4. But your invincible faith keeps the honourable distinction of conscious worth, and content with repudiating crafty, vague, or hesitating action, safely abides in Christ, preserving the profession of its liberty. You abstain from communion with those who oppose their bishops with their blasphemies and keep them in exile, and do not by assenting to any crafty subterfuge bring yourselves under a charge of unrighteous judgment. For since we all suffered deep and grievous pain at the actions of the wicked against God, within our boundaries alone is communion in Christ to be found from the time that the Church began to be harried by disturbances such as the expatriation of bishops, the deposition of priests, the intimidation of the people, the threatening of the faith, and the determination of the meaning of Christ’s doctrine by human will and power. Your resolute faith does not pretend to be ignorant of these facts or profess that it can tolerate them, perceiving that by the act of hypocritical assent it would bring itself before the bar of conscience.

4. Quorumnam devitent communionem.---Sed tenet etiam nunc invicta fides vestra spectabilem conscientiae suae gloriam: et nihil subdolum, nihil ambiguum, nihil trepidum agere contenta, secure in Christo libertatis suae professione persistit, ab eorum se communione, qui episcopos blasphemiis suis contradicentes in exsilio detinent, abstinendo, neque se in injusti judicii reatum per assensum dissimulationis subdolae aggregando. Nam post multum et gravem omnium nostrum ob eas res, quae irreligiose 0483B ab impiis gerebantur, dolorem, ex eo intra nos tantum communio dominica continetur, ex quo his perturbationibus vexari Ecclesia coepta est, ut exsulent episcopi, demutentur sacerdotes, plebes terreantur, fides periclitetur, humano arbitrio ac potestate doctrinae dominicae decreta statuantur. Hoc fides illaesa vestra neque nescire se simulat, neque pati posse profitetur, non se extra conscientiae crimen futuram intelligens ex ipso dissimulationis assensu.