Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/342

 great offence in lower Germany as welL We foresaw that this would happen, and so we bade our former messenger^ take measures to prevent the growth of discord. In what state many of the churches in this r^on are — ^with what property their ministers are endowed, what are their hopes, their fears, what strifes and dangers they have to face, and other things of this sort — ^all this Gr^[ory can tell you, and we ask that you give him a kindly hearing when he confers with you about measures of agreement. For our lamented adversaries are only now beginning to have some new hope, persuading them- selves that we are about to destroy ourselves in empty con- tentions and mutual recriminations; but their hopes will be vain if we devote ourselves to preaching the pure doctrine of Oirist and lay aside our logomachies about the rudiments of the world. . ..

The Ministers of the Word in the Church at

Strassburg.

706. LUTHER TO GOTTSCHALK CRUSIUS* AT CELLE. Eoders, v, 255. WnrENBERG, October 27, 1525.

Grace and peace in Christ. I am so busy, my dear Gott- schalk, that I can only write you a few things. I received only this one letter from you and it came after Duke Otto* was here. I sympathize with you in vexation which these new spirits* have caused you; but be brave. The Lord will be with you with all His power. Do not be moved by Zwingli's argument concerning the certitude of faith, for he speaks of faith from hearsay and imagination, and not from any experience. It is possible, nay, it happens every day, that in some of the articles of faith we are strong, in others weak. Moses, the man of great faith, was weak at Meribah, and all

^A certain Nicholas, who brought letters from Gerbel and the other Strass- burg preachers to I^uther in Noyember, 1524. (Cnders, t, 56, 60.)

'Of Gottschalk Crusius little is known, save that he was born at Brunswick, in 1499, and studied at Erfurt and Wittenberg, taking his doctor's degree at the latter university in 1521, and leaving the Benedictine Order to become evangelical pastor at Celle in 1524. Enders v, 44, n. 1.

'Duke Otto of Brunswick-L&ieberg, in whose territories Celle was located. He had come to the court of the Elector to seek advice concerning the reforma- tion of the Church in his lands.


 * J,e., the teachings of Zwingli and Oecolampadius concerning the I«ord*s Supper.

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