1. how to make unity.
2. one must yield to the other for the sake of peace.
3. of Saul's and David's disagreement.
4. from anger.
Why Christ curses so badly in the 109th Psalm, when he curses and warns in Matth. 5:34 ff. that one should not curse.
1. how to make unity.
In 1546, on February 10, Luther's guests in Eisleben were Count Albrecht of Mansfeld and Count Hans Heinrich of Schwarzburg; Luther spoke of unity and said: "Duke Frederick, Elector, had agreed that things could be tolerated if the people could be tolerated, so that the people would also become cordially one, so that one would often have to yield to the other and give way.
And the doctor said: "We all want to have unity, but no one seeks the means to unity, which is mutua chari-tas, communal love. In the same way, we all seek wealth, but no one seeks the right means of becoming rich, namely through God's blessing. So we all want to be saved, but the means by which we are saved, as the mediator, Christ, all the world does not want.
He also said: "In the past, princes and lords have put their misguided actions and discord on faithful knightly people and did not let them come under the hands of lawyers soon. When Duke Ernst, the old Elector of Saxony, and his brother, Duke Albrecht, were at odds, they put the matter in the hands of the old man of Einsiedel, Lord Henry's and Abraham's father. They did not sit down against each other, nor did they go among the jurists.
Duke Frederick the Elder, Elector, and Duke William of Saxony also disagreed with each other so harshly that they marched against each other with large numbers of people, each doing great harm to the other.
When they came together at Leipzig with both armies to strike, the councilors on both sides had joined in and said, "It is not fitting that princes, and indeed cousins, should destroy themselves and their land and people in this way," and so the princes went together in their cuirasses to a hill that lay between the two camps and talked to each other. The people of war stood on both sides and watched. And as they went together, the knives fell 1) and talked but a little with one another; then they both opened the visors of [the] helmets, and continued to talk, and one shook hands with the other. When the trumpeters saw this, they sounded the trumpets, and there was great rejoicing in the camp, and the two lords became one with each other, and the erroneous things were ordered to be put away to the judges. So princes and lords should still talk to each other and be one for their person, and let their disputes be settled by the councilors. -
To make unity, the Doctor Martinus Luther (when he acted at Eisleben between the Counts of Mansfeld, who were very much at odds) gave this agreement and said: If one had cut down a tree with many gnarled branches and twigs, and one wanted to bring it into a house or into a room, one must not want to grasp it in front by the top and pull it in, for there the branches would lock and lie back, for they all stand against the house or room; and if one therefore wanted to stretch the tree into the house or room by force, one would break all the branches.
1) I.e. put the swords in the scabbard.
Neste, yes, one would not bring the tree into the house at all. But this is what must be done: the tree must be attacked at the trunk, since it has been cut down, since all the branches would then be standing away from the door, and then the trunk must be pulled in toward the door, then the branches would bend together finely, and the tree could be brought into the house without all the trouble, effort and work. Otherwise, if everyone wants to be right and no one gives way to the other and moves closer together, there will never be any unity, because the branches block themselves and stand against the door of the house, so they cannot be brought in.
After a few days, M. Luther spoke of disagreement in Eisleben and said: "Duke George of Saxony once disagreed with the monks in Dresden. Now he said: If we cannot separate, let the law separate us. Hence the common saying, "Friends of persons and enemies of things": "Let things be at odds, and let persons be one. And what the law says, that shall do us good and harm. Let justice be cast in superiorem or in arbitrum aliquem, let the person be satisfied, and in the meantime, re suspensa ad superiorem, let him keep himself friendly. So, what Christ will say on the last day between the pope, bishop of Mainz, and me, that shall do me good and harm, and I will let it remain so.
Item: He said: If one wants to reconcile people, so that they may be reconciled, then one must yield to the other. For, if God and men were to be reconciled, God would have to surrender his right and put away his wrath, and we men would also have to put down our righteousness; for we also wanted to be God in paradise, and let ourselves be thought wise and prudent as the gods by the serpent, the devil's deception. Then Christ had to get along with us, he got involved in the matter and became the mediator between God and man, and this mediator also got the parting of the ways, which was the cross: as one is wont to say, "The parting of the ways usually gets the parting of the ways.
Best of all. So Christ also had to suffer, and such his suffering and death he gave us, because "he died for our sins and rose again for our righteousness", Rom. 4, 25. So the human race was reconciled with God again. So, if our counts would also lay down their justitiam, we would soon come to justice. Otherwise we sit there, eat, drink, and trade about things, and no unity follows, for no one wants to lay down his divinity, nor his righteousness.
And when Doctor Martinus Luther had lain for three weeks in Eisleben, and had traded between the Counts of Mansfeld, his sovereigns, and they would have liked to get along with each other, but little fruitful resulted, he wrote on the sixteenth day of Februarii Anno 1546 with chalk in his bedchamber on the wall these words: "We can not do what everyone wants. But we can do what we want." With this he wanted to complain that the parties wanted the judges to agree with their cases and to judge and approve them; but the parties nevertheless did not want to be satisfied with equality and justice, but wanted to be pious and just.
2. one must yield to the other for the sake of peace.
Doctor Martin Luther said: If it happens that two goats meet each other on a narrow footbridge that goes over a water, how do they hold each other? They cannot go behind each other again, so they cannot go next to each other, the footbridge is too narrow. If they should bump into each other, they would both fall into the water and drown. How do they do that? Nature has given them that one lies down and lets the other walk over her; thus they both remain undamaged. So one man should do the same to another and walk on him with his feet before he should quarrel, quarrel and fight with another.
3. of Saul's and David's disagreement.
In 1546, on February 11, Luther was questioned over the table in Eisleben: Whether
Did Samuel also come between Saul and David to make them agree? Then said the doctor: No, because it was the same disagreement, as with the pope and us. Saul's reign was to cease and David's to begin, and Samuel anointed David king to be against Saul. He saw that otherwise there would be no unity. Therefore, Samuel will be blamed for causing such a great disturbance in the kingdom of Israel. And David suffered much because of it; as Nabal reproached him, and Shimei also reproached him. For the prophets have always had to stand between the door and the hinge and let themselves be jammed.
4. from anger.
Doctor Martin Luther said: If one wants to learn to recognize an angry man, one knows him best at the game, at the bogeyman, and at the hunt, ibi non potest celari ira, quia amator odit Rivalem; and one becomes an enemy to the one who plays with one when he loses; and if one is denied something, he is also angry about it.
Why Christ in the hundred and ninth Psalm, Deus laudem meam ne tacueris, curses so badly; when he beseeched and warned in Matt. 5:34 ff. that one should not curse?
To this IX Martin Luther answered: That a Christian does not curse, nor avenge himself for his person, but faith curses and avenges itself. To understand this, one must separate God from man, person from thing. As for God and things, there is neither patience nor blessing. As when the wicked persecute the gospel, this affects God and his cause: there is neither blessing nor happiness to be wished, otherwise no one would have to preach or write against heresy, since this cannot happen without cursing. For whoever preaches or writes against them wishes that they perish, and does the worst and best that they may perish.
These are the curses of faith, which, before it would let God's word perish and heresy stand, would wish that all creatures perish, because through heresy one loses God Himself, Deut. 16. But the person should not take revenge, but suffer everything, and do good to the enemy, according to the teaching of Christ and the way of love, Matth. 5, 44.