Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/512

 862. LUTHER TO PHIUP, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE. Enders, vii, 204. (Wittenberg), December x6, 1529.

Grace and peace in Christ. Serene, highborn Prince, gra- cious Lord. The messenger has just brought your Grace's letter, informing me what tmrighteous plots are brewed by the priests and the Emperor. I trust in God, who boasts in the Psalter that He makes naught the plans of godless princes and peoples, that He will hear us now and make these plans, too, come to naught. My hope is confident, because those priests boast loudly and rely on the Emperor and on human help and do not call on God nor ask after Him. May God guard us from relying on our wisdom and strength and make us desire His help and wait on it; then it will certainly come. Your Grace asks me to advise my sovereign not to give the Emperor help against the Turks until a general peace is made. I do not know, and have never cared to inquire what was done at Spires and at Schmalkalden, and so at this time I am un- able to answer you; but if my advice is asked, I will, with God's aid, give it to the best of my ability, and pray God that in this matter of binding consciences His will and not that of the princes may be done. Amen. I commend your Grace to Qirist. Amen. Martin Luther.

863. WILIBALD PIRCKHEIMER TO KILIAN LEIB AT

REBDORF.

Kilian Leibs Briefwechsel und Diarien, hg. von J. Schlecht,

Munster, i, W., 1909, p. 12. (Nummbebg, 1529.)

Kilian Lcib (1471-1550) entered the body of Regular Canons at Rebdorf, i486; in 1503 he became prior. His Diaries have some his- torical value. Life in ADB. and J. Deutsch, 191 o.

The date of this letter is given by a note of Leib's that it was written 1529. It is interesting as showing the final break of the most important humanist in Germany, next to Erasmus, with the Reforma- tion. Pirckheimer had been quite an enthusiastic Lutheran, and, as lately as 1526, had taken Luther's part in the controversy with Oeco- lampadius. By 1528, however, he had become thoroughly disappointed in the Reformation. A stronger letter than the present one, written soon after Diirer's death, April 6, 1528, to a correspondent in Vienna, inveighs against the doctrines and morals of all the new sects. It is found in Reliquien von Albrecht Durer, 1828, p. 168.

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