Prose Writers of German

unto me and wait that which I shall appoint, and let me care,”- -as St. Peter teacheth,-1 Pet. v. 7: "Cast all your care upon him for he careth for you;" and David, Ps. Iv. 22: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee."

Thirdly, albeit, such thoughts do not immediately cease, (for the Devil doth not willingly desist,) you likewise, on your part, must not cease, but must still turn your heart away from them, and say: "Hearest thou not, Devil, that I will not have such thoughts? And God hath forbidden them. Get thee gone, I must now be thinking of his commandments, and let him care for me himself the while. If thou art so exceeding wise in such matters, then get thee to heaven, and dispute with God himself. He can sufficiently answer thee." And, in this way, you must still send him from you, and turn your heart toward the commandments of God.

FROM A LETTER

TO THE CHRISTIANS AT ANTWERP, IN WHICH LUTHER CAUTIONS THEM AGAINST FALSE TEACHERS.

Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! My very dear masters and friends in Christ! I am moved by Christian love and carefulness to send this writing unto you. For I have learned how that Spirits of error are bestirring themselves among you, which have the boldness to hinder and defile the Christian doctrine, as happeneth in various places.

This one will have no baptism, that one denies the sacrament, another supposes a world between this and the last day. Some teach that Christ is not God; some say this and some say that; and there are almost as many sects and creeds as there are heads. There is no simpleton now so rude, but if he dream or imagine somewhat, the Holy Spirit must have inspired it, and he claims to be a prophet.

• So then, dear friends, there hath come among you also a Spirit of disorder, in bodily shape, who would fain cause you to err, and lead you astray from the right understanding, into his conceits. Therefore take heed and be warned! But that you may the better avoid his tricks, I will here relate some of them. One article is: he holds that every man hath the Holy Spirit.

The second: The Holy Spirit is nothing else than our own reason and understanding.

The third: Every man believes.

The fourth: There is no hell or damnation, but only the flesh is damned.

The fifth Every soul will have eternal life. The sixth Nature teaches that I should do unto my neighbour as I would that he should do to me; and to will this is faith.

The seventh: The Law is not violated by evil lust, so I do not gratify the lust.

The eighth He who hath not the Holy Spirit, hath also no sin, for he hath no reason.

All these are mere wanton articles of folly, and excepting the seventh, not worth answering. And your love shall do right to despise this Spirit. For he is as many others are now, here and there, who care not much what they teach, and only desire that men may speak of them, and have to do with them. And the Devil also seeketh this uneasiness, that he may wrestle with us, and the while hinder us, so that we forget the true doctrine, or converse not with it. Even so he useth to deceive the people with other hobgoblins, that they may miss their way, &c. And he setteth their mouth agape, that they cannot attend to their business the while. Just so this Spirit does with you, in these articles.

Wherefore, be warned, for God's sake, and take heed that ye despise and let go all that presenteth itself as new and strange, and which it is not necessary to the salvation of the soul to know. For, with such goblins, he seeketh to catch the idle. •

We have all enough to do, our whole life long, to learn the commandments of God and his Son Christ. When we are well instructed in these, we will further inquire into these secret articles, which this Spirit stirreth up without cause, only that he may obtain honour and fame. So then continue in the way, and learn what Paul teacheth the Romans, and look at my preface there, that you may know which is the right method of learning in the Scriptures; and withdraw yourselves from useless prattlers. Herewith I commend you to God. And pray for me! Amen.

TO HIS MESSMATES.

HE COMPARES THE ACTIONS OF THE BIRDS ABOUT HIM TO A DIET.

GRACE and peace in Christ, dear Masters and friends! I have received the letters written by you all, and have learned how it fareth on every hand. That you, on your part, may learn how it fareth here, I give you to know that we, namely I, Master Veit and Cyriac, go not to the Diet at Augsburg, but we have come to a diet of a different sort, elsewhere.

There is a rookery just beneath our window like to a little forest. There the jackdaws and the crows have established a diet. There is such a riding to and fro,-such a screaming day and night without cessation, as if they were all drunk, full and mad. Young and old chatter together, so that I wonder how voice and breath can hold out so long. And I would like to know if any of this nobility and military gentry are left with you; for methinks they have assembled together here, from all the world. I have not yet seen their emperor, but the nobility and the

great fellows hover and wriggle constantly before our eyes. They are not very splendidly clad, but simply, in uniform colour, all alike black, all alike gray-eyed, and all alike sing one song; yet with a pleasant difference of young and old, great and small. They care not for great palaces and halls; for their hall is arched with the fair wide heaven; their floor is the field, wainscotted with beautiful green bows; and the walls are as wide as the ends of the world. Neither do they care for steed or harness.

They have feathered wheels with which they can fly from the firelocks and escape from wrath. They are grand, mighty lords; but what they will decree, I know not yet.

But so far as I have learned from their interpreter, they intend a mighty expedition and warfare against wheat, rye, oats, malt, and all kinds of grain; and there will be many a knight made in this cause, and great deeds will be done.

Thus do we sit here at the diet, and hear and see with great joy and love how the princes and lords, together with the other estates of the em

pire, sing and luxuriate so joyfully together. But a special joy have we when we see in what a knightly fashion they wriggle, wipe their bills, and overthrow the defence, that they may conquer and acquire glory against corn and malt. We wish them joy and weal, and especially that they may be spitted upon a hedge-stake. But I hold that they are nothing else but sophists and papists, with their preaching and writing; whom I must needs have before me in a heap, that I may hear their lovely voice and discourse, and see how useful a gentry it is, to devour all that is on the earth, and, in return, to chatter for pastime.

Today we have heard the first nightingale, for they have not been willing to trust April. Hitherto we have had only splendid weather. It hath not rained once, except yesterday, a little. With you peradventure it may be otherwise. Herewith be commended to God, and keep house well!

MARTINUS LUTHER, Doct. From the Diet of the Malt-Turks, 28th April, anno 1530.

But I will freely and openly confess that, so far as I am conscious, as oft as I have made mention of thy person, I have ever said the best and most honourable things concerning thee. And if, at any time, I have not done so, I can, myself, in no wise commend it, and must confirm the judgment of my accusers with full confession, and wish for nothing more dearly, than to sing the counterpart of this my insolence and wickedness, and to retract my faulty word. I have called thee a Daniel in Babylon; and how diligently I have defended thy innocence against the slanderer Sylvester, every one who reads it may superabundantly understand.

But this is true, I have freely attacked the Romish Chair, which they name the Roman Court, concerning which thou thyself must confess, and no one upon earth can confess otherwise, that it is viler and more shameful than ever was Sodom or Gomorrah or Babylon. And, as far as I perceive, its wickedness henceforth is neither to be counselled nor helped. Everything there has become altogether desperate and bottomless. Wherefore it hath vexed me, that under thy name and the semblance of the Romish Church, the poor people, in all the world, have been cheated and injured. Against which I have contended and will yet contend, while my Christian spirit liveth within me.

Meanwhile thou sittest, holy Father Leo, like a sheep among the wolves, and like Daniel among the lions, and like Ezekiel among the scorpions. What canst thou alone do among so many wild monsters? And though three or four learned and pious Cardinals should fall to thy lot, what were they among such a multitude? Ye should sooner perish with poison ere ye could undertake to help the matter. It is over with the Romish Chair. God's wrath, without cessation, hath overtaken it. It is opposed to the general Councils. It will not suffer itself to be instructed nor reformed. Yet shall not its raging and unchristian manners binder it from fulfilling that which is said of its mother, the ancient Babylon, "We would have healed Babylon and she is not healed,-we will let her go." Jer. li. 9.

Haply, it were thy task and that of the Cardinals to prevent this misery; but the sickness mocks medicine;-horse and carriage obey not the coachman. This is the cause why I have ever so grieved, thou good Leo, that thou hast been made a pope at this time, who wert well worthy to have been pope in better times. The Roman Chair is not worthy of thee and the like of thee; rather the evil Spirit ought to be pope, who also surely doth reign in Babylon, more than thou.

O! would to God thou wert rid of the honour, as they call it,thy most mischievous friends, and mightest maintain thyself with some prebend, or with thy paternal inheritance! Truly, none but Judas Iscariot and his like, whom God hath rejected, should be honoured with such honour. For tell me, whereunto art thou

yet of use in Popedom? Save, that the worse and more desperate it grows, the more vehemently it abuseth thy power and title to injure the people in body and soul, to increase sin and shame, and to quench faith and truth. O! thou most unhappy Leo! thou sittest in the most dangerous of all chairs. Verily! I tell thee the truth, for I bear thee good-will.

I will speak yet farther. It had never entered my heart to storm against the Roman Court nor to dispute concerning it. For since I saw that there was no help,-that cost and pains were lost, I treated it with contempt, gave it a letter of dismission, and said; Adieu dear Rome! That which stinketh, let it stink on! and that which is filthy, let it be filthy still! (Revel. xx. 11.) And so I betook myself to the silent, quiet study of the Holy Scriptures, that I might become profitable to them among whom I dwelt. And, when now I laboured not unfruitfully in this matter, the evil Spirit opened his eyes and became aware of the same. Straightway he stirred up, with a mad ambition, his servant John Eck,- -a special enemy of Christ and the truth,-and bade him drag me, unawares, into a disputation;-seizing upon a word touching the popedom that had escaped me by chance.

So now I come, holy Father Leo, and laying myself at thy feet, entreat thee, if it be possible, to put forth thine hand, and to place a bridle upon those flatterers who are enemies of peace, and yet pretend peace. But, as to retracting my doctrine, of that nothing will come. And let no one take it upon himself, except he wish to entangle the matter in still greater confusion. Moreover, I may not suffer rule or measure in the interpretation of the Scripture, seeing that the word of God, which teacheth all freedom, must not and shall not be bound. If these two articles be allowed me, nothing else shall be laid upon me, that I will not do and suffer with all willingness. I am an enemy to strife and will incense or provoke no one, but neither will I be provoked. And if I be provoked I will not be without a word, spoken or written, God willing. Thy Holiness may with short and easy words take it upon thyself, and extinguish all this controversy, and thereupon be silent and command peace, which I have, alway, been altogether eager to hear.

Wherefore, my Holy Father, do not listen to thy sweet ear-singers, who say that thou art not mere man, but united with God, and hast all things to command and to require. It may not be, and thou wilt not effect it. Thou art the servant of all the servants of God, and art in a more dangerous and miserable condition than any man upon the earth. Let them not deceive thee, who lie to thee and pretend that thou art lord of the world; and who will not suffer any one to be a Christian except he be subject to thee; who babble that thou hast power in heaven, in hell, and in purgatory. They are thy enemies, and seek to destroy thy soul.

They err all, who say thou art above the Council and universal Christendom. They err who give to thee alone the power to interpret Scripture. They, all of them, seek nothing else than how they may sanction their unchristian doings in Christendom by means of thy name; as the evil Spirit, alas! hath done through many of thy predecessors. In brief, believe none who exalt thee, but only them who humble thee. That is God's judgment, as it is written: "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree." Luke i. 52.

See how unlike are Christ and his vicegerents! For they would all fain be his vicegerents, and, verily, I fear, they are too truly his vicegerents. For a vicegerent is so in the absence of his lord. If then a pope reigneth in the absence of Christ, who dwelleth not in his heart, is he not too truly the vicegerent of Christ? But what may such a pope be except an antichrist and an idol? How much better did the apostles, who called themselves, and suffered themselves to be called, only servants of Christ, who dwelt in them, and not vicegerents of an absent Christ.

Peradventure I am impudent, in that I seem to instruct so great a height, from which every one should receive instruction, and as some of thy poisonous flatterers represent thee,-from which all kings and judgment-seats receive judgment. But I follow in this St. Bernard, in his book addressed to pope Eugene, which all popes ought to know by heart. I do it, not with the design to instruct thee, but from a pure fidelity of care and duty which, of right, constraineth every man to take thought for his neighbour even in those things which are secure, and suffereth us to regard neither honour nor dishonour, so diligently doth it consider a neighbour's danger and mishap. Wherefore, since I know that thy Holiness floateth and hovereth at Rome, that is, upon the highest seas,-with countless dangers raging on all sides, and liveth and worketh in such misery that, haply, thou hast need of the help, even of the meanest Christian, I have thought it not unmeet that I should forget thy majesty until I had fulfilled the duty of brotherly love. I may not flatter in so serious and dangerous a matter, in which,— if there be some who will not understand that I am thy friend and more than subject,-there shall yet be found one who understandeth it.

In conclusion, that I may not appear empty before thy Holiness, I bring with me a little book, which has gone forth under thy name; for a good wish and a beginning of peace and good hope; from which thy Holiness may taste with what kind of business I would fain occupy myself, and not unprofitably, if thy unchristian flatterers would let me. It is a little book, if thou regardest the paper; but yet the whole sum of a Christian life is comprehended in it, if the sense be understood. I am poor and *Liber de Libertate Christiana.

have nothing else wherewith I may make proof of my service; neither canst thou be benefited more than with spiritual benefits. Herewith I commend myself to thy Holiness, whom may Jesus Christ preserve forevermore! Amen.

Wittenberg, 6th September, 1520.

TO BARBARA LISCHNERIN.

EXTRACT.

LUTHER SEEKS TO PACIFY HER IN REGARD TO HER DOUBTS OF FUTURE BLESSEDNESS.

Grace and peace in Christ! Virtuous, dear Lady! Your dear brother, Jerome Weller, hath made known to me that you are greatly troubled with doubts respecting the eternal Providence. For which I am heartily sorry. May Christ, our Lord, deliver you therefrom! Amen.

For I know the sickness well, and have lain in the hospital with it, even unto eternal death. Now would I fain, over and above my prayers, counsel and comfort you. But writing in such matters is a feeble thing; yet, as much as in ine lies, will I not refrain therefrom, if God will give me grace for the work. And I will make known to you how God hath helped me to escape such buffetings, and with what art I yet preserve myself from them day by day.

First, you must fix it firmly in your heart, that such thoughts are assuredly the inflation and the fiery darts of the Devil. So saith the Scripture, Prov. xxv. 27, "He that searcheth the height of majesty shall be cast down." Now are such thoughts nothing but a searching of the Divine Majesty; they would fain search his high Providence. And Jesus Sirach saith: "Altiora ne quæsieris," "Thou shalt not inquire after that which is too high for thee;" but what God hath commanded thee, that look after. For it profiteth thee nothing to gaze after that which is not commanded thee. And David also complaineth that he had brought evil upon himself, when he would inquire after things that were too high for him.

Wherefore it is certain, that this cometh not from God but from the Devil. He plagues the heart therewith; that men may become enemies of God and despair; which, notwithstanding, God hath strictly forbidden in the first commandment; and he willeth that men shall trust and love and praise Him by whom we live.

Secondly, when such thoughts occur, you shall learn to ask yourself: "Friend, in what commandment is it written that I should think of these things or handle them?" And if no such commandment is found, then learn to say: "So get thee gone, thou ugly Devil! Thou wouldst fain drive me to care for myself; whereas God everywhere speaketh: "I care for thee; look

* English version: For men to search their own glory is not glory.

unto me and wait that which I shall appoint, and let me care," -as St. Peter teacheth, -1 Pet. v. 7: "Cast all your care upon him for he careth for you;" and David, Ps. lv. 22: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee."

FROM A LETTER

TO THE CHRISTIANS AT ANTWERP, IN WHICH LUTHER CAUTIONS THEM AGAINST FALSE TEACHERS.

• • So then, dear friends, there hath come among you also a Spirit of disorder, in bodily shape, who would fain cause you to err, and lead you astray from the right understanding, into his conceits. Therefore take heed and be warned! But that you may the better avoid his tricks, I will here relate some of them. One article is: he holds that every man hath the Holy Spirit.

The second: The Holy Spirit is nothing else than our own reason and understanding.

The third: Every man believes.

The fourth: There is no hell or damnation, but only the flesh is damned.

The fifth: Every soul will have eternal life. The sixth Nature teaches that I should do unto my neighbour as I would that he should do to me; and to will this is faith.

The seventh: The Law is not violated by evil lust, so I do not gratify the lust.

The eighth He who hath not the Holy Spirit, hath also no sin, for he hath no reason.

All these are mere wanton articles of folly, and excepting the seventh, not worth answering. And your love shall do right to despise this Spirit. For he is as many others are now, here and there, who care not much what they teach, and only desire that men may speak of them, and have to do with them. And the Devil also seeketh this uneasiness, that he may wrestle with us, and the while binder us, so that we forget the true doctrine, or converse not with it. Even so he useth to deceive the people with other hobgoblins, that they may miss their way, &c. And he setteth their mouth agape, that they cannot attend to their business the while. Just so this Spirit does with you, in these articles.

TO HIS MESSMATES.

HE COMPARES THE ACTIONS OF THE BIRDS ABOUT HIM TO A DIET.

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