Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/194

 of his readers to no purpose, and delays them in their study of the Scriptures. He has done enough in showing us the evil; to show us the good and to lead us into the promised land, he is, I see, unable. But why should I talk so much of Erasmus, except to keep }rou from being influenced by his name and reputation? You ought rather to be glad if what you think about the Scriptures displeases him, for he is a man who neither can nor will have a right judgment about them, as almost all the world is now beginning to perceive.

I have not yet seen your translations from Chrysostom.* I hope you will take my verbosity kindly, for I know you have no need of such comforters as L Christ, Who dwells in you and works through you, will not forsake you. But do you pray for me, for I am so taken up with external things that there is danger that I who began in the Spirit may be made perfect in the flesh.* The monks and nuns who have left their cloisters steal many of my hours, so that I am the servant of every man's necessities, to say nothing of the multitude which claims me as its debtor in many ways. Farewell, Oeco- lampadius, and the grace of Christ be with you. Greet all our friends.

592. HANS VON DER PLANITZ TO THE ELECTOR FREDERIC

OF SAXONY. Wulcker-Virck, 488. Nukkmbesg, July 15, 1533.

... I would humbly inform your Grace that my gracious Lord, Duke George, will leave here to-morrow. . . . His Grace took me aside and told me he was going away; also that he observed that whenever there was any talk in the Council about Luther, no one took it to heart or remembered the slanders he had heaped upon his Imperial Majesty; his Grace must there- fore leave it at that, in God's name. His Grace told me, be- sides, that he had heard from one, who was not the smallest man in the empire, that there was a plan on foot to take the electorate from the house of Saxony and give it to another house,* because your Grace tolerated Luther in his lands and

I The Psegmata; fourteen tracts of St. Clirfsostom; jrablithed at Basle, March

1523.

'Galatians iii, 3.

from John Frederic and given to Maurice of the Albertine house.
 * As was actually done in 1547, when the electoral title and vote were taken

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