May 12, 1536.
God's grace and peace, honorable, careful, good friend! Here your son, Nicolaus, has attached himself to a pious child through honest love, so that he may come out of the very dangerous rut of youth and keep himself according to divine order. Now he complains that you should be hard and stiff with him in this case, when you should be more favorable to him than his father, especially because he, as an obedient child, seeks and asks your father's will so humbly, as you would undoubtedly have desired from your father at that time. This is how it stands now.
Praise God! in the world so that the marital status is held in honor, and whoever else wants to study and intends to come, is therefore unhindered. For this reason, I ask for your son, although I should be asked more justly, that you show yourself fatherly, as you are obligated to do, and not give your son cause to live dangerously against his conscience. God will and can do it all differently than we care and think; as He has always done, still does and will do. Hereby commanded by God, Amen. Friday after Jubilate, Anno 1536.
Martinus Luther, D.