Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/219

 216 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Let 6ia

if I were not to hit everybody equally and paint things in the brightest colors, your Grace would know that his quarrel was not with me, but with the wolves and lions who do their own sweet will under your Grace's name. I commend your Grace to God's grace, and beg that your Grace will put a gracious in- terpretation on the letter I must write.

Martin Luther.

612. LUTHER TO THE CHRISTIANS OF MILTENBERG.

Weimar, xv, 69. German. Wittenberg^ (about February 14), 1524.

The effort of John Drach (vide Vol. I, 343, n. i) to introduce changes in the worship of the church at Miltenberg on the Main led to a bitter conflict between him and the clergy of the city. The town was in the territories of the Archbishop of Mayence, and Drach's opponents appealed to the archiepiscopal authorities, who excommunicated him. The excommunication caused deep indignation among the people of the city, but when it became evident that the decree of excommunication would be enforced, they persuaded Drach to leave them. October 22, 1523, the archbishop's ofiicial appeared in Miltenberg, caused the arrest of numbers of the more prominent citizens, and forced the restoration of Roman forms of worship. It is said that some of the citizens were put to death (Kawerau, in Realencycl. v, 13). It was this persecution which caused Luther to publish the following letter, after first writing to the Archbishop and announcing his intention to do so (c/. supra, no. 611). Vide Beitrdge sUr bayer, KG., ix, I93ff., and Weimar, xv, 54ff.

Grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The holy Apostle St. Paul, when he wished to com- fort his Corinthians, began as follows,* "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them that are in tribulation with the comfort wherewith we ourselves are com- forted of God." In these words he teaches us by his own ex- ample that we are to comfort those that are in trouble, but in such wise that the comfort be not of men, but of God. He purposely adds this in order that we may avoid the false and shameful comfort which the world, the flesh and the devil also seek and give, by which all the profit and benefit of suf- fering and the Cross is hindered and destroyed. But what that

2 II Corinthians i, 3^*

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