Luther judges the confession of a Mecklenburg clergyman very unfavorably.
In Schröder's Evangelisches Mecklenburg, and from it in Krey's Beiträgen zur Mecklenburgischen Kirchen- und Gelehrtengeschichte, vol. II, st. 2, p. 111 (Rostock 1822); in De Wette, vol. IV, p. 549 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 55, p. 58.
To the illustrious, highborn prince and lord, Mr. Hinrich, Duke of Mecklenburg 2c., my gracious lord.
Grace and peace in Christ, together with my poor Pater noster. Sublime, highborn prince, gracious lord! Your Princely Grace Grace have written to me and sent me a preacher's confession, on which I have also asked for my concern, and I have not been able to restrain my most gracious Lord from also writing an admonition to His Royal Highness to do so in earnest. For there are now so many examples of the spirits of the mob before us that we should certainly wake up and become lively. The devil cannot and will not stop, as experience has shown us above and beyond the Scriptures.
2) This led us to the assumption that this is an exegetical argument. But that Gal. 4,4. is the relevant passage, seems to us from the fact that we read there: xxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxx, which is rendered in the Vulgate by factum ex muliere.
3) In the first two printings as from the year 1530, but this is wrong, because Luther was in Coburg at that time. The year 1534 is De Wette's Conjectur.
Letters from the year 1534. No. 2071. 2072. 2073.
talked about. Therefore, may E. F. G. seriously intervene and see to it that this preacher desists or sets his staff elsewhere; for he is of no use and has crickets in his head that have never been heard or read before, and is a vain mad thing without any foundation in the Holy Scriptures. Some here consider it to be Henr. Neverus, who was a barefooter in Wismar, who lost the five wounds of St. Francis in a disputation in Wittenberg, since they had a chapter of time here. E. F. G. want to help Christ promote his honor, as we all owe, against such messengers of the devil. Hiemit GOtt befohlen, Amen. At Wittenberg, 1530 [1534?], Tuesday after Visitationis Mariae [July 7].
E. F. G.
Martinus Luther, D.
No. 2072.