To an unnamed person, January 5, 1526.
Grace and peace in Christ. From your writing, which you did the closest to me, I have heard, my dear N., and can easily believe, and almost certainly know, that many are angry and make a big fuss about the fact that you took your sister's daughter in marriage: and it will not help you that you did it with my advice and permission, that is, with God's advice and permission, which I took from divine scripture. Yes, that is what makes the greatest annoyance, that you have taken the arch-heretic and damned man, the devil's apostle and apostate, Luther, for advice and followed him in this.
You should have given money to the most holy father, the pope, and bought and paid for such a woman from the same womanizer; that would have been right, Christian and godly. There would have remained no trouble, and you would have been honored as a pious child. The villain, Luther, is right
and takes no money for it. Isn't that a great audacity? how can you suffer it?
Now, dear N., I confess and admit that it is my divine counsel and permission. For there stands our foundation and rock: What God does not forbid, but leaves free, that shall remain free to everyone; and no one is to be obeyed who forbids that which God wants to have free; but everyone is guilty of doing against such prohibition with words and works, and of always doing the contrary to defy it, Galatians 2 and 5.
Now it is obvious, no one may say otherwise, that God has not forbidden but left it free for siblings to intermarry or for someone to take his brother's or sister's daughter. In spite of that, who here indicates one letter differently. Although the pope is not too reluctant to forbear such things, where money or favor do the intercession, even though he is still such a strict lawgiver.
But we consider that God Almighty should ever be as wise to make laws and govern people as the Pope is, and should be safer for us to follow God than the Pope. But this does not help. There is no hearing here; say, write, sing or read, they stand like sticks, yes, like stones; in short, eyes and ears closed, with the head through: Heretics, heretics, heretics! It is not right! It is not right! like the mad, raging dogs or ravening beasts in the forest.
(5) Therefore, since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear, and since they will not hear. They are worth nothing else than to see and hear what annoys them, because they rage and rage against that which should correct them, as it is written in Psalm 109:17: "He does not want the blessing, so it shall remain far from him."
(6) I have also taken a nun in marriage, even though I might have advised against it, and had no special reason, except that I did it in defiance of the devil with his scales, the great Hanses, princes and bishops, who want to be badly nonsensical, that spiritual persons should be free. And I would like to cause even more trouble, if only I knew something more that would please God and displease them. For with this I cool my temper at their raging against the gospel, so that they are angry, and I do not give anything to it, and always continue and do it the more, the more they do not want it. They insist on force; so I defy the right, and will wait whether force or right will finally go and stay.
I advise you to do the same. You should be sorry if they were not angry with you. For that would be a sign that you live to please the enemies of the gospel. But if they are angry, you should laugh and be of good cheer, because you know that it pleases God.
8 But that some of the weak are also offended by it is not our fault, but the fault of the tyrants who oppose the gospel, so that it will not come to pass and the weak will not be able to
Therefore, they must answer for it. Even if it comes to the point that Christian and divine freedom wants to be dampened or desecrated, it is more important for them than for the weak. For there is more in God's word than in the whole world.
9. if they threaten death, Christ has more life than the devil has death. If they will take goods, Christ is richer than they. If they will be ungracious lords and nobles, let them bind up their grace, that it follow us not, till the grace of Christ be no more.
(10) Stand firm, therefore, and do not turn to anger, wrath, disfavor, grief, harm or danger, because God is not against you, but with you. First of all, you have the clear text that your marriage is not forbidden before God. Secondly, that it is not forbidden before the pope except for the sake of favor and money, and not for the sake of God, that whoever receives it does not receive it for the sake of God, but for the sake of money. Now hold them against each other, God and the pope, which is the greatest, which is more to be believed and followed, and which has more righteous cause for itself? God leaves it free for the sake of His grace and our conscience. The pope banishes it and keeps it imprisoned for the sake of money and his tyranny.
11) Thirdly, you have the powerful example of Abraham, who confessed his Sarah to be his right sister for his father's sake and not for his mother's sake, Genesis 20. This must be that she was his stepmother or, as the text reads, his brother Haran's daughter. But Abraham is far more than all the popes. If he has not gone to the devil about it, but has pleased God in such a marriage, then according to the example no one will be in danger. If they are angry and blaspheme the work and example of the holy archfather Abraham, let them be angry. God, whom Abraham pleased and served with it, will find them well.
Only despise their anger and blasphemy as much as they despise and blaspheme your marriage. Hereby commanded by God, Amen. At Wittenberg, January 5, 1526.
Martinus Luther, D.