Luther reprimands him harshly for wantonly damaging his property by building the ramparts.
The original is in the Berlin Library, Mscr. gerrn, fol. 45. f. 5. Printed by Burkhardt, p. 403.
My dear master of the tools! You know that you are forbidden by my most gracious lord not to build near me or to my harm. So I have agreed to serve M. G. H. by burying the lower chamber. Now you proceed out of your own thirst and iniquity, and also fill up the middle chamber up to the grating, which the devil has undoubtedly commanded you to do, because it is done by the order of my most gracious lord and with my permission. From this everyone sees and publicly writes that you were not concerned about the building, but about the hall, to force me away from it, and to trample princely letters and seals in the dirt.
Accordingly, it is my will (for I do not want to ask you as my and God's, perhaps also my most gracious Lord's, secret enemy) that soon after this writing (so that you are not unwarned) you should again take away the same debris from the other chamber, for I do not want to suffer the same there, so you have to direct yourselves accordingly.
Likewise, I will have my bridal gate, which you would have liked to ruin with stones to my annoyance, repaired by you, and I want to be assured that the rubble will not knock down the wall of the garden. Also the earthen wall at the back of the new house, which will not stand for long, tinned, 2) so that it does not collapse the same house for me.
If you will not do this, yet I know that my most gracious lord is not willing to harm me a farthing, but much more.
1) Burkhardt places the letter in this time according to the building acts of the Ernestine general archive, Reg. S. - Von der Grüne had planned a large wall construction, which damaged Luther's house by filling. Exactly, the time of writing cannot be determined.
2) "verzäunen" put by us instead of: "verzaübern". The sense cannot be doubtful: provided with a protective weir, either of wood or masonry.
I will not let you, as an ungodly servant, take away what a Christian prince has given me, sealed, and attested, or I will report all this to my most gracious lord, and find out at least whether you are the newborn man who may impress his seals on a laudable Christian Elector of Saxony, since you of the nobility press their seals, 3) who do not keep letters and seals for you.
For you shall be sure that I do not want to clear a hair's breadth more to hasty cursed ban, so that you clear my most gracious lord his bag. I will keep silent what great lords you have pulled over my neck, the dyke servants, 4) who practice the Fensterauswerfeu and Muthwillens geling for me. I will not blame you for this and think that you cannot prevent it, and you should also be innocent with me, although it is nevertheless annoying to suffer.
Herewith commanded to God, who converts you and makes you different. For in this way you shall not be led out or even recently be in the abyss of hell. I would not like to grant you that, otherwise I would have sent such a letter to you. But so that I may be excused before God, and you must bear your sin and wickedness yourselves, you shall be warned herewith. There have been many and greater tyrants and devils than you and the castle, but they are all gone and have had to leave the sun in the sky.
Martinus Luther, D.
No. 2865.
To the Grasen Albrecht von Mansfeld.
Luther warns the count against unbelief and striving for wealth, and also against oppressing his subjects.
Manuscript in Aurifaber, vol. III, p. 387 (complete). Partially in the Altenburg edition after the
3) "Print into" and "print" we understand from the impressing or destroying of the wax seal.
4) Thus "teichknechte". Probably correctly resolved; elsewhere Luther calls them "Wallknechte".
5) Both De Wette and the Erlangen edition date the letter from December 8, 1542. The date is wrongly resolved, and according to the way of beginning the new year with Christmas, it belongs to the year 1541.
Letters from the year 1541. No. 2865.
Preface of the main register and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XXII, p. 572. Completed ex Autogr. I4utrupii in the Leipzig supplement, p. 98, no. 184; in Walch, vol. XXI, 454; in De Wette, vol. V, p.5I2 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 56, p. 38.
To the noble, well-born Lord, Lord Albrecht, Count and Lord of Mansfeld, my gracious and beloved sovereign.
Grace and peace in the Lord, and my poor pater noster. Gracious Lord! I sincerely pray that Your Grace will hear this writing of mine in a Christian and gracious manner. You know, Your Grace, how I am a child of the Mansfeld dominion and have naturally loved my fatherland until now, just as all pagan books say that every child naturally loves its fatherland. has done many praiseworthy deeds in the beginning of the Gospel, has finely appointed the churches and preachers' chairs, as well as the schools, for God's praise and honor, and in the peasants' upheaval, God has used them splendidly and magnificently, so that for these and other reasons I cannot easily forget God or leave him out of my care and prayer. But it seems to me, especially through much chattering and complaining, that E. G. should fall away from the previous beginning and become much different, which (as I think E. G. will believe) would be a great heartache for E. G.'s person. For now people will talk against the Christian faith, which I myself have often heard: What gospel? If it is provided, 1) then it must come to pass; let us do what we do; if we are to be blessed, we shall be blessed 2c. Such is now to be called great prudence and wisdom, although we theologians before or God Himself also know such; and where E. G. is stuck in these thoughts or challenges, I would be heartily sorry, for I am also stuck in them, and where Doct. Staupitz or rather God through Doct. Staupitz, I would have drowned inside and long since been in hell. For such devilish thoughts, where they are stupid hearts, finally make people desperate, who despair of God's grace, or if they are bold and courageous, they become God's despisers and
Enemies, say: Let me go, I will do what I want, but it is lost!
But how I would like to speak orally with E.G., because I am extremely sorry for E.G.'s soul, because I do not respect E.G. as much as the damned Heinzen and Meinzen, and yet it is not so easy to speak with the pen. But to write briefly about it, G. H., it is the truth, what God decided, that must certainly happen, otherwise he would be a liar in his promise, on which we must put our faith, or shamefully lack; that is impossible. But here we must nevertheless keep the great difference, namely, what God has revealed to us, promised or commanded, that we should believe, and judge ourselves according to it, so that he will not lie. But what he has not revealed or promised to us we should not know, much less judge by it; and he who wants to trouble himself much with it tempts God by abandoning what he is commanded to know and do, and deals with what he is not commanded to know and do. From this must come people who do not ask anything about God's word or sacrament, who go into wild life, mammon, tyranny and all kinds of desolate life. For they can have no faith, hope, or love for God or man before such thoughts, but they despise him, because they should not know what he secretly intends, when he reveals himself so abundantly in everything that is useful and blessed to them, from which they turn away wantonly. No man can afford that his servant would not sooner perform his commanded office, if he knew beforehand all the secret thoughts of his lord concerning all his goods. And God should not have the same power to know something secret about what he commands us? E. G. think, where one should judge oneself according to such thoughts of the secret courts of God: why does he let his son become man, why does he establish father and motherhood, why does he order worldly law and authority? What is their right? 2) If it is to happen, it will happen without all this. What then shall baptism, the holy scriptures and all creatures mean to us? If he wants to do it, he can do it.
I) "provided" == predestined, predetermined.
2) "their" put by us instead of: "ehr".
well do without all that. But it is said that he will not carry out his counsel, now revealed through him as a co-worker, 1 Corinth. 3, 9: Therefore we should let him do it, not worrying about it, but doing what we are commanded to do. So also Solomon saith Proverb 25:27 [Vulg.], "He that searcheth for majesty shall be overtaken:" and Sirach on the 3rd [v. 22, 23 [Vulg.], "Understand not that which is too high, but think that which is commanded thee:" and the disciples Actorum 1:7. f. Christ asked whether he would now establish Israel's kingdom, he says, "It behooves you not to know the time or hour which my Father hath reserved for him; but go ye, and be my witnesses." 2c. As if he should say, Let my Father and me take care of what is to be done; you go, and do what I command you. Therefore, I sincerely pray to them that they will not withdraw from Word and Sacrament; for the devil is an evil spirit, E. G. is far too cunning, as well as all the saints, but remain silent to all men, as I also well know, because I hardly miss a day; for man grows cold, and the longer the more; and even if there were no more fear, that would be enough that the devil must nevertheless depart at the same hour, and give the heart a heat. 1) Thus, the GODs themselves feel well, how they are ready to get cold and mammon, intending to become very rich, also, as the complaints go, to press the subjects too hard and too sharply, to bring them from their hereditary fires and goods, and to make them almost their own, which GOD will not suffer, or where he suffers it, will make the county poor to the ground, because it is his gift that he can easily take again, and no account is caught, as Haggai says [Cap. 1,6. 9.]: "You gather much, but I make the bag full of holes.
1) Here the letter ends in the Altenburg and in the Leipzig edition. What follows zero is found from word to word (with the exception of a small piece at the end of this paragraph: "Ich habe von etlichen hören sagen ... despised") in what seems to us to be a spurious letter of February 23 (not February 24, which De Wette, vol. V, p. 437 and the Erlanger Ausg., vol. 56, p. 6 offer) 1542, which is a combination of the remodeled beginning of a letter of March 14, 1542 and this letter. De Wette thinks that in our letter "two letters are pushed together".
and I blow 2) into the grain, so that you keep nothing. I have heard some say that they want to set up a regiment in Germany like in France: yes, if it were also asked whether it would be right and pleasing before God, I would praise that. Mall also sees next to it how the kingdom of France, which before times was a golden, glorious kingdom, is now so nothing neither in goods nor people, that it has become a tinny kingdom out of the golden kingdom, and now calls the Turk as a friend, which before the Christian kingdom was famous. This is what happens when one despises God and His word.
This I write, as I think, to E. G. for the last time, because the grave is now closer to me than one might think; and I ask, as before, that E. G. would deal more gently and graciously with E. G.'s subjects, let them remain, so E. G. will also remain through God's blessing, both here and there. Otherwise they will lose both, and go like the fable of Aesopi says about the one who cut open the goose that laid him a golden egg every day, thus losing the golden egg with goose and ovary; and like the dog in Aesopo, who lost the piece of meat in the water, because he snatched at the pretense. For it is certainly true that he who wants to have too much gets what is most wavy, of which Solomon writes much in Proverbs. Summa, I am concerned for your soul, which I cannot suffer to be cast out of my care and prayer, for that is certainly to be cast out of the church. Not only the commandment of Christian love forces me to do this, but also the heavy burden of Ezekiel 3:20. 3) God has burdened us to be condemned for the sins of others. For he says: If you do not tell the sinner his sin, and he dies because of it, then I will claim his soul from your hands, for that is why I have appointed you pastor 2c.
Therefore, your Lord will be well aware of my need for such pampering, for I cannot let myself be damned for your Lord's sin, but rather seek to make them blessed with me wherever possible. Otherwise
2) "I blow" set by nns instead of: "blaset", and before: "I make" instead of: "you make".
3) In the editions "Ezekiel 4."
I am hereby well excused before God. Hiemit dem lieben GOtt in allen Gnade und Barmherzigkeit befehlt, Amen. Die innocentum puerorum [Dec. 28] anno MDXLII [that is 1541].
E. G.
more willing and faithful
Martinus Luther, D.
No. 28 66