Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/44

 and also to turn the other. For this will not be your greatest nor last temptation, but God's wisdom is preparing you for serious war, if you live. . ..

Brother Martin Luther.

��17. LUTHER TO MICHAEL DRESSEL AND THE AUGUSTIN-

LVN CHAPTER AT NEUSTADT.

Enders, i. 5a Wittenberg^ September 25, 15 16.

Greeting in the Lord. I hear with sorrow, as I ought to hear, excellent fathers and brothers, that you live without peace and unity, and that in one house you are not of one mind, nor according to the rule do you have one heart and one soul in the Lord. This miserable and useless manner of life comes from the infirmity of your humility, — for where is humility there is peace — or from my negligence, or certainly from the fault of both of us, that we do not weep before the Lord who made us, nor pray that he would direct our ways in his sight and lead us in his justice. He errs, he errs, he errs, who would guide himself, not to say others, by his own counsel. . ..

Therefore I am forced to do absent what I would not like to do present, though I greatly wish I could now be present, but I am not able. Therefore receive my command in salu- tary obedience, if perchance the Lord will deign to work his peace in us. For the whole of your strife, or rather its root, is your discord with your head, the prior, which is more harm- ful than a quarrel between brothers. Wherefore, by the authority of my office, I command you, Brother Michael Dres- sel, to resign your office and seal; and by the same authority I absolve you from the duties of the priorate, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. And these letters shall have the same force as if I were present.

I would not have you complain that I have judged you unheard, nor would I receive your excuses. I willingly believe that you have done all with the best intentions in the world, nor can I imagine that you have purposely and maliciously fomented discord; you have done what you had grace to do. For this I thank you, and if your brothers do

�� �