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...by vows and oaths; wherewith also we do earnestly beseech the guardian government of the Great Ottoman [Empire] to grant unto us a head of the nation (*azgapet*) from among the faithful subjects of His August Majesty, who, without regard to the religions of individual persons, careth equally for all the guileless faithful of his mighty and justice-loving government.” Lo, it appeareth plainly before the minds of those that love truth that in these words there is no truth proper to the holy and perfect Christian religion, but falsehood and deceit, whereby they give place unto the evil-working instigations of Satan. Wherefore the Apostle Paul admonished all believers not only to depart from deceitful words, but also to think on the truth and to speak the same: “Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor” (Ephes. iv. 25). Unto the same intent, the holy Apostle Peter likewise writeth this same spirit-breathing exhortation: “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation” (I Pet. ii. 1, 2). In their words a twofold deceit is perceived: the first is to conceal the knavery of their inward counsels and to snare the will and inclination of the feeble-minded, or rather to display their deceits and falsehoods before the lovers of justice as though they were the truth. Unto whom the blessed Job maketh answer: “And the Lord disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise” (v. 12). And the wise Solomon rebuketh the evil deeds of the crafty, saying: “A perverse man deviseth mischief, and a lantern of deceit kindleth wickedness and separateth chief friends” (Prov. xvi. 28). Let these [men] know that the craftiness and the seductive counsel of their will have been made manifest before all who have eyes in their head; who, lo, make answer unto their deceitful calumnies, repeating the moral maxims of the Theologians: “He that desireth to deceive all men, by the just judgment of God it shall come to pass that he himself shall be deceived the more. None among the wise believeth him in whom he hath seen no faithfulness. The crafty man becometh the laughing-stock of the crafty...