Father, but for the slowness of our printer. I myself am much put out at this delay. Only eighteen of the Resolutions are as yet printed, which I now try to send. That trifle which I lately published against my Timon^ has been recently republished. I was unwilling to republish it myself, in which I followed the advice of my friends, although even so I did not satisfy them. Others attribute it to my impatience, although I meant it rather in sport than in anger. . . .
Our vicar, John Lang, who was here to-day, says that Count Albert,' of Mansfeld, has written him a letter warning him by no means to let me leave Wittenberg. Snares have been laid by I know not what great men,' either to kill me or to baptize me unto death. I am simply, as Jeremiah says,* that man of strife and contention who daily irritate the Pharisees with what they consider new doctrines. But as I am certain that I teach only the purest doctrine, I have long foreseen that it would be a stumbling block to the most holy Jews and foolishness to the wisest Greeks.* But I know that I am a debtor to Jesus Christ, who, perhaps, is saying to me: "I will show him how much he must suflFer for my name's sake."* For if he does not say this why does he make me so bold in defending his Word, or why does he not teach me to say something else? His holy will be done.^ The more they threaten the bolder I am; my wife and chil- dren are provided for, my fields, houses and whole substance are in order, my name and fame are torn to bits; all that is left me is my weak and broken body, of which if they deprive me they will shorten my life by an hour or two, but truly
- Tbe Athenian cynic to whom Luther compares Tetzel. The "trifle" was Ein
Freiheii des Sermons,
'Bom 1480* younger son of Ernst I. See Grossler: Graf Alhrecht VII von Mansfeld. Zeitschrift des Hara-Vereins, xviii. 365. As a native of his dominions Luther felt particularly loyal to him. From 1531 to 1545 he wrote him a number of letters, and it was at his request that in 1545 and 1546 he journeyed to the connty of Mansfeld to settle a dispute between Albert and his brother Gebhard. Smith, op. cit., 417^*
"On Lather's unpleasant experiences at Dresden, whither he was planning to go, and whither he soon went, cf. infra, no. 117. Duke George had already begun to be unfriendly to him, though he could not have meant to put him to death.
^Jeremiah, xr. 10.
- i Corinthians, i. 23.
- Acts of the Apostles, ix. 16.
'Reading "fiat" for "fuit." Cf. Endcrs, ii. 536.
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