Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
Ver. 1. As we have received mercy] Since we have so freely been called to the ministry of mere mercy, we show forth therein all sedulity and sincerity. When I was born, said that French king, thousand others were born besides myself. Now what have I done to God more than they, that I should be a king, and not they Tamerlane having overcome Bajazet, asked him whether ever he had given God thanks for making him so great an emperor; who confessed ingenuously he never thought of it. To whom Tamerlane replied, that it was no wonder so ungrateful a man should be made a spectacle of misery. For you, saith he, being blind of one eye, and I lame of a leg, was there any worth in us why God should set us over two such great empires of Turks and Tartars? (Leunclav. Annal. Turc.) So may ministers say, What are we that God should call us to so high an office? &c.
We faint not] We droop not, we flag not, ουκ εκκακουμεν, we hang not the wing, though hardly handled. For, Praedicare nihil aliud est quam derivare in se furorem totius mundi, as Luther said.