To Nie. Hausmann, pastor at Zwickau. April 17, 1531.
Grace and peace in the Lord! We know, dear Lord and friend, that we are bound by the law of love to care for one another as one member of the body cares for another, and to warn him of danger and harm. According to this law, I also care for you and am thereby caused to write this short admonition and warning to you, so that you will not come into danger one day through my silence, in which I would also have to be guilty and share.
2. you know that you are the rightly appointed pastor and pastoral caretaker of the church at Zwickau, accepted by the council and the congregation; so that on that day you must give an account for this church commanded to you, and are obliged, as long as you live, to provide it with pure doctrine, to pray for it with earnestness, to care for it, to watch over it, and to dare and leave your life in all kinds of distress and danger that may occur, such as pestilence and other diseases, and also to be at the forefront of it.
1620 06 IV, 242.243. 11) That a parish priest to unrighteousness. Absetzen eines Pred. etc. W. X, 1892-1894. 1621
stand against the gates of hell, and suffer and endure everything that is due to a pious, faithful pastor and pastoral caretaker. All of which are indeed difficult, great, even divine works, as you have diligently and faithfully done up to now, praise God.
3 Because your council, driven by the evil spirit, has now chased away the preacher at St. Catharina. Catharina, who has neither been accused nor convicted of some misdeed before any judge; But to do so by their own power and outrage as raging people and real church robbers (not of bodily goods, but of the office and honor of the Holy Spirit) and to find themselves both party and judge in the same matter, will in no way suffer that you should be silent about it or consent to it, so that you do not make yourself a party to this foreign church robbery, nor will this unjust and shameful violence, committed against the outcast brother, fall on your head. But if he had been culpable and had been to blame, so that there would have been cause to remove him from office, then this should have been done according to the law, also with your knowledge and advice, as the priest.
4 But it is even worse that they set up another in the place of the rejected one without your knowledge, even against your will, and thus, out of the same violence and injustice of their own, now also exercised against you, they invade him. Here, dear Nicolaus, be warned for Christ's sake that you take good care, for it is indeed not a bad little thing. See to it that you are not guilty of this theft from the church and that part of the curse does not fall on you.
5 Do you now ask what you should do about this? I do not know much to advise, but I consider it good. to advise you as I would advise him myself.
6. first, you shall summon the uncalled and intruded preacher before you and the other ministers of the word and reproach him amicably, yet with a seriousness, for the council's sacrilege and injustice; and further, you shall denounce to him that he is not called by you, to whom the church has commanded, and therefore comes as a thief and murderer, and yet teaches and rules in the same of your church, for which, however, he is not called.
You would have to give an account. He should therefore know that he is intruding by force and stealing your parish office without your knowledge and will. Therefore you admonish him to refrain from such robbery; or shall you see with what conscience he can preside over such a stolen office? For the church is entrusted and commanded to you; therefore, without your will, it is not due to anyone to exercise any teaching or governing office in it.
(7) If he does not comply with this private admonition, you shall declare to him that you will proclaim this same admonition and protest from the pulpit in a public sermon. And you shall then also do this and openly declare before the congregation that you have not appointed him, but that he has intruded into your office by force. At the same time, you must admonish both the people and the council to be careful whom they listen to about this robber, who was not appointed, but had intruded himself and made himself guilty of church desecration; also testify that you want to be excused and clean from the blood of those who carry out such violence and church desecration, consent to it and confirm it. That you do this, my dear Nicolaus, necessity demands, so that you do not make yourself a party to someone else's sin.
8 But with the council you shall proceed thus. Either call them to you or go to them and ask them first whether they recognize you as the pastor of this church or not. If they say, "Yes," then reproach them with serious words about the office and danger of a pastor and shepherd, and how you must give an account for this congregation of yours, and what trouble, care and work it cost you all your life to care for it and stand by it in all distress and affliction, be it plague or other epidemics, as I mentioned above. But because you shall not be worthy of any better reward for such sour work of your office, than that they have imposed a preacher on you without your knowledge and will, but have driven away the previous one unheard, shamefully and disgracefully, likewise without your cooperation: so you shall defend yourself from them and testify that you did not consent to this desecration of their church.
You have not consented, nor will you ever consent.
(9) But if they do not desist from this private exhortation, show them that you will also proclaim the same from the pulpit in a public sermon. And this you shall then also do, repeating before the assembled people the same admonition that you gave before the council, and adding the following:
10 Dear people, you know that I am your pastor and must give an account for you and risk my life and limb for you every day against the devil and all danger to souls, which is why I should and must take care of the preaching in this city. Now you have driven out a preacher before he had overcome in court and without my help, since I was supposed to do this first and foremost; and moreover, you have appointed another one to my office without my will, thus taking my pastorate away from me. Now, however, because I am and must be a pastor, I will not flee from it, nor will I hand it over until I am justly deposed from it. Neither can I flee from it or hand it over, but I will do as Christ teaches, Matt. 5:40, Luke 6:29, "Whosesoever cloak is taken, let him put on his skirt, and let him suffer all robbery and violence. So will I do now, and hereby declare that this ministry is mine, and that I am commanded to care for and appoint the preaching ministry; nor will I leave or surrender such a ministry. But because it is taken from me by force and wrested, I will suffer it and let it be stolen and taken from me, and thus depart from here for a time, until God grants it to me again; however, I will see who will be so foolhardy (daring, reckless), who may sit in my taken and stolen parish and with what conscience he may possess my office.
(11) When you have blessed them in this way, depart for a time, either here to us or elsewhere. For the wicked still want to boast about this and blaspheme us before the Elector, as if we wanted to encroach on their temporal authority, thus calling us rebels and the very highest, if anyone is to be blasphemed; since they know that they are the ones who are to be blasphemed.
do wrong in it and lie as the boys. They are sacrilegious, not like those who are punished for stealing church property, which we could well suffer [and therefore leave them unpunished]; but they are sacrilegious, who rob the Holy Spirit of his office and honor and make themselves the Holy Spirit [because they remove and appoint preachers of their own liking, want to be pastors themselves and appoint the preaching office]; thus they learn the gospel.
Therefore, as I said, you must be careful and see to it that you show by word and deed that you will by no means consent to their desecration of the church, nor participate in their sins and curses. However, you should in no way renounce your pastorate, but reclaim it as if it had been stolen from you. For what is it to remove and install preachers but to be a pastor and to want to usurp the ministry of the word? And that is exactly what these church robbers do.
(13) I have faithfully given you my advice, and God has given you a strong will to follow it; so, if God wills it, it will not go without fruit. For you do not do this with mischief or violence, but counsel everything in goodness with humility, but also with right earnestness and out of necessity of conscience.
When you have thus taken your leave, Cordatus would also like to protest, if it pleases him, that he does not want to preach in a church that has been robbed and stolen by murder, in which duly appointed persons have been forcibly deprived of the office of preaching, so that he is not also burdened with foreign church robbery and sin. This could perhaps be a way to restore the ban and interdict. For if anyone should intrude into your place, I will so frighten his conscience with my letter that I hope he will not easily remain there.
You have sent me a letter and Stephan Roth*) as well. But I have read only the fourth part of the council's letter, and the
I have not yet vomited up Stephan's; nor do I want to receive any writing from them for the rest of my life, nor do I want to see or hear them. I did not want to take a hundred guilders for the letter, because now I know what I think they are.