May God the Father comfort and strengthen you with such words in Christ Jesus! Amen. MARTIN LUTHER . (From Luther’s Letters to Women.)
1529
In this year the Diet at Speyer was held, also the Conference at Marburg, between the German and Swiss divines, on the question of the Lord’s Supper. Luther’s Larger and Shorter Catechisms appeared simultaneously.
CLXXVI
TO NICOLAS VON AMSDORF
February 12, 1529.
That you are pleased with my little book against Herzog George is a great pleasure to me. For all are down upon me, forgetting how he has treated me, and act towards him as if he were innocent. I shall not show them your letter, or they would class you with me. Henceforth I shall not answer the tyrant, as he asks me to let him alone in future. Much is being said here about Ferdinand’s tyranny and extortion. Pray that God may strengthen me that I may not be left in Satan’s hand. The Lord Jesus maintain and bless you! Amen. MARTIN LUTHER .
CLXXVII
TO NICOLAS HAUSMANN
February 15, 1529.
I am delighted that the church visitation has come to such a happy end among you. May other church matters soon be arranged. We sing the Litany both in Latin and German here. Perhaps a printed form may soon be issued. Then the days of humiliation, the ban, and the other liturgical arrangements connected with our congregations will follow. This is enough to begin with.
I have been suffering from giddiness, not to mention what I endure from Satan’s emissaries. Pray that God
