Luther recommends the LI. Force for further support.
The original is in the Schweidnitz School Library. Printed in a supplement of the Silesian Provincial Gazettes. 1806; in De Wette, vol. V, p. 357 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 55, p. 308.
To the strict, honorable, honorable, prudent gentlemen, chief and council of the town of Preslau, my favorable dear gentlemen and friends.
Grace and peace in the Lord. Strict, Honorable, Respectable, Careful, Dear Sirs
1) George Major.
2) Burkhardt: "dem unsern".
3) Burkhardt: "aufen".
and friends! Magister Johannes Kraft has enabled me to write this letter to your strictest and most honorable friends. After he received from you 20 fl. for the tax in his studio, now at six go, with such a duty that he should not go elsewhere without your leave, but should serve your city, of which he thanked you very much, and acknowledged it justly. Now, however, he has grown very well with such scholarship, and has become a fine, learned man, who is now to reach further into the higher faculty. But I, if his complexion were not too weak for preaching, would not like to see him outside of theology; for he is very well versed in the Scriptures, sedate and chaste, who should be a good man for me in the church. For this reason I advised him to the Medicina. Now you can think for yourselves, dear sirs, that nothing can be done in the high faculties with 20 fl. My amicable request is, therefore, that your strictest and most honorable ones improve his scholarship; if that is too difficult, then release him from the duty, so that he may meanwhile be content with other work or school service until he may come higher. May such my request be granted, and let the same M. Kraft enjoy comforting, because such charity is so very well invested; and yet otherwise such great good is invested badly in all the world. Your strict and honorable friends will know how to show themselves Christian and favorable. Herewith to the dear God, Amen. Monday after Jubilate [May 9] 1541.
Martinus Luthrus, D.
No. 2787.
To the Elector Johann Friedrich, together with Bugenhagen.
See St. Louis edition, vol. XVII, 668, no. 1371. This letter is the answer to no. 2785, where the necessary information about the dating is given. The original in Luther's hand is in the Weimar Archives, Reg. H, fol. 329. N. 133. According to Burkhardt, this letter still has the following postscript:
4) We have also been warned beforehand of the Archbishop's spies in Mainz; we want to do right by him, if God wills it.
4) "Before" set by us instead of: "From".
No. 2788.