Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/55

 on Paul, I can give myself to this work alone. But even when it is finished, it will not be in such a form that it can be printed away from me. Moreover, the professors here wish that it should be published by our printer.* This cannot be done before Lent. This also pleases me (if it must be pub- hshed at all), because it will thus come out in poor style; for those things which are worked up with good types and by careful and able printers do not seem to me to be worthy, but are for the most part trifles deserving the sponge. Fare- well. Hastily,* from the monastery, the day after Christmas, noon, 1516. Brother Martin Luder, Augustinian.

25. LUTHER TO GEORGE MASCOV, PROVOST IN LEITZKAU. Enders, i. 76. Wittenberg (last months of 1516).

Mascov, who later became evangelical pastor at Leitzkau, was not an Augustinian, but a Praemonstratensian whom Luther had perhaps come to know through his business relations with the town. Cf. letter to Lang, October 26, 15 16, translated, Smith, yti.

The date of this letter seems to be fixed by the allusion to the plague which raged in Saxony during the autumn of 1516.

Be strong in Christ, nor be troubled because hearts and bodies die. For these are signs of grace rather than of wrath. For God is most angry when he least shows it, as he says through Ezekiel, "I will be no more angry and my jealousy shall depart from thee/*' This is to be most feared, for it is only spoken to the reprobate. At the end of my letter I beg you to pray the Lord for me, for I confess to you that my life daily approaches nearer hell, for I become worse and more miserable all the time. Farewell.

An exiled son of Adam,

Martin Luther, Augustinian.

26. LUTHER TO GEORGE MASCOV, PROVOST AT LEITZKAU. Enders, i. 77, (1516?)

Greeting. Like your order, I believe all orders are run-

^Probably John Grunenberg, who printed the Seven Penitential Psalms. Luther speaks of him elsewhere, as a poor, slow printer, but as a God-fearing man.

'The fact that the letter was written hastily makes it more probable that, supposing he had meant to date it 15 17, he should have dated it 15 16, just as we often put the date of the past year on the first days of January.

•xlii. 16.

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