Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/280

 your council, Spalatin, and that of your friends, that I might teach sacred theology without offending the prelates. Script- ure is especially hard on the abuse of sacred things, and that is what the prelates cannot bear.

I gave and offered myself in the name of the Lord, whose will be done. Who asked him to make me a doctor? If he has made me one, let him keep me for himself, or else, if he repents, let him destroy me. But my trouble does not so wear me out as fill the sails of my heart with an incredible wind, so that I now feel in myself why devils are in Scripture likened to winds,* which empty themselves by their fury, but fill what they blow upon with the intent of hurting it. My only care is that the Lord may be propitious to me in the private affairs between him and me. Pray deign to help me, as you can, in this.

Let us in faithful prayer commit this human cause to God, and let us be at peace. What can they do ? Kill ? Can they raise up to kill again ? Will they brand me as a heretic ? Christ was condemned with the wicked, seducers and cursed men; whenever I consider his passion, I burn to think that this trial of mine should not only seem to be something, but should even be considered great by many strong men, when in truth it is nothing, unless we would altogether do away with suffering and evil, that is, with the Christian life.

Let them do as they please; the more powerful they are the more securely I laugh at them. I have determined in this to fear nothing, but to despise all things. Did I not fear to involve the elector, I would publish an apology full of confidence in order to provoke those furies more, and to mock their silly rage against me. . ..

Martin Luther, Augustinian.

21B. ULRICH VON HUTTEN TO PHILIP MELANCHTHON AT

WITTENBERG. Corpus Reformatorum, i. 131. Mayence, January 20, 1520.

Perhaps^ou have already noticed how Francis von Sickin- gen* by his own power, but at my instigation, has freed

^Hebrews, i. 7. Luther regarded the devils as evil angels.

'Sidringen (i48i-Ma7 7, 1523), of the Ebernburg near Kreoznach, a knight

�� �