Franciscus Junius - Tolle Lege

“God shattered that man” by Franciscus Junius

“On Friday the eighteenth of October I held our first assembly among the residents of Limburg in a field not far from Herve, along the road that leads to Liège.

The crowd was large enough. There a certain man positioned himself behind me, armed with a hunting spear and having sworn before that he would kill me if he could get within a spear’s length of me.

God shattered that man, though leaving his spear intact, to such an extent that he listened calmly and with a peaceful mind to the Word of the Lord.”

–Franciscus Junius, A Treatise on True Theology: With the Life of Franciscus Junius, trans. David C. Noe (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1594/2014), 61-62.

“Let us first humbly beseech our most great and most wonderful God” by Franciscus Junius

“As we are about to discuss theology, that shared storehouse of divine and saving wisdom, let us first humbly beseech our most great and most wonderful God, from whom all wisdom and warm generosity proceeds, that He may condescend by the light of His own everlasting Spirit to illuminate us in this most holy undertaking and to lead us into all truth, in accordance with His own promise in Christ Jesus.

Next, if in this project we, by God’s blessing, produce anything useful and sound, may He display that same blessing of His own as saving to those who are going to read our late-night musing.

By this, His glory in us all can be more firmly established, and we in turn can grow in Him, until we attain to that proper stature of the mature man, and reach the fullness of Christ.”

—Franciscus Junius, A Treatise on True Theology: With the Life of Franciscus Junius, trans. David C. Noe (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1594/2014), 91.