Written shortly before its end. 15 Feb. 1530.
To my dear father Hans Luther, citizen of Mansfeld in the valley, grace and peace in Christ JEsu, our Lord and Savior, Amen.
Dear Father! Jakob, my brother, has written to me that you are dangerously ill. Because the air is bad now and there is danger everywhere, also because of the time, I am moved to care for you. For
Although God has so far given you and kept you a firm, hard body, your age at these times gives me anxious thoughts, although we are all not sure of any hour of our lives, nor should we be; for this reason I would have liked to come to you in the flesh myself, but my good friends have advised me against it and talked me out of it, and I must also think for myself that I am
1796 A, 130-133. A. Luther's comfort letter to his father Hans Luther. W. x. 2106-210S. 1797
I did not dare to enter into danger at God's temptation. [For you know how favorable lords and peasants are to me; to you I would like to be able to come, but back home it would be dangerous.]
But it would be a great joy to me if it were possible for you and your mother to be brought to us, which my Käthe also desires with tears and we all" I hope we will wait for you in the best possible way. I then dispatched Cyriacus to you to see if it would be possible due to your weakness? For if it came to this or that life with you according to God's will, then I would like to be around you in the flesh, as is only right, and, according to the fourth commandment, show myself grateful to God and you with childlike loyalty and service.
3. However, I ask the Father, who created you and gave you to me as a father, from the bottom of my heart, that he would strengthen you according to his causeless goodness and enlighten and preserve you with his spirit, so that you may know with joy and thanksgiving the blessed doctrine of his Son, our Lord JESUS CHRIST, to which you are also now called by his grace and have come out of the dreadful great darkness and error, and hope that his grace, which has given you such knowledge and has begun his word with it in you, will preserve and accomplish it to the end in that life and to the joyful future of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
4 For he has already sealed such doctrine and faith in you and confirmed it with marks, namely that you have suffered much blasphemy, reproach, scorn, derision, contempt, hatred, enmity and danger for my name's sake, along with all of us, Gal. 6:17. But these are the right marks, in which we must be like and similar to our Lord Christ, as St. Paul says, Rom. 8:29, so that we may also be like his future glory.
5 Therefore, in your weakness, let your heart be fresh and confident, for we have there in that life with God a certain faithful Helper, Jesus Christ, who has strangled death and sin for us, and now sits there for us, and together with all our sins, is the Lord.
He looks upon us with the angels and waits for us when we are to go out, so that we must not worry or fear that we will sink or fall to the ground, Deut. 31:6, 8, Jn. 1:5, 1 Chron. 29:20, Heb. 13:5. 29, 20. Hebr. 13, 5. He has too great a power over death and sin that they cannot do anything to us, so he is so heartily faithful and pious that he cannot nor will not leave us; only that we desire it without doubt.
(6) For he hath spoken it, promised it, and promised it; he will not, and cannot, lie to us, nor deceive us; there is no doubt about it. "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you," Matth. 7:7; and Acts 2:21. 2:21: "All who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." And the whole Psalter is full of such comforting promises, especially the 91st Psalm, which is especially good for all sick people to read.
I want to have spoken these things to you in writing, as in sorrow for your illness, because we do not know the hour, so that I may share in your faith, struggle, comfort and thanksgiving to God for His holy Word, which He has given us so abundantly, powerfully and graciously at this time.
But if it is his divine will that you should be deprived of that better life even longer, that you should continue to suffer and see and hear misfortune with us in this sorrowful and wretched pit of misery, or that you should bear and overcome it together with all Christians, then he will also give you grace to accept all this willingly and obediently. After all, this cursed life is nothing but a veritable pit of misery, in which the longer one sees and experiences more and more sin, wickedness, plague and misfortune, and if there is no end to all this, nor is there any diminishing of it, until one strikes us with a shovel, then it must stop and let us sleep contentedly in the rest of Christ, until he comes and wakes us up again with joyfulness, amen.
(9) Hereby I command you to him who loved you better than you loved yourselves and showed such love that he took your sin upon himself and paid for it with his blood, and made this known to you through the gospel.
1798 L.S4,133RD; 232,233RD III. Main st. - 0. of the Father-Our esp. 7. petition. W. X, 2109-2111. 1799
He has prepared and sealed everything in the most certain way, so that you may no longer worry or fear, but remain firm and confident in his word and faith with your heart. Where this happens, let him take care, he will do it well; indeed, he has already done it in the very best way, more than we can understand. May the same our Lord and Savior be with you and with you, so that - God grant it may happen here or there - we may see each other again with joy. For our faith is certain, and we do not doubt that we will see each other again with Christ in a short time, since the parting from this life is much less before God than whether I move from Mansfeld to here from you, or you move from Wittenberg to Mansfeld from me. That is certainly true, it is by one
If you can sleep for an hour, things will be different.
10 Although I now hope that your pastors and preachers will abundantly show you their faithful service in such matters, so that you do not almost need my gossip, I have not been able to refrain from excusing my physical absence, which, God knows, hurts me from the bottom of my heart.
11 My Käthe, Hänschen, Lenchen, Muhme Lene and the whole house greet you and pray faithfully for you. Greetings to my dear mother and the whole friendship. God's grace and power [in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit] be and remain with you forever, Amen.
ZuWittenberg, on February 15, Anno 1530.
Your dear son
Martinus Luther.