Response to No. 2775: The opponents would gain nothing from the wrong arrangement of the 15 articles. Proposal to increase these articles. Good news from Regensburg. About his state of health and the activities of D. Jonas at Halle.
Handwritten in Aurifaber, vol. III, p. 326. From the original in Schütze, vol. I, p. 144 and in De Wette, vol. V, p. 351.
Mr. Caspar Creuziger, Doctor of Theology.
Grace and peace! I recognize from the 15 wrongly arranged articles, which you sent to me, my dear Doctor Caspar, what Satan is up to. But let him turn and turn again, let him be seven times a Vertumnus and Proteus, the truth holds him fast as one conquered and bound. Act you, because you are messengers of Christ. "It doesn't matter if they cover themselves up, cover up 1) or drive up, it's still the infernal devil and lying spirit." To D. Amsdorf you shall say that he should add to these articles the one about the conception of the holy virgin, the one about the rosaries and the golden chains of the doctors, the one about the censer and the holy water pot and about the trousers 2) of St. Francis, and he may request that these also be discussed. But still, who knows what God wants to do on the occasion of these exceedingly foolish articles, so I would like M. Philip to be moved all the more by this baseness. They ridicule God, who will mock His mockers quite gloriously. Amen. Therefore, be lively and make mockery of those who make mockery, and also these mockeries will result in great serious things.
Today, quite good things have been said about the Emperor from a letter, if I am not mistaken, from your Prince of Anhalt to our Prince, 3) namely, that the Emperor has sent you, the Theo
1) "beecken" put by us instead of: "heecken", which we think is a misprint.
2) Instead of: "brata (?)" is to be read braca. Compare St. Louis edition, vol. II, 907, § 17; ibid. vol. XVI, 961, § 32.
3) It is the letter of Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, the deputy of the Churfürst, dated April 26, Corp. Ref., Vol. IV, 188.
I have summoned the theologians of both parties to his room, and commanded and asked that they [the theologians] abandon their [own] inclinations and the desire to serve their princes, and have only God before their eyes, 4) and seek the truth for the salvation of the churches and the commonwealth. 5) May God confirm this holy work, amen. I cannot and must not write more, and what I write to you is primarily for the Lord Philip. I am gradually regaining my hearing, but my head remains quite persistently useless, full, I don't know, of what clouds and winds, enclosed as it were in the cave of Aeolus, murmuring and unwilling. Christ lives, in whom also we, though dead, live. Yet I sleep the ordinary hours and eat in the ordinary way. Perhaps Satan is in his bath for a while. Jonas has already preached Christ successfully for three weeks in Halle, to the great delight of the people and the council, but against the will of Querhammer and one and another, and even the coadjutor does nothing with his raging and his threats. The council acts constantly; the monks and the papists gnash their teeth and rage; more about this at another time or by another. Be at ease in the Lord. All is well in your houses. May 1, Philippi and Jacobi, 1541.
Martin Luther.
No. 2783.