Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/148

 thunders, nor rashly believe everything, but must act with great moderation, and strive hard that you get a hearing in Germany, and that your university and town councillors should recommend you, and promise that you will be a true son of the Church, and will do whatever you ought and can with God's approval. I do not despair, for God will give his grace, which is never lacking to those who fear him. Again farewell.

108. ELECTOR FREDERIC TO DUKE GEORGE OF SAXONY. Cess, i. 51. Altenburg, December 29, 1518.

... I have with me a papal ambassador, Charles von Mil- titz, who is not satisfied with Dr. Luther and has great power to proceed against him. And it well might happen that he would refuse to give me the golden rose unless I banished the monk and said that he was a heretic. But I fancy I can do as Clauss Narr^ says, go on drinking my wine and being a heretic all my days. . ..

109. DUKE GEORGE TO THE DEAN AND DOCTORS OF THE THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF LEIPSIC.

De Wette-Seidemann, vi. 658. Gess, i. 52. December 30, 1518.

Honorable, learned, dear and trusty Gentlemen! We have received your letter and one from our dear and trusty Dr. John Eck of Ingolstadt, in which he begged that he might hold a public debate with Dr. Andrew Carlstadt of Wittenberg, before you. And we have read the reasons why you refused this, and we consider that if instead you would do all you could to further it, and would give these doctors of other universities a place to debate in, you would win no little fame, praise and honor thereby. And if you did this you would not therefore be compelled to give any assent or recog- nition to the debate, but at need could recommend the decision to the papal commissaries or other proper authorities who stand ready to take the responsibility. Moreover you should

The court fool. "Drinking wine" waa proverbial for not letting anything trouble one. So Luther, in one of the Eight Sermons in Lent, "The Word, while I slept and drank beer with Melanchthon and Amsdorf, has broken the Papacy more than any king or emperor ever did." Weimar xiii. p. i8f.

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