the
-execution of the peace agreement in the beginning of the year 1650 in
-the Nürnberg. When even this hope has been frustrated, Komenský
-understood that the Unity is sentenced to die in the foreign countries
-when it cannot return back home. Komenský became the bishop of the Unity
-of Brethren in Leszno on 1648. Therefore he writes in the name of his
-unity [#]_ moving and heartfelt Testament in the beginning of the year
-1650, where the Unity bids farewell to its believers and to the Czech
-nation. It was also necessary to give an order to the members of the
-unity, how to behave if the Unity dissolves. (The Unity has not
-dissolved then yet though, because the council in Leszno the same year
-1650 decided to continue.)
-
-The outline of the Testament having 20 chapters in total will come out
-best from the following table of contents:
-
-I. People are fleeting: they linger on this earth for some time and then
-   leave. Similarly all kingdoms, nations, languages, religions and
-   unities.
-II. Also The Unity of Brethren will perish for its sins. So it wants to
-    make the last will and testament following an example of prudent
-    people.
-III. The Unity calls upon its sons, so they stand up by her death bed.
-IV. (This chapter and the fifth one indicates the outline of The
-    Testament, but that is interrupted by the grand finale and
-    conclusion in chapters 19. and 20., where The Unity turns to the
-    Czech nation.) She divides them in the four swarms groups and
-    she wants to talk each of these individually: then she plans to
-    speak to other churches as well. She does not have the earthly
-    estates, because, if she had any, they were taken away from her by
-    her enemies. However, she has a spiritual riches and she wants to
-    divide it among her sons and friends.
-V. Some sons of The Unity, the unfaithful ones, broke faith and left
-   her. Other, the timid ones, on their face they joined enemies of The
-   Unity, but they long for her in their hearts. Third, the faithful
-   ones, unshakably stick to the Unity in her persecutions; but some are
-   succumb to the suffering and they are near to their death, some are
-   perhaps protected for future.
-VI. First the Unity turns to those who remained faithful to her and
-    shows for consolation many statements from the New and Old
-    Testament, that they achieve the kingdom of heaven after their
-    death. They should not grieve the loss of their earthly homeland.
-VII. The timid ones, who did not stood the test, should cry over
-     themselves as St. Peter did, when he betrayed Christ, and they
-     should return to the Unity of Brethren.
-VIII. Other remains of her people (i.e., the unfaithful ones?) the
-      Unity bequests tears and penitence so they may reform themselves.
-IX. The Unity commands her children to weep for priests, who sinned by
-    let worldly futility, splendor, and vice entered the Unity.
-X. The Unity commands penitence and prayers and fast and weeping to all
-   its children, old and young, and to priests to follow examples
-   recorded in the Old Testament. They have not done such penitence yet.
-   If they turn at least now with their whole hearts to the God, perhaps
-   the deliverance for them comes.
-XI. The Unity remembers virtues, which decorated all its members: it was
-    love to God and hatred towards the worldly vanity, simplicity and
-    honesty. Their place assumed discord, selfishness, pride,
-    miserliness, laziness, begging, which brought disgrace to whole
-    nation. The Unity reminds that we do not live for the life
-    earthbound, but for the life eternal.
-XII. The Unity thanks to the Polish Unity for accepting her children
-     expelled from their homeland. In the same time, she asks her to be
-     always remember her origin from the Unity of the Czech Brethren.
-     She criticizes the Polish Unity for decline in discipline and
-     particularly the custom to send youth to study in schools overseas,
-     where it looses whole good moral life style. The Polish Unity
-     should take care for the remedy.
-XIII. If the Unity dissolves, all its preachers could serve in any
-      Evangelical[#]_ church; faithful should join an evangelical church as
-      well.
-XIV. The Unity then turns to other Christian unities, first of all them
-     to the Roman Unity, of which all other arisen. She was not true
-     mother to them but like a stepmother. She should repent and reform
-     herself; if she will not do it, she will perish.
-XV. The Unity joyfully greets other evangelical unities, which are true
-    brides of Christ. Christ sent as a bridegroom John Hus to the Unity
-    of Brethren, Martin Luther to the German unity, and Jean Calvin to
-    the Swiss one.
-XVI. The German Unity (i.e., the Lutheran unity) was the first sister of
-     the Unity of Brethren. The latter leaves the former more order and
-     discipline and better understanding to the article on the
-     justification by faith. She should finish Luther’s work and not
-     settle on the mere faith, but it should do good deeds as well.
-XVII. The Swiss Unity is bequest by the Unity of Brethren more
-      genuineness and less meditation about faith, because that leads to
-      the endless creation of religious sects.
-XVIII. The Unity leaves to all Christian unity longing for unification
-       which has to start with agreement on the substantial matters.
-XIX. This chapter, where The Unity turns to the Czech nation, whom it
-     leaves all spiritual treasures, is the most important from the
-     whole Testament. Komenský pronounces in the introductory paragraphs
-     memorable prophecy about the renewal of the Czech independence
-     (Even I do believe to God, that after the end of the gales of anger
-     … the government of your own matters returns to you, O the Czech
-     nation!) The Unity leaves to the beloved nation:
-
-     1. love to the pure Truth of God,
-     2. the Kralice translation of the Holy Bible,
-     3. love to the church discipline and orders,
-     4. effort to unify all Czech evangelical unities,
-     5. love to the mother tongue, and
-     6. better ways how to educate youth.
-
-XX. In the end The Unity bids farewell to the Czech nation and blesses
-    Him with the words of Moses. It wishes Him strength, plenty of men,
-    happiness in fight and in the work. His enemies should be always
-    humiliated!
-
-Writing his Testament, Komenský used form of the Last Will and
-Testament: The Unity while dying calls all her children to herself, to
-make the Last Will about its spiritual property. Formally his example
-was to Komenský the Old Testament Apocrypha “Testaments of the Twelve
-Patriarchs” (Jacob’s sons), which was translated to the Czech already in
-the 14th century. However, the church opinion of Komenský is generously
-extended in the 19th chapter of The Testament, where The Unity, or
-perhaps Komenský himself, calls on the whole Czech nation, and moved to
-the depths of his soul, escalates with the memorable prophecy of our
-national renewal “after the end of the gales”. In the 20th chapter the
-form of the blessing joins the form of prophecy: The Unity bids farewell
-to the nation and blesses him with words of the Moses blessing of the
-Old Testament, because Komenský saw even the Czech nation as the chosen
-people and in the story of our exiles he saw the story of Jews dispersed
-to all angles of the world.
-
-The Testament is in accordance with the nature of the matter written in
-a serious style, which quite often acquires excited even dramatic
-character. Komenský here quite often quotes the Old and New Testament,
-although not so often as in book “The Mournful”. In the same manner as
-in the Labyrinth even in the Testament Komenský uses quite often words
-contracted from German.
-
-The original manuscript of the Testament has not been preserved.
-However, we have four transcriptions from the 18th century. The first
-print of the Testament, the Berlin one, is from 1757.  The work was
-printed in Prague only in 1848. Important editions are: edition by the
-bibliophiles club from 1909 by František Táborský and Em. Smetánka with
-the illustrations by Adolf Kašpar; edition by the Czech Mission Unity
-from 1912 (faithful copy of the Berlin edition); Kobr’s edition from
-1917 made by J. V. Novák; edition by Komenský society in Prague from
-1918 by Jan Herben and with illustrations of František Bílek; critical
-edition by St. Souček in the Reichl’s Block from 1927 (which is the
-foundation of our edition); then the edition by J. V. Klíma from 1928 in
-Prague, Rudolf Schams from 1930 in the Laichter’s collection Lights.
-There are two German translations: from 1866 and the second one by Dora
-Peřinová from 1907. Dutch translation is by the Amsterdam doctor R. A.
-B Oosterhuis from 1928.
-
-.. [#] Published in English as The Making of a State (1927).
-.. [#] The old Unity of Brethren and thus Komenský used intentionally
-    term “an unity” (“jednota”), where the current term would be
-    probably “a denomination” or “a church”. They wanted to emphasize
-    their persuasion that there is only one Church of Christ comprising
-    of all Christians, and all communities which comprise it are just
-    parts of this large one Church.
-.. [#] “Evangelical” was for Komenský more or less the same as what we
-    would call “protestant” today.
-
-I.
---
-
-In the name of the God Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
-
-My dear sons and everybody who hears my voice, listen to me!
-
-It is proclaimed in the God’s Scriptures, that the one era passes and
-the other is coming while the earth stays for ever[#]_, so it has been
-fulfilled on us all, who were here before us, and it is being fulfilled
-on us who are alive now, and it will be fulfilled on those who are
-coming after us. That is that by coming to the world from the place,
-where the omnipotent Lord lead us from, from the place of the eternal
-silence, and after staying here for a while, how long He does measure us
-to live, we will go back to where he will lead us (O, let him lead us!)
-to the place of His stay. As much this is true for each person
-individually, the same is true for every human society in households,
-cities, kingdoms and unities, that everywhere one passes away and other
-comes; you can see what’s even now going on under the heavens; some
-kingdoms are passing away and change together with their nations,
-languages, rights, religions: it happens certainly because the new era
-is coming; even congregations [#]_ of The Unity: it happens certainly
-because the God wants to renew the face of his land [#]_.
-
-.. [#] Ecclesiastes 1:4
-.. [#] literally “churches”
-.. [#] Psalm 104:30
-
-II.
----
-
-I see in the midst of all these changes my own change and my dying and
-passing away, and I have been put under the God’s discipline when I have
-been pushed away to the middle of strangers, and I have been abandoned
-by my neighbors (who build peace for themselves and forgot about myself
-[#]_). If The Lord affirms what people do, I see that while I had served
-to the will of the God in my age, I am going to fall asleep[#]_; so
-I will do what the cautious according to the wisdom of the World do, if
-they have anything to bequeath, they establish their heirs and they
-divide among them the blessings of God, so that it would not be lost or
-there wouldn’t be division, and that they would not leave fights behind
-themselves. Which is the God’s order given to the Hezekiah: “Set your
-house in order, for you shall die and not live.”[#]_, and whoever gets
-a house from God to steward should not leave the world without doing The
-Last Will and Testament.
-
-.. [#] Here she talks about the Peace of Westfalia.
-.. [#] Acts 13:36
-.. [#] Isaiah 38:1
-
-
-III.
-----
-
-Go, my children, because I am a widow and forsaken. I brought you up
-with gladness; but with mourning and sorrow I have lost you, because you
-have sinned before the Lord God and have done what is evil in my sight.
-But now what can I do for you? For I am a widow and forsaken. Go, my
-children, and ask for mercy from the Lord. [#]_
-
-.. [#] 2. Esdras 2:2b-4 NRSV
-
-
-IV.
----
-
-I will divide you into four groups, and speaking to the each group
-individually about what’s needed, I will turn my speech to other
-unities, my sisters, older and younger[#]_, with whom and amongst them
-I was cared for by The Lord, and now when he calls me to himself before
-all of you, I divide amongst you what The Lord had given me to
-administer from His Mercy. So, although my external likeness was such
-that I could tell with the Apostle [#]_: “I have no silver and gold”
-[#]_, because I did not have on Earth where to lay his head, in the same
-manner as my Lord; and whatever I had from these smaller earthly things,
-homes and congregations, fields, vineyards, they have took off from me
-(when forcing me into exile) in the same manner as they robbed my Lord
-of his gown and divided among themselves when they have nailed him to
-the cross; but I can boast in the Christ Jesus in the God’s matters,
-because he gave me a riches spiritual, so that His word could stay with
-me. So that I will bequest from those treasures given me to my care, how
-I will think fit, to give each of you sons and my friends what you need.
-
-.. [#] Younger sisters mean Lutheran and Calvin unities, older sister is
-    the Utraquist unity.
-.. [#] Meaning St. Peter.
-.. [#] Acts 3:6
-
-
-V.
---
-
-You, my sons, whom I gave birth and brought you up, I do not see each of
-you same; and therefore I cannot speak to each of you in the same words,
-but in different manner. Because some of you betrayed me and The Father
-of Spirits, to whom I have born you, and you did not stay with me in my
-temptations, but you have left me. Other ones of you persisted, and some
-of you may even still persist now, in a half-way manner, while you
-flatter my enemies and warming yourself at their fires, you still long
-for me, your mother, from the Lord to liberate me from the siege of my
-enemies and that you would return to my bosom. Others have more
-courageous spirit and followed me falling down under the cross, and you
-have not hesitated to share my sufferings, even drinking with me the
-chalice of bitterness, which poured for me the Lord, who leads us from
-the bitterness of the current age to sweetness of the world to come. But
-still I see some of you either because of your age or because of
-destitution languish and die; about others I have still hope that the
-Lord will care for them until they get to next times.
-
-
-VI.
----
-
-I want to delight you, who are still faithful and still remaining in
-that faithfulness and who are arriving the end of your faith, with
-delight which delighted us our most faithful Lord, with these holy
-words: “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign
-to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and
-drink at my table in my kingdom.”[#]_ Accept this delight, O my sons,
-and do not grief any more for the loss of your earthly fatherland and
-tabernacles of your home and tabernacles of the Lord here on the Earth;
-we are led to the more glorious things by the One who said: “Tell my
-people that I will give them the kingdom of [eternal] Jerusalem, which
-I was going to give to Israel. Moreover, I will take back to myself
-their glory, and will give to these others the everlasting habitations,
-which I had prepared for Israel. The tree of life shall give them
-fragrant perfume [#]_, and they shall neither toil nor become weary.”
-[#]_ Be ready for the rewards of the Kingdom, because perpetual light
-will shine on you forevermore.  Flee from the shadow of this age,
-receive the joy of your glory [#]_ knowing that you shall be attached
-after your release from here to the great crowd before the throne and
-before the face of the Lamb, dressed in white and having palm branches
-of Victory; about those the heavenly voice says: “These are the ones
-coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and
-made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore they are before the
-throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple …” etc. [#]_
-
-.. [#] Luke 22:28-30
-.. [#] Tree of life symbolises the eternal life, whereas fragrant
-    perfume is a symbol of the earthly life.
-.. [#] 2. Esdras 2:10b-13 NRSV
-.. [#] ibid v. 35-36 NRSV
-.. [#] Revelation 7:9, 14, 15
-
-VII.
-----
-
-Delight more precious than whole world you have disposed of (because
-what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his
-life, what shall a man give in return for his life[#]_), you fearful
-ones, and when you cannot stand your test, you fell; cry and groan over
-yourself! Or is it right to keep faith for a time and leave it at the
-time of temptation, and show yourself to be of those who fell on the
-rock and not having roots?[#]_ Ah, not many of you declared with Peter:
-“Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.”[#]_ and
-what remained? All of you fled away, when the gale hit the Lord and His
-gospel[#]_. Consider the generations of old and see: has anyone trusted
-in the Lord and been disappointed? Or has anyone persevered in the fear
-of the Lord and been forsaken? Or has anyone called upon him and been
-neglected? Woe to timid hearts and to slack hands, and to the sinner who
-walks a double path! Woe to the faint-hearted who have no trust!
-Therefore they will have no shelter. Woe to you who have lost your
-nerve! What will you do when the Lord’s reckoning comes? [#]_
-
-Here is advice: Do, what Peter did after his fall: recall who you are,
-leave the bishop’s palaces[#]_ somewhere to a corner, where other
-disciples are sheltered. Cry and howl more than others, so long as the
-rooster of the God still crows and as long as the Lord still tied still
-standing in front of his false judges looks at you: when you leave? Do
-you want to wait when your conscience lashes at you as the one of Judas
-did? It will be too late. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden
-your hearts, but soften them: humble yourself, turn and while you are on
-the path, walk on the path of the Truth! Such Peter’s footprints for
-returning to the flock, which you left, I bequest you, O my wandering
-sons!
-
-.. [#] Matthew 16:26
-.. [#] L 8:13
-.. [#] Luke 22:33
-.. [#] Gale means here the defeat of protestants in the Battle of White
-    Mountains (1620) and following recatholization of the Czech lands.
-.. [#] Sirach 2:10,12-14 NRSV
-.. [#] Bishop’s palaces — Peter left the seat of the highest Jewish
-    priest, where Peter denied Christ, here the palace means the Roman
-    unity.
-
-VIII.
------
-
-What should I bequest to the other remnants of the Unity in whatever
-number you still remain? Weeping I bequest you, penitence and reform in
-front of the face of the almighty Lord.
-
-IX.
----
-
-I commend you cry, like the one which the Lord God commend to the whole
-family of Israel, when he burnt His priests with fire in His tabernacle,
-because they sacrificed unauthorized fire before the Lord God; where the
-Lord God did not let the remaining priests cry, but He let the people
-cry [#]_. Even my first born sinned, guardians [#]_ of my tabernacle,
-brought or let be brought the foreign fire to the tabernacle of the
-Unity, fire of the human wisdom, fire of bodily vanities, fire of pride,
-splendor, jewels, debauchery, your own will, miserliness, and
-indifference, etc., and see they died and are dying in front of you for
-their sins; but you cry because this wound is coming on you and your
-descendants.
-
-.. [#] see Lev 10:1-6
-.. [#] Priests of the Brethren Unity.
-
-
-X.
---
-
-Repentance and prayers I order you such as the ones God ordered in the
-time of his great wrath: so that everybody turns to the LORD God with
-their whole heart, and with fasting and crying even with howling,
-tearing their hearts, not only their robe; that the solemn assembly is
-proclaimed, so that both elders and youth are assembled, even the ones
-feeding on breasts; let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her
-chamber; let the priests, servants of the LORD God, cry etc.[#]_; and
-such repentance as it was done in times of Ahasuerus in the city of
-Susa, when they were afraid of extermination, when they were not eating
-or drinking day and night for three days[#]_, or the repentance done by
-all citizens of Nineveh from the king to the last shepherd, from humans
-to animals, from elders to babies, doing nothing other than crying to
-heavens with feast and crying[#]_, and again Jews had besought the
-merciful Lord with weeping and fasting and lying prostrate for three
-days without ceasing[#]_.
-
-O sons, you have never did such repentance and you have never had such
-amount of fervor, but you behaved like many Judeans in their exile, that
-even in the places, where you were dispersed by the Lord, you still
-sinned and defiled His Holy Name in front of those, for whom you should
-sanctify him. Israelites, just after being twice defeated, sit down in
-front of the LORD God, cried, fasted and they offered burnt offerings
-and peace offerings[#]_. You were not defeated twice, but more than
-twenty times during those thirty years[#]_, but still falling into the
-pit, from which you could not and cannot get out, you still have not
-figured out how to manifest your repentance. And therefore at least now
-return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow
-to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil. Who knows
-whether He will not turn and relent[#]_, so that there would be
-liberation, as the LORD God said, in remains, who will be called by the
-LORD God[#]_.
-
-.. [#] Joel 2:12-17
-.. [#] Ester 4:16
-.. [#] Jonah 3:5-8
-.. [#] 2.Maccabees 13:12
-.. [#] Judges 20:26
-.. [#] That is, during the thirty years war.
-.. [#] Joel 2:12-14
-.. [#] ibid v. 32
-
-XI.
----
-
-I bequest you even this: if you want to enjoy the mercy of the Lord, you
-and your descendants would put real effort into your correction and
-return to your first abandoned love. I recall only now with tears when
-I lost it, what the Lord honored me with above other unities and what
-jewels decorated my sons and daughters.
-
-Because fervent love to God and His honor, hatred of the world and its
-futilities, meekness shared by all children and honesty towards yourself
-left you; on the other hand unfaithfulness, suspicion, differences and
-conflicts, seeking your own things, pride against yourself together, and
-discords sneaked between you forever. And in the same manner you started
-at home you have not stopped to behave in the exile, only that your
-thinking have spread thin even more in exile. Some of you fallen in
-places, where you are honored, and you got into pride and boasting; and
-some for stinginess worse than in your homeland forgot why you left it,
-that is the Word of God. Other fallen into disgusting malady, that you
-gave yourself into vanity, idleness, laziness, even into begging, which
-leads to the ugliness and defamation not only the fate of exiles, but
-also themselves, and what is even worse, of whole nation. Some of you
-have already unhitched yourself from the yoke of discipline, settling in
-places, where you could do whatever you feel is right.
-
-Oh, my children, that is how you remember what you were called for and
-what path you were lead to? We are not here for this life and its
-things, we are just pilgrims and we have just ordinary things pilgrims
-have; our home is in the heavens, and so we should be also concerned
-only with the heavenly matters. Just Lebanon [#]_ is here, Succoth and
-Zarethan [#]_, where the Heavenly Salomon [#]_ collects and prepares for
-His Eternal Temple the alive wood and stones, logs, cuts, chops, chisel,
-and planes them and us, its metals, dissolves and casts into proper
-vessels, on this side of Jordan, in the country of clay earth, where we
-roll in mud; but this Eternal Salomon leads us to the to the Upper
-Jerusalem, where, if we let him well form us, everything will fit.
-
-.. [#] Lebanon - the mountain range, from which Salomon took the wood
-    for the building of The Temple.
-.. [#] Succoth and Zarethan - two cities near Jordan, where Salomon cast
-    the vessels for his Temple (1.Ki 7:46).
-.. [#] i.e., God himself.
-
-XII.
-----
-
-Especially you, my beloved daughter, The Polish Unity, who the Lord God
-gave me to be born in the middle of my life, when I was strong, so that
-(as I can see it now) when grown up you could be a nurse of my other
-children: you did well to accept them in your lap when they had to leave
-their country and that you brought them up. God give you reward for it
-and not letting you into loneliness and protect you from being
-abandoned! I ask you however, remember from which trunk you came, so
-that you care to be a good grape, well planted vineyard, and do not
-change into the wild grape[#]_. Christ told about those who fallen
-apart: “They claim to be Jews, but they are not, they are mistaken.”
-[#]_. Take care therefore so that it is not said about you “They claim
-to be the seed of Czech brethren, but they are not.” This is the time,
-my beloved daughter, to prevent such disappointments; because such
-disappointments truly happen, when not few of your sons are wild in
-their flesh, leaving the yoke of the discipline and enjoy the freedom of
-flesh, temporary comforts and plentiful rents and collecting of money,
-so that for many the office of the shepherd (pastor) turned into mere
-tenancy with you as it is elsewhere; you have not learned how to keep
-the church in order [#]_ against the God’s prohibition and against the
-examples of your fathers following examples of others; even when the
-young ones live with the old ones, sons stay with their fathers, you
-still want the salary and you take it.[#]_ And what about elders? It is
-clearly obvious, that the spirit of my fathers left you, my sons; you
-have lost the keys of art, which Lascius wrote about[#]_, that your
-fathers were special masters of maintaining order, discipline, holiness
-and love of one towards another, without the compulsion and without the
-help of the world arm.  But you, O mine ones (being from the Polish, as
-well as Czech and Moravian nation), came to that you cannot keep in
-order neither yourself, nor your priests, nor the people, not even
-younger ones; whom, so that you do not have to labor with them, you sent
-(and you still do so) to the foreign schools, that they may purify them,
-but they bring back only the wildness, foreign customs, awful style of
-clothes, wiseacrity in their brains, and everything in other style, than
-what the Christ’s and ancestors’ simplicity sought; they do what they
-do, so that everything lost the original style and not much is
-recognizable.  Therefore even people, and listeners, and patrons being
-mostly void, and cold, and mostly emptied by winds of many temptations
-from their roots, uprooting oneself, so that everything with you slowly
-gets tired and is in danger of fall.  Therefore, recall yourself, my
-sons, before you will be also uprooted by the Lord, and by true
-correction, and repair of everything good to prevent His anger, so that
-he will not move even your candlesticks from their places!
-
-.. [#] Revelation 3:9 translated from Czech
-.. [#] Isaiah 5
-.. [#] literally “you have learnt neither to close nor to open the God’s
-    house freely”
-.. [#] literally “even the young stay with older ones, sons stay with
-    their fathers, you want your salary and take it.”
-.. [#] Lasicius - the Polish noble Jan Lasicki (1534-1605) wrote
-    a celebratory work about the Unity of Brethren.
-
-
-XIII.
------
-
-If he moves and let you vanish (the One, who starting judgment at the
-household of God, demolishes what he does not like, and concludes the
-demolition, so that he may start afresh on new foundations), so that all
-my order, discipline, apostolic succession and all religious service
-terminates, what will you do, my last remainders, being priests or lay
-persons? I give you this advice, sons!
-
-If any preachers remain, who will have nobody to preach to and serve at
-home, serve the Christ where you can, in any Evangelical church which
-would ask your service; just remember, that you should take care of your
-simplicity, which I born you in and which I have led you to, walking on
-the middle road, don’t flatter one or another, and discourage any newly
-created division, but rather encourage love, concord, and common good in
-the Church; with people develop only the faith in Christ pure and
-religion passionate and hope of the sweet future age, so that you may be
-witness of where you come from.
-
-You then, orphaned listeners, if it comes to that you would not be able
-to attend unviolated, pure religious services built on the orders of the
-Unity, take the advice that you care for those who still walk in the
-same fashion as we were the example[#]_, meaning those who will not
-teach you to make on Earth masters, fathers, leaders, but who lead to
-the only one, who is in the heavens, master, father, leader[#]_; join
-the unity where you will see the truth of the Christ gospel, pray for
-its peace and take care for its building in good, also by an example
-shine to others, also by the true prayers, so that at least on me and
-you, my sons, the Almighty wrath stopped, which is justly imposed on the
-Christianity so fallen into many heresies and divisions[#]_!
-
-.. [#] Phil. 3:17
-.. [#] Matt 23:8
-.. [#] 3. Maccabees 7:38, which is probably incorrect quotation, 3.
-    Maccabees 7 has only 23 verses.
-
-
-XIV.
-----
-
-I cannot forget even you, my beloved sisters, evangelical unities, but
-even you, our mother, from which we came from, the unity of Rome! You
-were our mother, but you turned into stepmother, or even female bison
-[#]_ sucking the blood of your children. I wish that you at least in
-your old age turned to repentance and left the Babylon of your
-hideousness. Where I bequest, if it is of any use, to you my example,
-where paying honor to the God who even in my vices remembered on us, and
-following the light of His word I left through His mercy from clouds of
-your idolatry.
-
-If you do not want, I will not bequest you anything, only the worm of
-bad conscience within; from the outside I put as my witness blood of my
-sons and other witnesses of Jesus Christ, whom you killed between the
-sanctuary and the altar. You make yourself to be the spiritual
-Jerusalem, and you are the one, but the one as it was in times of
-prophets, Christ and apostles, to which the Lord spoke as the witness,
-that I bequest you to inheritance: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city
-that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often
-would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood
-under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you
-desolate.” (Matt. 23:37). Now you have your judgment, Jerusalem of the
-New Testament; wait for its enforcement. To your sons I bequest the
-right, which they were given by the God, to take care of the glory of
-the Eternal Father (to whom they were born to by you; Ezech. 23:37), to
-raise the resistance against you, their mother, proving that you are not
-his wife, but you release your harlotry from your face (Hoseah 2:2). If
-you do not even then correct yourself and you will not please your sons
-by the return to their Father, I bequest to the kings of the Earth, who
-until now have carried you on their backs, the God’s zeal, by which they
-found you ugly and burn you as a dist with fire (Rev. 17:16).
-
-.. [#] female bison — it was said about the Lithunian bison that
-    he deals badly with its offsprings if they are touched by a human.
-
-XV.
----
-
-I speak to you also, my beloved sisters, who lead the uprising according
-to the will of God (Hosea 2:2) against our mother, and who (against the
-will of that unfaithful our mother) betrothed yourself to the Eternal
-Bridegroom in faith, as I did as well, so that we may know the LORD God
-(Hosea 2:20). Rejoice with me, that we obtain the mercy for Christ not
-only to trust in Him, but also to suffer for Him (Phil. 1:29)! Grace,
-grace, grace happened to us that the Eternal Bridegroom through his best
-man invited us and betrothed us to be his bride.
-
-To me the faithful friend of the bridegroom (John 3:29) was sent, Master
-John Hus, whose testimony I accepted even more gladly, because he sealed
-it with his martyrdom.
-
-To you, the German Unity, was sent the doctor Martin Luther, in the
-spirit and power of Eliah (L 1:17) and you did well to not reject with
-the burning and shining candle, but you have celebrated in his given
-light (J 5:35).
-
-And you, the Swiss Unity, was sent John Calvin, to betroth you and
-marry as a pure virgin to that one man, Christ (2Cor 11:2); and you did
-well that when hearing the voice of turtledove, you got up and you have
-prepared yourself and your fig tree ripened its figs and the wines were
-in blossom and gave forth fragrance. (Song 2:12f)
-
-Let us greatly rejoice in the Lord; let us exult in our God, for he has
-clothed us with the garments of salvation; he has covered us with the
-robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself as a bride adorning
-herself with her jewels. (Izai. 61, 10)! However, I, your now leaving
-sister have something to tell you, my beloved sisters, listen to me!
-
-
-XVI.
-----
-
-You, the German Unity, were my most beloved sister, who when I was alone
-the Lord brought you to life for my pleasure, and who I loved from all
-my heart, although your love who when I was alone the Lord brought you
-to life for my pleasure, and who I loved from all my heart, although
-your love cooled because of my simplicity. What I hold as my most
-precious jewel given to me by the Lord I have not been forgetting to
-give you since the beginning, hoping to share with you my blessing; and
-I still wish to benefit you even while dying, and I wish to bequest you
-what will help you most: more order than you have, and more orderly
-discipline and better wisdom concerning the article of faith on the
-justification, without so shameful misuse of it, which I can see with
-your sons.
-
-It was a good beginning by the one whole God gave you to lead you out of
-your faint; however those who came to his place were not fighting well.
-His work for almost all his life was to destroy Babylon; it could not be
-otherwise (because no work of human construction could endure in a place
-where the city of the Most High was to be revealed; 2. Esdras 10:54
-NRSV) However, when Zion should be built and the Lord called Him from
-his work to rest, his helpers, who should build, let it be, and kept
-only what he did, and whatever he did, they decided to live in the
-ruins. Therefore, you don’t have much more than what he did not destroy
-from the Papism, and what he thought could stay; those are your palaces,
-those are your triumphs. What others considered and consider to be
-destroyed yet, you don’t want to finish, you don’t want to even hear
-about it, and even less you care about building of the new beautiful
-order of the whole Church and founding it on that foundation of unity,
-and building for it fortifications order and raising up gates and
-attaching to them doors and bars and locks with the keys of Christ, but
-having started with the Spirit, you are ending with the flesh, as those
-formerly enthusiastic Galatians (chapter 3:3), but in other direction.
-They started their Christianity with faith, wished to end with the acts
-of Law; you started with the living faith, finish with the dead one, the
-one without any deeds.
-
-Oh my friends, I being disciplined by the God Almighty teach you (Job
-27:11) and I wish you that you would understand that knowledge of Christ
-without the following of Christ and having delight in the gospel without
-following the law of love which aims towards the gospel is nothing, just
-misuse of the Gospel and certain (although opposing that first one
-by the Papacy) temptation and deceit.
-
-
-XVII.
------
-
-To you then, the Swiss Unity, who was added to me as a lover of order
-and discipline, what should I bequest? Intent to constancy, growing in
-all good according to the orders of the Christ, so that the justified
-one justifies himself even more, and saint sanctify himself even more
-(Rev 22:11; translated according to the Comenius text), and promise that
-those who have more will be given, and they will have an abundance (Matt
-13:12).
-
-If then my beloved sister you are also from those are getting gifts and
-mercies of God, let even me add you something more: wish that you
-thinking to have something precious, had it truly, but not being misled
-by your thoughts, you were not feeding on shells, but broke into the
-kernel. I ask for you first of all more diligent act of unanimity in
-taking care for the religion and the act of guarding the discipline
-supporting it, so that it would be not only surface but the thing
-itself. Concerning theology I wish you more simplicity, less
-contemplation, and more careful talk about God and most deep secrets of
-His than some of your son did, which lead to the pitiful tearing of
-yourself, gathered against you and against each other: Anabaptists,
-Socinians [#]_, Arminians [#]_, and other bugs coming out of you
-(especially now in England, when the dread of the world power
-discontinued [#]_; it is clear how your sons, who are always seeking new
-things and who are unable to agree on anything, made sad and outrageous
-theater to the Church of God from himself, and the bad name for you with
-all nations).
-
-Oh my beloved sister, let God gives something to all your sons, so that
-we can learn to pray together with David: “Simplicity and honesty let
-them guard me.” (Psalm 25:21)!
-
-.. [#] Socinians: a sect, founded by an Italian Faustus Sozzini in the
-    16th century in Polan, which rejected faith in the Holy Trinity.
-.. [#] Arminians: a Calvinist sect, founded by Jacobus Arminius in the
-    16th century in the Netherlands, which rejected teaching of
-    predestination.
-.. [#] The allusion to the end of the Monarchy and beginning of the
-    English republic in 1649.
-
-XVIII.
-------
-
-To all Christian unities I bequest yearning for the unity of thoughts
-and reconciliation and unity in faith and love leading to the Unity of
-spirit.  Oh if only that spirit, whose I got in the beginning from the
-Father of all spirits [#]_, could come to all of you, so that you would
-long from all your heart, as much as I was longing, for the true unity
-in the Christendom with all those confessing the name of Christ in
-truth! Oh if only God give you to find the foundations of all things
-essential, things of service, and accidental, as he did it to me, so
-that all of you, would know what is necessary to enthuse about and what
-not, what to be enthusiastic about more or less, knowing, when to avoid
-the enthusiasm which is without wisdom and which does not bring building
-and improvement, but which brings destruction of the Church, where the
-enraged enthusiasm is necessary, where to venture fight in rage for the
-Glory of God (all the way to sacrificing your lives)! Oh if only all of
-you longed for the true participation in the Mercy of God, for the true
-participation in the merits of the Christ, for the true participation so
-sweet inner gifts of the Holy Spirit, which you can achieve through the
-true faith, true love and true hope to God, which is the foundation of
-the Christianity! These you can then achieve by the services ordained by
-God for service to us: Word, Keys, and Sacraments, whose power is the
-most certainly proved by the inner power of the Spirit, when they are
-being used simply and honestly, humbly and in faith as if given by God
-without humans invented beauty of rites. Oh if only you would
-understand, what Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of God is not coming in
-things that can be observed, but it is among you.” (Luke 17:20,21 NRSV);
-also “there is need of only one thing” (Luke 10:42 NRSV), that is being
-wholly invested into the one (that is the good part, chosen by Maria
-[#]_, sitting silently at the Lord’s feet and letting go all anxious
-activity), so that you would hit at least sometimes something which
-would make happy the heart of Our Compassionate One, who prayed for all
-of us to the Father saying: “that they may all be one, just as you,
-Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us” (John
-17:21 NRSV), so that all of you claim allegiance to the house of the
-Church were only one house of God, well ordered and joined together, and
-only one in that house family of God, under the unanimous order of God
-in concord, love and helping one another standing as one body, although
-consisting of many members, joined and knit together by every ligament
-with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes
-the body’s growth in building itself up in love (Eph 4:16 NRSV), so that
-one day the Christian Church and angels could sing: “how good and
-pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Psalm 133:1).
-
-.. [#] i.e. God
-.. [#] Maria listened to the word of Christ, sittnng at his feet, while
-    her sister, cautious Marta, eagerly served to the Lord (see
-    gospels).
-
-XIX.
-----
-
-I cannot forget as well you, Czech and Moravian nation, my beloved
-country, even now when I have finished my farewell; to you I turn in the
-first place all my treasures, which I have been entrusted by the Lord,
-I put to you as the first beneficiary and heir, following the example of
-some rich burghers of Rome and kings living on their borders, who made
-as their heir the Roman commonwealth, ruling to the end of the Earth,
-making testaments in its benefit. Even I do believe God, that after the
-end of all gales of anger (introduced on our heads for our sins) the
-rule of your things will return back to your hands, O Czech nation! And
-for this hope I make you heir of all I have inherited from my ancestors
-and preserved during the hard and difficult times, and even what I have
-acquired through the work of my sons and God’s blessing. All that
-I bequest to your and give, namely:
-
-First of all, love for the pure God’s truth, which the Lord started to
-show us before other nations through the ministry of Master Hus, and he
-which together with his helper[#]_ and other faithful Czechs sealed by
-his blood, and from which we were lead away by the smarts of the
-Antichrist, first during the Council of Basel, and now[#]_ through the
-brutal war power, and which I still strive to hold together with my sons
-who wish to go after the light. That is your inheritance, given to you
-before other nations, O my beloved country, take over again your right
-as your own, when this grace will be given and the Lord, Your
-Compassionate one, will make way for his truth.
-
-Second, commend you to the passionate longing for always fuller and
-clearer understanding of the God’s truth, so that knowing the LORD, you
-would always try to get to know him more (Hos 6:3). And because the Lord
-ordered us to search the Scriptures (John 5:39[#]_) I bequest you to
-the inheritance the book of God, The Holy Bible, my sons from the
-original languages (which God ordered them to be written in) to the
-Czech language translated with great diligence (several learned men
-spent fifteen years on this work)[#]_, and the Lord God so blessed this
-effort so much, that only few nations can listen to the holy prophets
-and apostles speak in their own language. Accept it as your own jewel,
-my beloved country, and use it for the God’s glory and your own good
-education; and although the enemies burned copies of this book, wherever
-they can find it, by the mercy of the same God, who ordered Jeremiah to
-write again books once cut and burnt by the godless Jehoiakim[#]_ (Jer.
-36) as well as soon afterwards He woke up the religious Ptolemaios[#]_
-to translate it into the Greek language and make it known to other
-nations, even to you this book of God will be preserved; believe and do
-not doubt!
-
-Third, I am commend you special love for the Church orders and the
-loving discipline (which should and must exist among the children of
-God), so that the Christ would have not only pulpit as a prophet, or an
-altar as a priest and bishop, but throne and staff to make judgments
-over the disobedient. That discipline which I got from the Lord I have
-never hidden, it was given in the light; use, my beloved country, for
-your benefit even that, either according to my style, or whatever best
-can be found in the Holy Scriptures and in the example of the first
-apostolic Church, because it is the most safe to build on old
-foundations, whenever the temple of God is being restored (Ezra 3:3)!
-
-Fourth, I give you the passion for the service to the Lord God and
-serving him with unity, which I have longed for always, as it is
-evidenced by the memories of my ancestors[#]_ as well as the history
-written by Jan Lascius about my matters. I could use this longing much,
-except that I have joined the common confession of the nation in 1575
-and to the common consistory in 1610. However, let be given by God for
-his mercy (the wish I am sealing either with my life or my death, as the
-Lord will call me), that the third link be the most perfect, of all my
-remains with other remains of faithful Czechs, so that the wood of Judea
-and the wood of Ephraim [#]_ be the only wood in the hand of God, when
-our scattered bones the Almighty Lord collects again, covers with flesh
-and skin and fills with the spirit of Life, for Him nothing is
-impossible!
-
-Fifth, I submit to you and your sons also diligence in cultivation,
-cleaning and building up of adored and beloved language of our fathers.
-My sons were always watchfulness was known for this in times past, so
-much so, that wise told us there was no better Czech language than the
-one among the Brethren and in their books. But some are now even more
-diligent, when they were expelled from their country, to create useful
-books written with even sharper pen for helping your sons in even more
-simple introduction to various noble grace and beauty in all matters and
-speech, to wisdom and eloquence, for more better-chosen replacement of
-the current disaster for times when the Lord will grant refreshing. So
-whatever books you find, old or new, accept it from my sons, have it as
-your own for the best use you can see!
-
-Sixth, I bequest you better youth, more diligent, better in exercise,
-than it used to be. It was my mistake to entrust my youth to alien, who
-inflamed my sons and ruined them. If the God liked to return me back to
-better times I would took care to do better in this. However, I have
-lost all hope for myself, so I ask you, my beloved country, I beseech
-you to correct it yourself. Some of my sons worked on this [#]_ and
-prepared better methods of teaching for youth, which some other nations
-without difference of their religion are starting to use, but it belongs
-to you in the first place, do not neglect your inheritance, which my
-sons will be lead to when the time comes!!
-
-In total, all my inheritance, as ashes after the fire, I bequest to you,
-my beloved country, so that you can make lye from it for cleaning of
-your children, in the same manner as the Lord did for me in the
-beginnings when he risen up us and my children from the ashes of Hus.
-
-.. [#] Master Jerome of Prague
-.. [#] during the thirty years war
-.. [#] In the Bible of Kralice translation Komenský used, the word
-    “search” is in imperative.
-.. [#] The Bible of Kralice was translated in years 1579-93.
-.. [#] Jehoiakim was the Judean king around the year 600 BC.
-.. [#] Komenský reversed the actual historical order of Antiochos and
-    Ptolemaios: Antiochos IV. Epifanes ruled in Syrian in 175-164 BC,
-    Ptolemaios in Egypt in 285-247 BC.
-.. [#] Czech brethern always very carefully kept detailed historical
-    records, The Acts of the Unity of Brethren.
-.. [#] Meaning the south and north kingdom of Juda and Israel.
-.. [#] Komenský himself.
-
-
-XX.
----
-
-But what more can I say? It is time to stop and part with you by
-blessing, my beloved country! But how? In the same manner Jacob the
-patriarch on his death bed blessed his sons; as Moses when he was
-leaving his people. From their mouth I take words and I as a farewell
-declare a blessing for you, the Czech nation, from your LORD God, so
-that you may be and remain a growing branch over the wall. Even though
-they filled you with bitterness and shot at you, because archers hated
-you with a secret hate, remain your bow unmoved, and your arms agile by
-the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, by the mighty God to whom your
-fathers serve, who helps you, and from the Almighty who will bless you
-with the blessing of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches
-beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb! Let your blessings be
-mighty beyond the blessings of my ancestors, up to the bounties of the
-everlasting hills.  (Gen 49,22-26, translated according to the Czech
-text)
-
-Be alive, nation blessed for the God, and do not die; may your men be
-countless (Deut. 33:6[#]_)! Bless, O Lord, your fighting, and accept
-the work your hands. Crush the loins of your adversaries, of those who
-hate you, that they rise not again (Deut. 33:11 according to the Czech
-text)! Let your time come, so that nations will say: Happy are you,
-O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD, the shield of
-your help, and the sword of your triumph!  Your enemies shall come
-fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs. (Deut 33:29)
-
-Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah
-(Psalm 3:9)
-
-
-.. [#] Corrected according to the Czech trnaslation Komenský used which
-    has “countless, without measure”, i.e. many, where the English text
-    has “few”, similar to KJV.
+============================================================================================

+Jan Amos Komenský: The last will and testament of the dying mother The Unity of Brethren[*]_

+============================================================================================

+

+by which (in the middle of its nation and in its specificity) treasures entrusted to her by The Lord God divides among its sons and daughters and heirs.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+

+.. [*] Published, and wrote introductiona and annotations, by Dr. JOSEF STANĚK

+    In Brno 1935

+    Published by The Havlíčkovo dědictví in Brno, HUSOVA 5 printed by F.

+    Obzina in Vyškov in Moravia

+

+    All following footnotes (not this one) are by the translator.

+

+The Year of Our Lord 1650. [#]_

+

+J. A. K.

+

+.. [#] This translation is based on the electronic edition of the Czech

+    text available on

+    http://www.dkd.cz/dila/_Ksaft_umirajici_matky_Jednoty_Bratrske_9216.TXT,

+    and corrected by checking against the 1928 edition by J. V. Klíma

+    mentioned above.

+

+    Biblical quotations used are from the The Holy Bible, English

+    Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of

+    Good News Publishers.

+

+    Quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version

+    Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the

+    National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of

+    America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

+

+

+Introduction

+------------

+

+The treatise of Jan Amos Komenský “The last will and testament of the

+dying mother The Unity of Brethren”, although not large by its size,

+still belongs to the most important works of his. President Masaryk in

+the first chapter of his book “The World Revolution” [#]_ indicated that

+the famous prophecy in the Komenský’s Testament was his guide in the

+foreign resistance.

+

+The Testament was created after the Thirty Years War, which brought

+a yoke to the Czech nation of the foreign rule and which thwarted by the

+Peace of Westfalia (1648) all hopes of our exiles for return back to

+their country. Despite all promises of the Swedish chancellor Axel

+Oxenstierna and despite pleading letter of Komenský to the chancellor

+before the peace has been agreed, the Czechs were abandoned by Swedish

+and nothing happened to help exiles. There was still a weak hope they

+will take care for the exiles, when the warring sides talked about the

+execution of the peace agreement in the beginning of the year 1650 in

+the Nürnberg. When even this hope has been frustrated, Komenský

+understood that the Unity is sentenced to die in the foreign countries

+when it cannot return back home. Komenský became the bishop of the Unity

+of Brethren in Leszno on 1648. Therefore he writes in the name of his

+unity [#]_ moving and heartfelt Testament in the beginning of the year

+1650, where the Unity bids farewell to its believers and to the Czech

+nation. It was also necessary to give an order to the members of the

+unity, how to behave if the Unity dissolves. (The Unity has not

+dissolved then yet though, because the council in Leszno the same year

+1650 decided to continue.)

+

+The outline of the Testament having 20 chapters in total will come out

+best from the following table of contents:

+

+I. People are fleeting: they linger on this earth for some time and then

+   leave. Similarly all kingdoms, nations, languages, religions and

+   unities.

+II. Also The Unity of Brethren will perish for its sins. So it wants to

+    make the last will and testament following an example of prudent

+    people.

+III. The Unity calls upon its sons, so they stand up by her death bed.

+IV. (This chapter and the fifth one indicates the outline of The

+    Testament, but that is interrupted by the grand finale and

+    conclusion in chapters 19. and 20., where The Unity turns to the

+    Czech nation.) She divides them in the four swarms groups and

+    she wants to talk each of these individually: then she plans to

+    speak to other churches as well. She does not have the earthly

+    estates, because, if she had any, they were taken away from her by

+    her enemies. However, she has a spiritual riches and she wants to

+    divide it among her sons and friends.

+V. Some sons of The Unity, the unfaithful ones, broke faith and left

+   her. Other, the timid ones, on their face they joined enemies of The

+   Unity, but they long for her in their hearts. Third, the faithful

+   ones, unshakably stick to the Unity in her persecutions; but some are

+   succumb to the suffering and they are near to their death, some are

+   perhaps protected for future.

+VI. First the Unity turns to those who remained faithful to her and

+    shows for consolation many statements from the New and Old

+    Testament, that they achieve the kingdom of heaven after their

+    death. They should not grieve the loss of their earthly homeland.

+VII. The timid ones, who did not stood the test, should cry over

+     themselves as St. Peter did, when he betrayed Christ, and they

+     should return to the Unity of Brethren.

+VIII. Other remains of her people (i.e., the unfaithful ones?) the

+      Unity bequests tears and penitence so they may reform themselves.

+IX. The Unity commands her children to weep for priests, who sinned by

+    let worldly futility, splendor, and vice entered the Unity.

+X. The Unity commands penitence and prayers and fast and weeping to all

+   its children, old and young, and to priests to follow examples

+   recorded in the Old Testament. They have not done such penitence yet.

+   If they turn at least now with their whole hearts to the God, perhaps

+   the deliverance for them comes.

+XI. The Unity remembers virtues, which decorated all its members: it was

+    love to God and hatred towards the worldly vanity, simplicity and

+    honesty. Their place assumed discord, selfishness, pride,

+    miserliness, laziness, begging, which brought disgrace to whole

+    nation. The Unity reminds that we do not live for the life

+    earthbound, but for the life eternal.

+XII. The Unity thanks to the Polish Unity for accepting her children

+     expelled from their homeland. In the same time, she asks her to be

+     always remember her origin from the Unity of the Czech Brethren.

+     She criticizes the Polish Unity for decline in discipline and

+     particularly the custom to send youth to study in schools overseas,

+     where it looses whole good moral life style. The Polish Unity

+     should take care for the remedy.

+XIII. If the Unity dissolves, all its preachers could serve in any

+      Evangelical [#]_ church; faithful should join an evangelical church as

+      well.

+XIV. The Unity then turns to other Christian unities, first of all them

+     to the Roman Unity, of which all other arisen. She was not true

+     mother to them but like a stepmother. She should repent and reform

+     herself; if she will not do it, she will perish.

+XV. The Unity joyfully greets other evangelical unities, which are true

+    brides of Christ. Christ sent as a bridegroom John Hus to the Unity

+    of Brethren, Martin Luther to the German unity, and Jean Calvin to

+    the Swiss one.

+XVI. The German Unity (i.e., the Lutheran unity) was the first sister of

+     the Unity of Brethren. The latter leaves the former more order and

+     discipline and better understanding to the article on the

+     justification by faith. She should finish Luther’s work and not

+     settle on the mere faith, but it should do good deeds as well.

+XVII. The Swiss Unity is bequest by the Unity of Brethren more

+      genuineness and less meditation about faith, because that leads to

+      the endless creation of religious sects.

+XVIII. The Unity leaves to all Christian unity longing for unification

+       which has to start with agreement on the substantial matters.

+XIX. This chapter, where The Unity turns to the Czech nation, whom it

+     leaves all spiritual treasures, is the most important from the

+     whole Testament. Komenský pronounces in the introductory paragraphs

+     memorable prophecy about the renewal of the Czech independence

+     (Even I do believe to God, that after the end of the gales of anger

+     … the government of your own matters returns to you, O the Czech

+     nation!) The Unity leaves to the beloved nation:

+

+     1. love to the pure Truth of God,

+     2. the Kralice translation of the Holy Bible,

+     3. love to the church discipline and orders,

+     4. effort to unify all Czech evangelical unities,

+     5. love to the mother tongue, and

+     6. better ways how to educate youth.

+

+XX. In the end The Unity bids farewell to the Czech nation and blesses

+    Him with the words of Moses. It wishes Him strength, plenty of men,

+    happiness in fight and in the work. His enemies should be always

+    humiliated!

+

+Writing his Testament, Komenský used form of the Last Will and

+Testament: The Unity while dying calls all her children to herself, to

+make the Last Will about its spiritual property. Formally his example

+was to Komenský the Old Testament Apocrypha “Testaments of the Twelve

+Patriarchs” (Jacob’s sons), which was translated to the Czech already in

+the 14th century. However, the church opinion of Komenský is generously

+extended in the 19th chapter of The Testament, where The Unity, or

+perhaps Komenský himself, calls on the whole Czech nation, and moved to

+the depths of his soul, escalates with the memorable prophecy of our

+national renewal “after the end of the gales”. In the 20th chapter the

+form of the blessing joins the form of prophecy: The Unity bids farewell

+to the nation and blesses him with words of the Moses blessing of the

+Old Testament, because Komenský saw even the Czech nation as the chosen

+people and in the story of our exiles he saw the story of Jews dispersed

+to all angles of the world.

+

+The Testament is in accordance with the nature of the matter written in

+a serious style, which quite often acquires excited even dramatic

+character. Komenský here quite often quotes the Old and New Testament,

+although not so often as in book “The Mournful”. In the same manner as

+in the Labyrinth even in the Testament Komenský uses quite often words

+contracted from German.

+

+The original manuscript of the Testament has not been preserved.

+However, we have four transcriptions from the 18th century. The first

+print of the Testament, the Berlin one, is from 1757.  The work was

+printed in Prague only in 1848. Important editions are: edition by the

+bibliophiles club from 1909 by František Táborský and Em. Smetánka with

+the illustrations by Adolf Kašpar; edition by the Czech Mission Unity

+from 1912 (faithful copy of the Berlin edition); Kobr’s edition from

+1917 made by J. V. Novák; edition by Komenský society in Prague from

+1918 by Jan Herben and with illustrations of František Bílek; critical

+edition by St. Souček in the Reichl’s Block from 1927 (which is the

+foundation of our edition); then the edition by J. V. Klíma from 1928 in

+Prague, Rudolf Schams from 1930 in the Laichter’s collection Lights.

+There are two German translations: from 1866 and the second one by Dora

+Peřinová from 1907. Dutch translation is by the Amsterdam doctor R. A.

+B Oosterhuis from 1928.

+

+.. [#] Published in English as The Making of a State (1927).

+.. [#] The old Unity of Brethren and thus Komenský used intentionally

+    term “an unity” (“jednota”), where the current term would be

+    probably “a denomination” or “a church”. They wanted to emphasize

+    their persuasion that there is only one Church of Christ comprising

+    of all Christians, and all communities which comprise it are just

+    parts of this large one Church.

+.. [#] “Evangelical” was for Komenský more or less the same as what we

+    would call “protestant” today.

+

+I.

+--

+

+In the name of the God Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+

+My dear sons and everybody who hears my voice, listen to me!

+

+It is proclaimed in the God’s Scriptures, that the one era passes and

+the other is coming while the earth stays for ever [#]_, so it has been

+fulfilled on us all, who were here before us, and it is being fulfilled

+on us who are alive now, and it will be fulfilled on those who are

+coming after us. That is that by coming to the world from the place,

+where the omnipotent Lord lead us from, from the place of the eternal

+silence, and after staying here for a while, how long He does measure us

+to live, we will go back to where he will lead us (O, let him lead us!)

+to the place of His stay. As much this is true for each person

+individually, the same is true for every human society in households,

+cities, kingdoms and unities, that everywhere one passes away and other

+comes; you can see what’s even now going on under the heavens; some

+kingdoms are passing away and change together with their nations,

+languages, rights, religions: it happens certainly because the new era

+is coming; even congregations [#]_ of The Unity: it happens certainly

+because the God wants to renew the face of his land [#]_.

+

+.. [#] Ecclesiastes 1:4

+.. [#] literally “churches”

+.. [#] Psalm 104:30

+

+II.

+---

+

+I see in the midst of all these changes my own change and my dying and

+passing away, and I have been put under the God’s discipline when I have

+been pushed away to the middle of strangers, and I have been abandoned

+by my neighbors (who build peace for themselves and forgot about myself

+[#]_). If The Lord affirms what people do, I see that while I had served

+to the will of the God in my age, I am going to fall asleep [#]_; so

+I will do what the cautious according to the wisdom of the World do, if

+they have anything to bequeath, they establish their heirs and they

+divide among them the blessings of God, so that it would not be lost or

+there wouldn’t be division, and that they would not leave fights behind

+themselves. Which is the God’s order given to the Hezekiah: “Set your

+house in order, for you shall die and not live.” [#]_, and whoever gets

+a house from God to steward should not leave the world without doing The

+Last Will and Testament.

+

+.. [#] Here she talks about the Peace of Westfalia.

+.. [#] Acts 13:36

+.. [#] Isaiah 38:1

+

+

+III.

+----

+

+Go, my children, because I am a widow and forsaken. I brought you up

+with gladness; but with mourning and sorrow I have lost you, because you

+have sinned before the Lord God and have done what is evil in my sight.

+But now what can I do for you? For I am a widow and forsaken. Go, my

+children, and ask for mercy from the Lord. [#]_

+

+.. [#] 2. Esdras 2:2b-4 NRSV

+

+

+IV.

+---

+

+I will divide you into four groups, and speaking to the each group

+individually about what’s needed, I will turn my speech to other

+unities, my sisters, older and younger [#]_, with whom and amongst them

+I was cared for by The Lord, and now when he calls me to himself before

+all of you, I divide amongst you what The Lord had given me to

+administer from His Mercy. So, although my external likeness was such

+that I could tell with the Apostle [#]_: “I have no silver and gold”

+[#]_, because I did not have on Earth where to lay his head, in the same

+manner as my Lord; and whatever I had from these smaller earthly things,

+homes and congregations, fields, vineyards, they have took off from me

+(when forcing me into exile) in the same manner as they robbed my Lord

+of his gown and divided among themselves when they have nailed him to

+the cross; but I can boast in the Christ Jesus in the God’s matters,

+because he gave me a riches spiritual, so that His word could stay with

+me. So that I will bequest from those treasures given me to my care, how

+I will think fit, to give each of you sons and my friends what you need.

+

+.. [#] Younger sisters mean Lutheran and Calvin unities, older sister is

+    the Utraquist unity.

+.. [#] Meaning St. Peter.

+.. [#] Acts 3:6

+

+

+V.

+--

+

+You, my sons, whom I gave birth and brought you up, I do not see each of

+you same; and therefore I cannot speak to each of you in the same words,

+but in different manner. Because some of you betrayed me and The Father

+of Spirits, to whom I have born you, and you did not stay with me in my

+temptations, but you have left me. Other ones of you persisted, and some

+of you may even still persist now, in a half-way manner, while you

+flatter my enemies and warming yourself at their fires, you still long

+for me, your mother, from the Lord to liberate me from the siege of my

+enemies and that you would return to my bosom. Others have more

+courageous spirit and followed me falling down under the cross, and you

+have not hesitated to share my sufferings, even drinking with me the

+chalice of bitterness, which poured for me the Lord, who leads us from

+the bitterness of the current age to sweetness of the world to come. But

+still I see some of you either because of your age or because of

+destitution languish and die; about others I have still hope that the

+Lord will care for them until they get to next times.

+

+

+VI.

+---

+

+I want to delight you, who are still faithful and still remaining in

+that faithfulness and who are arriving the end of your faith, with

+delight which delighted us our most faithful Lord, with these holy

+words: “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign

+to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and

+drink at my table in my kingdom.” [#]_ Accept this delight, O my sons,

+and do not grief any more for the loss of your earthly fatherland and

+tabernacles of your home and tabernacles of the Lord here on the Earth;

+we are led to the more glorious things by the One who said: “Tell my

+people that I will give them the kingdom of [eternal] Jerusalem, which

+I was going to give to Israel. Moreover, I will take back to myself

+their glory, and will give to these others the everlasting habitations,

+which I had prepared for Israel. The tree of life shall give them

+fragrant perfume [#]_, and they shall neither toil nor become weary.”

+[#]_ Be ready for the rewards of the Kingdom, because perpetual light

+will shine on you forevermore.  Flee from the shadow of this age,

+receive the joy of your glory [#]_ knowing that you shall be attached

+after your release from here to the great crowd before the throne and

+before the face of the Lamb, dressed in white and having palm branches

+of Victory; about those the heavenly voice says: “These are the ones

+coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and

+made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore they are before the

+throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple …” etc. [#]_

+

+.. [#] Luke 22:28-30

+.. [#] Tree of life symbolises the eternal life, whereas fragrant

+    perfume is a symbol of the earthly life.

+.. [#] 2. Esdras 2:10b-13 NRSV

+.. [#] ibid v. 35-36 NRSV

+.. [#] Revelation 7:9, 14, 15

+

+VII.

+----

+

+Delight more precious than whole world you have disposed of (because

+what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his

+life, what shall a man give in return for his life [#]_), you fearful

+ones, and when you cannot stand your test, you fell; cry and groan over

+yourself! Or is it right to keep faith for a time and leave it at the

+time of temptation, and show yourself to be of those who fell on the

+rock and not having roots? [#]_ Ah, not many of you declared with Peter:

+“Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” [#]_ and

+what remained? All of you fled away, when the gale hit the Lord and His

+gospel [#]_. Consider the generations of old and see: has anyone trusted

+in the Lord and been disappointed? Or has anyone persevered in the fear

+of the Lord and been forsaken? Or has anyone called upon him and been

+neglected? Woe to timid hearts and to slack hands, and to the sinner who

+walks a double path! Woe to the faint-hearted who have no trust!

+Therefore they will have no shelter. Woe to you who have lost your

+nerve! What will you do when the Lord’s reckoning comes? [#]_

+

+Here is advice: Do, what Peter did after his fall: recall who you are,

+leave the bishop’s palaces [#]_ somewhere to a corner, where other

+disciples are sheltered. Cry and howl more than others, so long as the

+rooster of the God still crows and as long as the Lord still tied still

+standing in front of his false judges looks at you: when you leave? Do

+you want to wait when your conscience lashes at you as the one of Judas

+did? It will be too late. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden

+your hearts, but soften them: humble yourself, turn and while you are on

+the path, walk on the path of the Truth! Such Peter’s footprints for

+returning to the flock, which you left, I bequest you, O my wandering

+sons!

+

+.. [#] Matthew 16:26

+.. [#] L 8:13

+.. [#] Luke 22:33

+.. [#] Gale means here the defeat of protestants in the Battle of White

+    Mountains (1620) and following recatholization of the Czech lands.

+.. [#] Sirach 2:10,12-14 NRSV

+.. [#] Bishop’s palaces — Peter left the seat of the highest Jewish

+    priest, where Peter denied Christ, here the palace means the Roman

+    unity.

+

+VIII.

+-----

+

+What should I bequest to the other remnants of the Unity in whatever

+number you still remain? Weeping I bequest you, penitence and reform in

+front of the face of the almighty Lord.

+

+IX.

+---

+

+I commend you cry, like the one which the Lord God commend to the whole

+family of Israel, when he burnt His priests with fire in His tabernacle,

+because they sacrificed unauthorized fire before the Lord God; where the

+Lord God did not let the remaining priests cry, but He let the people

+cry [#]_. Even my first born sinned, guardians [#]_ of my tabernacle,

+brought or let be brought the foreign fire to the tabernacle of the

+Unity, fire of the human wisdom, fire of bodily vanities, fire of pride,

+splendor, jewels, debauchery, your own will, miserliness, and

+indifference, etc., and see they died and are dying in front of you for

+their sins; but you cry because this wound is coming on you and your

+descendants.

+

+.. [#] see Lev 10:1-6

+.. [#] Priests of the Brethren Unity.

+

+

+X.

+--

+

+Repentance and prayers I order you such as the ones God ordered in the

+time of his great wrath: so that everybody turns to the LORD God with

+their whole heart, and with fasting and crying even with howling,

+tearing their hearts, not only their robe; that the solemn assembly is

+proclaimed, so that both elders and youth are assembled, even the ones

+feeding on breasts; let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her

+chamber; let the priests, servants of the LORD God, cry etc. [#]_; and

+such repentance as it was done in times of Ahasuerus in the city of

+Susa, when they were afraid of extermination, when they were not eating

+or drinking day and night for three days [#]_, or the repentance done by

+all citizens of Nineveh from the king to the last shepherd, from humans

+to animals, from elders to babies, doing nothing other than crying to

+heavens with feast and crying [#]_, and again Jews had besought the

+merciful Lord with weeping and fasting and lying prostrate for three

+days without ceasing [#]_.

+

+O sons, you have never did such repentance and you have never had such

+amount of fervor, but you behaved like many Judeans in their exile, that

+even in the places, where you were dispersed by the Lord, you still

+sinned and defiled His Holy Name in front of those, for whom you should

+sanctify him. Israelites, just after being twice defeated, sit down in

+front of the LORD God, cried, fasted and they offered burnt offerings

+and peace offerings [#]_. You were not defeated twice, but more than

+twenty times during those thirty years [#]_, but still falling into the

+pit, from which you could not and cannot get out, you still have not

+figured out how to manifest your repentance. And therefore at least now

+return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow

+to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil. Who knows

+whether He will not turn and relent [#]_, so that there would be

+liberation, as the LORD God said, in remains, who will be called by the

+LORD God [#]_.

+

+.. [#] Joel 2:12-17

+.. [#] Ester 4:16

+.. [#] Jonah 3:5-8

+.. [#] 2.Maccabees 13:12

+.. [#] Judges 20:26

+.. [#] That is, during the thirty years war.

+.. [#] Joel 2:12-14

+.. [#] ibid v. 32

+

+XI.

+---

+

+I bequest you even this: if you want to enjoy the mercy of the Lord, you

+and your descendants would put real effort into your correction and

+return to your first abandoned love. I recall only now with tears when

+I lost it, what the Lord honored me with above other unities and what

+jewels decorated my sons and daughters.

+

+Because fervent love to God and His honor, hatred of the world and its

+futilities, meekness shared by all children and honesty towards yourself

+left you; on the other hand unfaithfulness, suspicion, differences and

+conflicts, seeking your own things, pride against yourself together, and

+discords sneaked between you forever. And in the same manner you started

+at home you have not stopped to behave in the exile, only that your

+thinking have spread thin even more in exile. Some of you fallen in

+places, where you are honored, and you got into pride and boasting; and

+some for stinginess worse than in your homeland forgot why you left it,

+that is the Word of God. Other fallen into disgusting malady, that you

+gave yourself into vanity, idleness, laziness, even into begging, which

+leads to the ugliness and defamation not only the fate of exiles, but

+also themselves, and what is even worse, of whole nation. Some of you

+have already unhitched yourself from the yoke of discipline, settling in

+places, where you could do whatever you feel is right.

+

+Oh, my children, that is how you remember what you were called for and

+what path you were lead to? We are not here for this life and its

+things, we are just pilgrims and we have just ordinary things pilgrims

+have; our home is in the heavens, and so we should be also concerned

+only with the heavenly matters. Just Lebanon [#]_ is here, Succoth and

+Zarethan [#]_, where the Heavenly Salomon [#]_ collects and prepares for

+His Eternal Temple the alive wood and stones, logs, cuts, chops, chisel,

+and planes them and us, its metals, dissolves and casts into proper

+vessels, on this side of Jordan, in the country of clay earth, where we

+roll in mud; but this Eternal Salomon leads us to the to the Upper

+Jerusalem, where, if we let him well form us, everything will fit.

+

+.. [#] Lebanon - the mountain range, from which Salomon took the wood

+    for the building of The Temple.

+.. [#] Succoth and Zarethan - two cities near Jordan, where Salomon cast

+    the vessels for his Temple (1.Ki 7:46).

+.. [#] i.e., God himself.

+

+XII.

+----

+

+Especially you, my beloved daughter, The Polish Unity, who the Lord God

+gave me to be born in the middle of my life, when I was strong, so that

+(as I can see it now) when grown up you could be a nurse of my other

+children: you did well to accept them in your lap when they had to leave

+their country and that you brought them up. God give you reward for it

+and not letting you into loneliness and protect you from being

+abandoned! I ask you however, remember from which trunk you came, so

+that you care to be a good grape, well planted vineyard, and do not

+change into the wild grape [#]_. Christ told about those who fallen

+apart: “They claim to be Jews, but they are not, they are mistaken.”

+[#]_. Take care therefore so that it is not said about you “They claim

+to be the seed of Czech brethren, but they are not.” This is the time,

+my beloved daughter, to prevent such disappointments; because such

+disappointments truly happen, when not few of your sons are wild in

+their flesh, leaving the yoke of the discipline and enjoy the freedom of

+flesh, temporary comforts and plentiful rents and collecting of money,

+so that for many the office of the shepherd (pastor) turned into mere

+tenancy with you as it is elsewhere; you have not learned how to keep

+the church in order [#]_ against the God’s prohibition and against the

+examples of your fathers following examples of others; even when the

+young ones live with the old ones, sons stay with their fathers, you

+still want the salary and you take it. [#]_ And what about elders? It is

+clearly obvious, that the spirit of my fathers left you, my sons; you

+have lost the keys of art, which Lascius wrote about [#]_, that your

+fathers were special masters of maintaining order, discipline, holiness

+and love of one towards another, without the compulsion and without the

+help of the world arm.  But you, O mine ones (being from the Polish, as

+well as Czech and Moravian nation), came to that you cannot keep in

+order neither yourself, nor your priests, nor the people, not even

+younger ones; whom, so that you do not have to labor with them, you sent

+(and you still do so) to the foreign schools, that they may purify them,

+but they bring back only the wildness, foreign customs, awful style of

+clothes, wiseacrity in their brains, and everything in other style, than

+what the Christ’s and ancestors’ simplicity sought; they do what they

+do, so that everything lost the original style and not much is

+recognizable.  Therefore even people, and listeners, and patrons being

+mostly void, and cold, and mostly emptied by winds of many temptations

+from their roots, uprooting oneself, so that everything with you slowly

+gets tired and is in danger of fall.  Therefore, recall yourself, my

+sons, before you will be also uprooted by the Lord, and by true

+correction, and repair of everything good to prevent His anger, so that

+he will not move even your candlesticks from their places!

+

+.. [#] Revelation 3:9 translated from Czech

+.. [#] Isaiah 5

+.. [#] literally “you have learnt neither to close nor to open the God’s

+    house freely”

+.. [#] literally “even the young stay with older ones, sons stay with

+    their fathers, you want your salary and take it.”

+.. [#] Lasicius - the Polish noble Jan Lasicki (1534-1605) wrote

+    a celebratory work about the Unity of Brethren.

+

+

+XIII.

+-----

+

+If he moves and let you vanish (the One, who starting judgment at the

+household of God, demolishes what he does not like, and concludes the

+demolition, so that he may start afresh on new foundations), so that all

+my order, discipline, apostolic succession and all religious service

+terminates, what will you do, my last remainders, being priests or lay

+persons? I give you this advice, sons!

+

+If any preachers remain, who will have nobody to preach to and serve at

+home, serve the Christ where you can, in any Evangelical church which

+would ask your service; just remember, that you should take care of your

+simplicity, which I born you in and which I have led you to, walking on

+the middle road, don’t flatter one or another, and discourage any newly

+created division, but rather encourage love, concord, and common good in

+the Church; with people develop only the faith in Christ pure and

+religion passionate and hope of the sweet future age, so that you may be

+witness of where you come from.

+

+You then, orphaned listeners, if it comes to that you would not be able

+to attend unviolated, pure religious services built on the orders of the

+Unity, take the advice that you care for those who still walk in the

+same fashion as we were the example [#]_, meaning those who will not

+teach you to make on Earth masters, fathers, leaders, but who lead to

+the only one, who is in the heavens, master, father, leader [#]_; join

+the unity where you will see the truth of the Christ gospel, pray for

+its peace and take care for its building in good, also by an example

+shine to others, also by the true prayers, so that at least on me and

+you, my sons, the Almighty wrath stopped, which is justly imposed on the

+Christianity so fallen into many heresies and divisions [#]_!

+

+.. [#] Phil. 3:17

+.. [#] Matt 23:8

+.. [#] 3. Maccabees 7:38, which is probably incorrect quotation, 3.

+    Maccabees 7 has only 23 verses.

+

+

+XIV.

+----

+

+I cannot forget even you, my beloved sisters, evangelical unities, but

+even you, our mother, from which we came from, the unity of Rome! You

+were our mother, but you turned into stepmother, or even female bison

+[#]_ sucking the blood of your children. I wish that you at least in

+your old age turned to repentance and left the Babylon of your

+hideousness. Where I bequest, if it is of any use, to you my example,

+where paying honor to the God who even in my vices remembered on us, and

+following the light of His word I left through His mercy from clouds of

+your idolatry.

+

+If you do not want, I will not bequest you anything, only the worm of

+bad conscience within; from the outside I put as my witness blood of my

+sons and other witnesses of Jesus Christ, whom you killed between the

+sanctuary and the altar. You make yourself to be the spiritual

+Jerusalem, and you are the one, but the one as it was in times of

+prophets, Christ and apostles, to which the Lord spoke as the witness,

+that I bequest you to inheritance: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city

+that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often

+would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood

+under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you

+desolate.” (Matt. 23:37). Now you have your judgment, Jerusalem of the

+New Testament; wait for its enforcement. To your sons I bequest the

+right, which they were given by the God, to take care of the glory of

+the Eternal Father (to whom they were born to by you; Ezech. 23:37), to

+raise the resistance against you, their mother, proving that you are not

+his wife, but you release your harlotry from your face (Hoseah 2:2). If

+you do not even then correct yourself and you will not please your sons

+by the return to their Father, I bequest to the kings of the Earth, who

+until now have carried you on their backs, the God’s zeal, by which they

+found you ugly and burn you as a dist with fire (Rev. 17:16).

+

+.. [#] female bison — it was said about the Lithunian bison that

+    he deals badly with its offsprings if they are touched by a human.

+

+XV.

+---

+

+I speak to you also, my beloved sisters, who lead the uprising according

+to the will of God (Hosea 2:2) against our mother, and who (against the

+will of that unfaithful our mother) betrothed yourself to the Eternal

+Bridegroom in faith, as I did as well, so that we may know the LORD God

+(Hosea 2:20). Rejoice with me, that we obtain the mercy for Christ not

+only to trust in Him, but also to suffer for Him (Phil. 1:29)! Grace,

+grace, grace happened to us that the Eternal Bridegroom through his best

+man invited us and betrothed us to be his bride.

+

+To me the faithful friend of the bridegroom (John 3:29) was sent, Master

+John Hus, whose testimony I accepted even more gladly, because he sealed

+it with his martyrdom.

+

+To you, the German Unity, was sent the doctor Martin Luther, in the

+spirit and power of Eliah (L 1:17) and you did well to not reject with

+the burning and shining candle, but you have celebrated in his given

+light (J 5:35).

+

+And you, the Swiss Unity, was sent John Calvin, to betroth you and

+marry as a pure virgin to that one man, Christ (2Cor 11:2); and you did

+well that when hearing the voice of turtledove, you got up and you have

+prepared yourself and your fig tree ripened its figs and the wines were

+in blossom and gave forth fragrance. (Song 2:12f)

+

+Let us greatly rejoice in the Lord; let us exult in our God, for he has

+clothed us with the garments of salvation; he has covered us with the

+robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself as a bride adorning

+herself with her jewels. (Izai. 61, 10)! However, I, your now leaving

+sister have something to tell you, my beloved sisters, listen to me!

+

+

+XVI.

+----

+

+You, the German Unity, were my most beloved sister, who when I was alone

+the Lord brought you to life for my pleasure, and who I loved from all

+my heart, although your love who when I was alone the Lord brought you

+to life for my pleasure, and who I loved from all my heart, although

+your love cooled because of my simplicity. What I hold as my most

+precious jewel given to me by the Lord I have not been forgetting to

+give you since the beginning, hoping to share with you my blessing; and

+I still wish to benefit you even while dying, and I wish to bequest you

+what will help you most: more order than you have, and more orderly

+discipline and better wisdom concerning the article of faith on the

+justification, without so shameful misuse of it, which I can see with

+your sons.

+

+It was a good beginning by the one whole God gave you to lead you out of

+your faint; however those who came to his place were not fighting well.

+His work for almost all his life was to destroy Babylon; it could not be

+otherwise (because no work of human construction could endure in a place

+where the city of the Most High was to be revealed; 2. Esdras 10:54

+NRSV) However, when Zion should be built and the Lord called Him from

+his work to rest, his helpers, who should build, let it be, and kept

+only what he did, and whatever he did, they decided to live in the

+ruins. Therefore, you don’t have much more than what he did not destroy

+from the Papism, and what he thought could stay; those are your palaces,

+those are your triumphs. What others considered and consider to be

+destroyed yet, you don’t want to finish, you don’t want to even hear

+about it, and even less you care about building of the new beautiful

+order of the whole Church and founding it on that foundation of unity,

+and building for it fortifications order and raising up gates and

+attaching to them doors and bars and locks with the keys of Christ, but

+having started with the Spirit, you are ending with the flesh, as those

+formerly enthusiastic Galatians (chapter 3:3), but in other direction.

+They started their Christianity with faith, wished to end with the acts

+of Law; you started with the living faith, finish with the dead one, the

+one without any deeds.

+

+Oh my friends, I being disciplined by the God Almighty teach you (Job

+27:11) and I wish you that you would understand that knowledge of Christ

+without the following of Christ and having delight in the gospel without

+following the law of love which aims towards the gospel is nothing, just

+misuse of the Gospel and certain (although opposing that first one

+by the Papacy) temptation and deceit.

+

+

+XVII.

+-----

+

+To you then, the Swiss Unity, who was added to me as a lover of order

+and discipline, what should I bequest? Intent to constancy, growing in

+all good according to the orders of the Christ, so that the justified

+one justifies himself even more, and saint sanctify himself even more

+(Rev 22:11; translated according to the Comenius text), and promise that

+those who have more will be given, and they will have an abundance (Matt

+13:12).

+

+If then my beloved sister you are also from those are getting gifts and

+mercies of God, let even me add you something more: wish that you

+thinking to have something precious, had it truly, but not being misled

+by your thoughts, you were not feeding on shells, but broke into the

+kernel. I ask for you first of all more diligent act of unanimity in

+taking care for the religion and the act of guarding the discipline

+supporting it, so that it would be not only surface but the thing

+itself. Concerning theology I wish you more simplicity, less

+contemplation, and more careful talk about God and most deep secrets of

+His than some of your son did, which lead to the pitiful tearing of

+yourself, gathered against you and against each other: Anabaptists,

+Socinians [#]_, Arminians [#]_, and other bugs coming out of you

+(especially now in England, when the dread of the world power

+discontinued [#]_; it is clear how your sons, who are always seeking new

+things and who are unable to agree on anything, made sad and outrageous

+theater to the Church of God from himself, and the bad name for you with

+all nations).

+

+Oh my beloved sister, let God gives something to all your sons, so that

+we can learn to pray together with David: “Simplicity and honesty let

+them guard me.” (Psalm 25:21)!

+

+.. [#] Socinians: a sect, founded by an Italian Faustus Sozzini in the

+    16th century in Polan, which rejected faith in the Holy Trinity.

+.. [#] Arminians: a Calvinist sect, founded by Jacobus Arminius in the

+    16th century in the Netherlands, which rejected teaching of

+    predestination.

+.. [#] The allusion to the end of the Monarchy and beginning of the

+    English republic in 1649.

+

+XVIII.

+------

+

+To all Christian unities I bequest yearning for the unity of thoughts

+and reconciliation and unity in faith and love leading to the Unity of

+spirit.  Oh if only that spirit, whose I got in the beginning from the

+Father of all spirits [#]_, could come to all of you, so that you would

+long from all your heart, as much as I was longing, for the true unity

+in the Christendom with all those confessing the name of Christ in

+truth! Oh if only God give you to find the foundations of all things

+essential, things of service, and accidental, as he did it to me, so

+that all of you, would know what is necessary to enthuse about and what

+not, what to be enthusiastic about more or less, knowing, when to avoid

+the enthusiasm which is without wisdom and which does not bring building

+and improvement, but which brings destruction of the Church, where the

+enraged enthusiasm is necessary, where to venture fight in rage for the

+Glory of God (all the way to sacrificing your lives)! Oh if only all of

+you longed for the true participation in the Mercy of God, for the true

+participation in the merits of the Christ, for the true participation so

+sweet inner gifts of the Holy Spirit, which you can achieve through the

+true faith, true love and true hope to God, which is the foundation of

+the Christianity! These you can then achieve by the services ordained by

+God for service to us: Word, Keys, and Sacraments, whose power is the

+most certainly proved by the inner power of the Spirit, when they are

+being used simply and honestly, humbly and in faith as if given by God

+without humans invented beauty of rites. Oh if only you would

+understand, what Our Lord said: “The Kingdom of God is not coming in

+things that can be observed, but it is among you.” (Luke 17:20,21 NRSV);

+also “there is need of only one thing” (Luke 10:42 NRSV), that is being

+wholly invested into the one (that is the good part, chosen by Maria

+[#]_, sitting silently at the Lord’s feet and letting go all anxious

+activity), so that you would hit at least sometimes something which

+would make happy the heart of Our Compassionate One, who prayed for all

+of us to the Father saying: “that they may all be one, just as you,

+Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us” (John

+17:21 NRSV), so that all of you claim allegiance to the house of the

+Church were only one house of God, well ordered and joined together, and

+only one in that house family of God, under the unanimous order of God

+in concord, love and helping one another standing as one body, although

+consisting of many members, joined and knit together by every ligament

+with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes

+the body’s growth in building itself up in love (Eph 4:16 NRSV), so that

+one day the Christian Church and angels could sing: “how good and

+pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Psalm 133:1).

+

+.. [#] i.e. God

+.. [#] Maria listened to the word of Christ, sittnng at his feet, while

+    her sister, cautious Marta, eagerly served to the Lord (see

+    gospels).

+

+XIX.

+----

+

+I cannot forget as well you, Czech and Moravian nation, my beloved

+country, even now when I have finished my farewell; to you I turn in the

+first place all my treasures, which I have been entrusted by the Lord,

+I put to you as the first beneficiary and heir, following the example of

+some rich burghers of Rome and kings living on their borders, who made

+as their heir the Roman commonwealth, ruling to the end of the Earth,

+making testaments in its benefit. Even I do believe God, that after the

+end of all gales of anger (introduced on our heads for our sins) the

+rule of your things will return back to your hands, O Czech nation! And

+for this hope I make you heir of all I have inherited from my ancestors

+and preserved during the hard and difficult times, and even what I have

+acquired through the work of my sons and God’s blessing. All that

+I bequest to your and give, namely:

+

+First of all, love for the pure God’s truth, which the Lord started to

+show us before other nations through the ministry of Master Hus, and he

+which together with his helper [#]_ and other faithful Czechs sealed by

+his blood, and from which we were lead away by the smarts of the

+Antichrist, first during the Council of Basel, and now [#]_ through the

+brutal war power, and which I still strive to hold together with my sons

+who wish to go after the light. That is your inheritance, given to you

+before other nations, O my beloved country, take over again your right

+as your own, when this grace will be given and the Lord, Your

+Compassionate one, will make way for his truth.

+

+Second, commend you to the passionate longing for always fuller and

+clearer understanding of the God’s truth, so that knowing the LORD, you

+would always try to get to know him more (Hos 6:3). And because the Lord

+ordered us to search the Scriptures (John 5:39 [#]_) I bequest you to

+the inheritance the book of God, The Holy Bible, my sons from the

+original languages (which God ordered them to be written in) to the

+Czech language translated with great diligence (several learned men

+spent fifteen years on this work) [#]_, and the Lord God so blessed this

+effort so much, that only few nations can listen to the holy prophets

+and apostles speak in their own language. Accept it as your own jewel,

+my beloved country, and use it for the God’s glory and your own good

+education; and although the enemies burned copies of this book, wherever

+they can find it, by the mercy of the same God, who ordered Jeremiah to

+write again books once cut and burnt by the godless Jehoiakim [#]_ (Jer.

+36) as well as soon afterwards He woke up the religious Ptolemaios [#]_

+to translate it into the Greek language and make it known to other

+nations, even to you this book of God will be preserved; believe and do

+not doubt!

+

+Third, I am commend you special love for the Church orders and the

+loving discipline (which should and must exist among the children of

+God), so that the Christ would have not only pulpit as a prophet, or an

+altar as a priest and bishop, but throne and staff to make judgments

+over the disobedient. That discipline which I got from the Lord I have

+never hidden, it was given in the light; use, my beloved country, for

+your benefit even that, either according to my style, or whatever best

+can be found in the Holy Scriptures and in the example of the first

+apostolic Church, because it is the most safe to build on old

+foundations, whenever the temple of God is being restored (Ezra 3:3)!

+

+Fourth, I give you the passion for the service to the Lord God and

+serving him with unity, which I have longed for always, as it is

+evidenced by the memories of my ancestors [#]_ as well as the history

+written by Jan Lascius about my matters. I could use this longing much,

+except that I have joined the common confession of the nation in 1575

+and to the common consistory in 1610. However, let be given by God for

+his mercy (the wish I am sealing either with my life or my death, as the

+Lord will call me), that the third link be the most perfect, of all my

+remains with other remains of faithful Czechs, so that the wood of Judea

+and the wood of Ephraim [#]_ be the only wood in the hand of God, when

+our scattered bones the Almighty Lord collects again, covers with flesh

+and skin and fills with the spirit of Life, for Him nothing is

+impossible!

+

+Fifth, I submit to you and your sons also diligence in cultivation,

+cleaning and building up of adored and beloved language of our fathers.

+My sons were always watchfulness was known for this in times past, so

+much so, that wise told us there was no better Czech language than the

+one among the Brethren and in their books. But some are now even more

+diligent, when they were expelled from their country, to create useful

+books written with even sharper pen for helping your sons in even more

+simple introduction to various noble grace and beauty in all matters and

+speech, to wisdom and eloquence, for more better-chosen replacement of

+the current disaster for times when the Lord will grant refreshing. So

+whatever books you find, old or new, accept it from my sons, have it as

+your own for the best use you can see!

+

+Sixth, I bequest you better youth, more diligent, better in exercise,

+than it used to be. It was my mistake to entrust my youth to alien, who

+inflamed my sons and ruined them. If the God liked to return me back to

+better times I would took care to do better in this. However, I have

+lost all hope for myself, so I ask you, my beloved country, I beseech

+you to correct it yourself. Some of my sons worked on this [#]_ and

+prepared better methods of teaching for youth, which some other nations

+without difference of their religion are starting to use, but it belongs

+to you in the first place, do not neglect your inheritance, which my

+sons will be lead to when the time comes!!

+

+In total, all my inheritance, as ashes after the fire, I bequest to you,

+my beloved country, so that you can make lye from it for cleaning of

+your children, in the same manner as the Lord did for me in the

+beginnings when he risen up us and my children from the ashes of Hus.

+

+.. [#] Master Jerome of Prague

+.. [#] during the thirty years war

+.. [#] In the Bible of Kralice translation Komenský used, the word

+    “search” is in imperative.

+.. [#] The Bible of Kralice was translated in years 1579-93.

+.. [#] Jehoiakim was the Judean king around the year 600 BC.

+.. [#] Komenský reversed the actual historical order of Antiochos and

+    Ptolemaios: Antiochos IV. Epifanes ruled in Syrian in 175-164 BC,

+    Ptolemaios in Egypt in 285-247 BC.

+.. [#] Czech brethern always very carefully kept detailed historical

+    records, The Acts of the Unity of Brethren.

+.. [#] Meaning the south and north kingdom of Juda and Israel.

+.. [#] Komenský himself.

+

+

+XX.

+---

+

+But what more can I say? It is time to stop and part with you by

+blessing, my beloved country! But how? In the same manner Jacob the

+patriarch on his death bed blessed his sons; as Moses when he was

+leaving his people. From their mouth I take words and I as a farewell

+declare a blessing for you, the Czech nation, from your LORD God, so

+that you may be and remain a growing branch over the wall. Even though

+they filled you with bitterness and shot at you, because archers hated

+you with a secret hate, remain your bow unmoved, and your arms agile by

+the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, by the mighty God to whom your

+fathers serve, who helps you, and from the Almighty who will bless you

+with the blessing of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches

+beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb! Let your blessings be

+mighty beyond the blessings of my ancestors, up to the bounties of the

+everlasting hills.  (Gen 49,22-26, translated according to the Czech

+text)

+

+Be alive, nation blessed for the God, and do not die; may your men be

+countless (Deut. 33:6 [#]_)! Bless, O Lord, your fighting, and accept

+the work your hands. Crush the loins of your adversaries, of those who

+hate you, that they rise not again (Deut. 33:11 according to the Czech

+text)! Let your time come, so that nations will say: Happy are you,

+O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD, the shield of

+your help, and the sword of your triumph!  Your enemies shall come

+fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs. (Deut 33:29)

+

+Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people! Selah

+(Psalm 3:9)

+

+

+.. [#] Corrected according to the Czech trnaslation Komenský used which

+    has “countless, without measure”, i.e. many, where the English text

+    has “few”, similar to KJV.