Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/564

 depart and have twenty days' safe-conduct; after that his Im- perial Majesty would do against me as befitted him. So I thanked his Majesty and said : *'As it has pleased the Lord, so it has been; blessed be the name of the Lord.**^ They also charged me not to preach or to write on the way. I said: "I will do all that pleases his Majesty, but I will leave God's Word free, as St. Paul says: *The Word of God is not bound/ '"

So I departed, and am now at Eisenach, and I imagine they will accuse me of having broken the safe-conduct and of preaching at Hersfeld and at Eisenach. For that is just what they are trying to do. Herewith I commend myself humbly to your Grace. In haste, Your Grace's chaplain,

Martin Luther.

472. HERMANN BUSCH TO ULRICH VON HUTTEN.

Booking, ii. 62. Worms, May 5, 1521.

Busch of Westphalia (1468- April, 1534), educated at Deventer and Heidelberg, 1486-91 traveled to Italy, Paris and Cologne; 1502 at Wit- tenberg, 1503 at Leipsic, 1507 at Cologne, 15 16 to Holland and England. In 1526 he was called to Marburg. He may have had some part in the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. He was an ardent Lutheran. All- getneine Deutsche Biographic.

I wish that something worse had come of your threats than has been the case. The Romanists who at first greatly feared for themselves now make bold to laugh and joke about you even amongst us. Indeed, their boldness has increased, for they say you only bark and do not bite. "It is easy," they say, "to bear an enemy who hurts only by threats, and never strikes. What on earth did his wild threats mean? When will they end? How long will he thus stultify himself? That impotent cloud spends all its force in thunder. Your Hut- ten knows how to frighten, not how to wound. . . . We will act more strenuously the more vainly he threatens, nor do we care for the terrors of Hutten or any of the vanquished, but, having damned Luther, we triumphantly and thankfully offer our services to Leo, even if it means the slaughter of those Germans who may be rash enough to resist us." May I die

iLatin. Cf. Job, i. ai. 'Latin.

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