that we are crawling back on the old paths* is not a matter for g^eat concern. They will be quiet again. Anyone that undertakes anything for God's sake must leave the devil an open mouth to blab his lies against it, as I have had to do all along.
There is more need to beware lest our own people who are ill-disposed toward the preachers take occasion and author- ity from these articles to make them preach what they wish, as some have already tried to do in many places. Then, too, it is not possible to set everything in order at one time. The ordinance is nothing else than the sowing of the seed ; when it springs up there will be so many weeds among it that there will be weeding enough to do. For it is one thing to make a law and quite another thing to keep the law that has been made. Ecclesiastes teaches us * that we must do what we can and not be negligent, and then let come what will, commend- ing it to God. It is the same way, too, with temporal govern- ment. May Christ our Lord be with your Grace and bless him with long life and a good reign. Amen.
Your Grace's humble servant,
Martin Luther.
7r7' LUTHER TO JUSTUS JONAS IN NORDHAUSEN.* Enders, vi, 105. (WrrrENBERc), October 19, 1527.
Grace and peace in Christ. I congratulate you, my g^ood Jonas, on the recantation. At last you paint that Erasmus of yours in his true colors and recognize him as a viper with deadly stings, though you used formerly to speak of him in many terms of praise.* I am glad that the reading of this one book, the Hyperaspites, has brought you so far and changed your opinion of him. When I read this part of your letter to my wife, she said immediately, "Hasn't the good man
- C/. supra, no. 774.
' Kcclesiastes xi, 6.
- Whither he had gone in August after his child had died of the plague in Wit*
tenbcrg. Cf. supra, no. 770.
- Jonas had been a great admirer of Erasmus, but on October 17, iS'7> he
writes to Lang (Kawerau, i, jio)» "They (i.e., the papists) see that Erasmus, that old fox furnished with all the wiles and arts of the Greeks, has grown hot against Luther and is now working only to oppress him, not to convince him with proofs."
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