Handwritten in Aurifaber, Vol. III, p. 437. Printed in Schütze, Vol. I, p. 329 and in De Wette, Vol. V, p. 701 f. For an old German translation see No. 3140.
Grace and peace in the Lord! What I should write to you, my best Cordatus, I do not really know. For good and happy things I would write to you with the greatest pleasure, since you are not the last among my best friends, because I have experienced and know for certain that you have been, always are and will be an exceedingly faithful lover of our doctrine, that is, of the Word, who is the Son of God and of the Virgin, since you have always faithfully and loudly recognized and taught this with us, not without the greatest evil reproach, which is our reward in this world, and hatred, as He says [Luc. 21, 17.] "You will be hated by everyone for my sake," but [Matth. 5, 12.] "be joyful and confident." The same, the Word of the Father, also says [Luc. 6:23.], "Your reward is great in heaven." This fruit, this reward, this glory is enough; indeed, the recompense for our short-lived labor that we do for Him is all-sufficient. What is the world? what is its raging? yes, what is its prince? Certainly a smoke and a bubble of water compared to the Lord who is with us, whom we serve, that is, who works in us. But you can say this better yourself. By the way, I am sorry that you are weak in strength. I pray to the Lord to sustain and strengthen you. I can easily believe that the marrow will not
1) "itself" put by us instead of: "it".
If you wish it to be in the best way, take it also with your life and health. But let us rejoice in tribulations, and, let it go as it may. Our honor, even yours, lies in this, that we let the sun of our doctrine rise without clouds to the ungodly and ungrateful world, according to the example of our Father, who lets this sun of his rise over good and evil. And since the sun also of our doctrine is his, what wonder is there if they hate the domestics? [Matth. 10, 25.] "Oh we live in the devil's kingdom", outwardly, "therefore we shall neither see nor hear any good thing", outwardly, but we live in the kingdom of Christ, inwardly, where we see the riches of the glory and grace of God. "And is called": "Reign in the midst of your enemies." It is a kingdom, therefore glory is there; it is among enemies, therefore shame is there. But let us pass through honor and dishonor, through good tidings and evil rumors, through hatred and love, through friends and enemies, until we reach where friends alone are, and we are in the Father's kingdom, amen. Fare well in the Lord. December 3, Anno 1544. Yours, Mart. Luther, D.
No. 3164.
To Jakob Probst, pastor in Bremen.
Luther is old and tired of life and longs for his departure. From an illness of his daughter Margarethe.
Handwritten in Aurifaber, Vol. III, p. 439. Printed in Schütze, Vol. I, p. 331 and in De Wette, Vol. V, p. 703.
Grace and peace in the Lord! I write very briefly, my dear Jacob, so that I do not write anything at all, as if I had either forgotten you or neglected you. I am indeed sluggish, tired, cold, that is, an old man and useless. I have finished my course; it is left for me that the Lord should gather me to my fathers, and hand over to decay and worms their part. I have lived enough, if it can be called a life. You pray for me that the hour of my death may come.
and be beneficial to me. I do not care about the emperor and the whole empire, except that I commend them to God in prayer. It seems to me that the world has also come to the hour of its going, and is altogether obsolete like a garment (as the Psalm [102:27] says), and that it must soon be transformed, amen. There is nothing left among the princes full of heroic virtue, but incurable hatred and discord, avarice and their own lusts. Thus the commonwealth has no men and the third chapter of Isaiah is hurrying along in full course. Therefore, nothing good can be hoped for except that the day of glory of the great God and our salvation will be revealed.
My daughter Margaretha thanks you for your gift. She has suffered a small illness together with her brothers, but while those have long since been restored, she has been seized by a very persistent and terrible fever, almost ten weeks of laugher, and is still doubtfully struggling with life and health. And I will not be angry with the Lord if he should take her away from this satanic time and world, from which I, too, together with all my own, would like to be quickly torn away, because I long for that day and the end of the raging Satan and his. Fare well in the Lord Jesus Christ. Greet your relatives, and I greet you myself in the rains of my Käthe and all of us. Pray for us. On the fifth day of December 1544.
Your Martin Luther, D.
No. 3165.
Bernhard Zeltler to Luther and Bugenhagen.
He asks Luthern to intercede with the Elector for his future support.
The original is in the Weimar Archives, Reg. O, p. 125.
Printed by Burkhardt, p. 458.
God's grace through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Savior, before. Venerable, highly learned, favorable dear fathers, Pre
1) This approximate timing is derived from Luther's letter to the Elector of Dec. 16, 1544.
ceptores and gentlemen! It is with great sadness that I inform your honor that the help that our most gracious lord, out of special mercy, arranged for me at your intercession, from which I have now supported myself and my family for three years, has been denied and rejected by the administrator of the Abbey of Altenburg, who states that he has the order and may not give away anything else, unless new permission is obtained from our most gracious lord. Now your Honor knows that I am a poor man, overloaded with four children, afflicted with infirmity of body, as with a stupid face and weak head, who has nothing or can gain nothing, because what is given to me by God's grace through our gracious Lord and pious people is daily put before me. Lord and pious people is offered and given to me daily. Your Honor can also well appreciate that I myself have hardly been able to make do with the 40 fl. that I have had up to now. Should I now also benefit from this help and elem. I would not know how to help myself any further, and would have to worry that I would have to see my children starve and suffer hardship, and might fall into the previous weakness and temptation, since God, the eternal Father of all grace and comfort, would graciously protect me from it, since I would rather be dead ten times than try the previous hardship again. God is my witness that I will not flee from my work, and I would have no greater joy and comfort or pleasure than to thank God and the Christian community for what I have heard from your honorable father and other my preceptors. and others of my preceptors, and earn and eat my bread by the sweat of my brow, as I did before with all my will and joy when I served the youth for 16 years, and it grieves me greatly that I must thus lie idle (as some think) and be a burden to other people, I am truly not idle, for I do not let any time pass, without all the glory of speaking, when I do not hear sermons or lections, teach my children, and let them read useful Christian books to me, or with them for the need of all of Christendom, for our Lord, for E. E., for our Lord, for our Lord, for our Lord, for our Lord, for our Lord, for our Lord. E. E., my preceptors, and for this school diligently and earnestly. If poor foreign men are ordered to me by E. E., who desire ordination from the church here, and yet are unskilled in teaching, I use my best diligence to instruct them Christianly and thoroughly, as I hope that the examiners have felt my diligence in this so far, and in such my little service,
2) "strangers" put by us instead of: "friends".
Letters from the. No. 3165 to 3168.
which I alone, and no one else, can show to the church according to my present opportunity, have quite enough 1). Since, without this, one would have to be kept here to instruct the foreign ordinands, and I have always found myself willing and able to do so, I ask, for God's sake, that Your Eminence prescribe me as a submissive to Our Lord. Lord, and ask that His Lordship grant me, a poor man who has a weak and pregnant wife and four small children, who cannot be outside of this church and school, nor acquire anything, my stipend, if it can be, with a small allowance, and let it follow me for the rest of my life.
For this I will, as long as I have half my health, serve the church here with the intended instruction of the foreign ordinands willingly, diligently and faithfully, and besides that I will earnestly ask God the Lord for the welfare and salvation of this church, country and sovereignty with my own, and also constantly instill this in my children, in addition to Christian teaching, so that they will show their gratitude for such elemosyne with everything they can for the praiseworthy (laudable) House of Saxony throughout their lives. I hope that E. E. will heed such my request and necessary concern, and will also be helpful and supportive to me this time, as they have done to me so far in a fatherly and faithful manner. May God, the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has promised to reward all good deeds done to the least of His own, pay and reward Your Honor for such good deeds and support with all kinds of spiritual gifts, and keep you for the edification and preservation of His Church and the pure Word of God for a long time with yours in health, peace and joy, Amen.
Bernhardus Zettlerius, about schoolmaster to Gessen.
No. 3166.
To the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, together with Bugenhagen, Cruciger, Camerarius and Melanchthon.
' (Regest.)
Intercession for the imprisoned Hieronymus Baumgärtner.
Mitgetheilt von Bindseil, Supplement, p. 208. After the original by M. Lenz in the Zeitschr. für Kirchengeschichte, IV, 150. The above regest in Kolde, Analecta, p. 404.
1) Burkhardt: "enough".
No. 3167.