Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/111

 "As he delighted not in blessing, so shall it be far enough from Him." This is what has happened to our papists. At Worms they were ready to hate and blaspheme Christ ; now they can- not cease to hate and blaspheme Him, and neither prayers nor admonitions help them, but only make them worse. Right- eous is Thy judgment, heavenly Father 1 This, methinks, is the real St. Vitus' dance!* God is my witness that in my heart I fear that unless the judgment day shall interrupt the game, God will take away His Word and send such blindness upon the German nation and so harden its heart that it is terrible for me to think of it. O Lord, heavenly Father, let us fall into every sin, if sin we must, but preserve us from hard- ness of heart and keep us to Him and in Him Whom Thou hast made Lord over sin and innocence, that we may not deny Him nor allow Him out of our sight; thus all sins, all deaths, all hells will harm us not at all. Nay, what shall harm us?

But we must thank God with our whole heart that He still allows us to see Him, as though He were not yet ready to with- draw His Word, so that He gives to you and to others an un- terrified spirit, and love besides. For that is evidence that they believe not for any man's sake, but for the sake of the Word itself. There are many who believe on my account, but the only true believers are those who would continue to believe even if they heard (which God forbid!) that I had denied the faith or fallen away from it These are they who pay no heed to the bad, the terrible, the shameful things they hear about me and about our people, for they do not believe on Luther, but on Christ Himself. The Word has them, and they have the Word ; as for Luther, they care not whether he is a knave or a saint. God can speak by Balaam as well as by Isaiah, by Caiaphas as well as by Peter; nay, He can speak by an ass. I myself do not know Luther, and will not know him. I do not preach about him, but about Christ. The fiend may fly away with him, if he can; but if he leaves Christ in peace, it will still be well with us. . ..

I fear the German nation is going too far, and at last it may be with us as it is written of the Jews in the last chapter of

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