Luther thanks for a gift and sends tree seedlings.
From the original in the Wolfenbüttel library in De Wette, vol. V, p. 127 and in the Erlangen edition, vol.55, p.211.
1) Burkhardt: "the".
2) Added by us.
G. and Peace in Christ. Most Serene, Highborn Princess, Madam! I and my dear Käthe thank E. F. G. for the cheese. And for this reason the gift is very dear to us, even if it would be much less, that E. F. G. of God's grace [is] so earnestly inclined to his holy word. And we pray that the Father of all mercies, through His dear Son, our Lord, will abundantly bestow His Holy Spirit upon E. F. G. and keep him until that day of our final redemption. We hereby command E. F. G. as willing servants, amen. I hereby send E. F. G. plants of mulberry trees and fig trees, as many as I have now had. Otherwise I have nothing strange. Wednesday after Aegidii [Sept. 4] 1538. E. F. G.
Martinus Luther.
No. 2464.
To D. Cyriacus Gerich, pastor in Bernburg.
Luther teaches that people who have stiff-neckedly despised the church in their lives should not be given a Christian burial.
From the Cod. Jen. B. 24. n., fol. 1, in De Wette- Seidemann, vol. VI, p. 207.
To the honorable Mr. Cyriacus Gerich, pastor at Bernburg, Doctor of Theology, his extremely dear [friend] in the Lord.
Grace and peace! If this mallet has been buried outside the churchyard, this may go with the other things. The custom of our church is that with him who stubbornly despised to have fellowship with us in life, even we, when he has died, have no fellowship, that is, "we let him be buried who and where one will", outside or inside the churchyard. "But we, with our disciples, do not go with him, nor sing to him, let them howl who bury him," according to the words, "Let the dead bury the dead." For the burial
3) This letter has neither date nor year. Since Gerich became a doctor on Sept. 9, 1538 (Suevi Academia Witteb., fol. Fff, the letter is written in some year after this date.
Letters from the year 1538. No. 2464. 2465.
Rather, they are all about one who dies 1) in Christ, so we cannot sing them without falsehood and violation of conscience, or rather without blasphemy in the case of one who died in blasphemy and ungodliness. So you too can hold and do. M. L., D.
No. 2465.