Letter of recommendation for Johann Faber, whom Luther sends them to preach.
From Schenkl's Chronicle of Amberg, p. 220, in De Wette, vol. V, p. 718 f. and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 56, p. 127.
To the honorable, wise, and fair gentlemen, mayor and council of Amberg, our favorable lords and friends.
God's grace through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, our Savior, beforehand. Honorable, wise, favorable lords and friends! Although we recognize from your diligence in the appointment of preachers that you yourselves are inclined to the planting and preservation of the holy Gospel and right knowledge and invocation of God and to the promotion of Christian preachers, we have nevertheless given this document to the worthy Doctor Johann Faberio, who is known to you before, to kindly command him to you as a learned, God-fearing man, who is called to the service of the holy Gospel. W. will accept him kindly and show him good, as you yourselves know that all men on earth owe this service to God first of all, to accept the ministerium evangelii with reverence, to hear, to love, to help to preserve and to protect it, each according to his station, and thus also to do good to faithful preachers. And the world's hardness is right to deplore that it does not want to consider that God sent His Son and commanded with a clear voice from heaven: "This is the one you are to hear," and wants to be recognized and called only in this way, and only in this way to be saved through the one teaching given by Him, that nevertheless the greater number in the world persecute or despise the gospel. But if you, as godly men, love and honor the gospel of our Savior Christ, God will dwell with you, give you grace and blessedness, and will also preserve you bodily, as our Savior Christ says: "He who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and he who loves me will be saved.
we will come to him, and make our dwelling with him." This is a rich consolation, that God wants to have His dwelling place with and in those who gladly hear His Gospel, learn it and receive help. Therefore, let the holy gospel and Christian preachers be faithful to you, and we are willing to serve you kindly. Dat. Wittenberg, January 20, 1545.
Martinus Lutherus, D. Philippus Melanchthon.
No. 3187.