33 D. Martin Luther's admonition to Caspar Schwenkfeld to desist from his error. *)
April 14, 1526.
Grace and peace in Christ. My dear lord and friend, we have been a long time in replying, so that you should notice how we have not read your thing beyond rips raps, and now we are sending it to you again by your messenger. But what shall I say? Perhaps God wants you to fall like this. You tell me that you want to try 1) how verba coenae rhymes with cap. VI. loannis, and would be the same; this has not happened, and will never happen. Now what is the use of teaching much de duplici esca imaginis et veritatis, and leaving out the probation[s] that are supposed to indicate such two escas in coena? You say it is so, but you do not prove it. Now we may not believe you and build our souls on your word. Is therefore
1) d. i. prove.
My friendly request, let go of the public error and do not add to the number of those who are now misleading the world so miserably. If not, then God's will be done, and I am heartily sorry, but I am clean from your blood and from all whom you deceive with it. 2) May God convert you. Amen. At Wittenberg, Tiburtii, 1526.
2) Schwenkfeld had been in Wittenberg at the end of 1525 and wrote to D. Z. (Zauch, Zoch) about it, Epistolar. II, Th.II, p. 24: "about two months he ^Lutheri sent me our booklet again with a sharp heated letter, we should stop seducing the people, whose blood, so we seduced, should be over our heads, and concluded fmündlichl with these words: In short, either you or we must be serfs of the devil, because we boast on both sides of God's word." Therefore, Diburtii must be dissolved tverden with April 14, not August 11.
*) This letter is found in the Leipzig Supplement, p.45; in De Wette, vol. Ill, 123 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 53, p. 383, everywhere with the wrong date: August 11, The correct time determination was given by Seidemann in De Wette, vol. VI, p. 596. The Tidurtii here is not Hdurtü st Lusannae, August 11, but Hburtli ValerianL st Naximi, April 14. We reproduce the text according to De Wette.