Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/61

 that I may be worthy to be fervent in spirit. For it is time to pray against Satan with all our might; he is threatening Germany with a fatal tragedy, and I fear the Lord will allow him to bring it about. I am sleepy and lazy both in prayer and in striving, so t;hat I am displeased with myself and have become a burden to myself ; perhaps it is because I am alone and you are not here to help me- I beg you, let us pray and watch, that we enter not into temptation. I have nothing else to write just now; you know everything about every- body.

I am glad that Wittenberg is flourishing, and especially that it is flourishing when I am away, that the wicked may see it and be grieved, and his desire may perish.* May Christ perfect that which He has begun ! I greatly wish that Philip, too, would preach to the people somewhere in the city on festival days after dinner. His preaching would take the place of the drinking and the gambling, and people would grow used to the introduction of liberty and the restoration of the customs and manners of the early Church. If we have broken all the laws of men and cast off their yokes from us, what difference ought it to make if he is not anointed or shorn and is a married man ? He is, nevertheless, a true priest and is actually doing the work of a priest, unless it is not the oflice of a priest to teach the Word ; but in that case Christ Himself would not be a priest, for He taught now in the s)magogues, now in ships, now on the shore, now in the mountains ; in a word. He was always and everywhere all things to all men. Since, therefore, Melanchthon is called of God and performs the ministry of the Word, as nobody can deny, what difference does it make if he is not called by those tyrannical bishops, not of churches, but of horses and courtiers? But I know what he thinks about it; he will not yield to my persuasion. Let him be called, therefore, and driven to it by the urgent command of the whole Church. For if the Church demands and requires it of him, he ought not and cannot say no. If I were there I should do my best with the city council and the people to have them ask him to lecture to them privately on the Gospel in German, as he has already begun to do in

1 Psalm cxii, xo.

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