cheerfully for the life to come. Thus you will be perfect in the three things, — faith, love and hope.
Of what is to be said about the sacraments and external things — eating and drinking, dress and demeanor — your preachers will tell you enough. If these three things are right, then Christian freedom in all such external things is also right. May our Lord Jesus Christ make you perfect, strengthen and stablish you for His eternal kingdom with all the fullness of His wisdom and knowledge. To Him be praise and thanks forever. Amen.
I hope you will accept this exhortation from me, dear brethren, for although you know these things already and do not need to hear them from me, I am yet in duty bound to care for you and serve you even in unnecessary things. I commend you to your preachers, and pray, also, for us. God's grace be with you. Amen.
599. LUTHER TO STAUPITZ. Enders, iv, 2ja Wittenberg, September 17, 15^.
Grace and peace in Christ Jesus our Lord, Reverend Father in Christ. Your silence is unjust,^ and you yourself can easily see what I must infer from it. But even if I have lost your favor and goodwill, it would not be right for me to forget you and be ungrateful to you, for it was through you that the light of the Gospel first began to shine out the darkness in my heart. Nevertheless I must confess it true that I should have been better pleased if you had not become abbot; but now that you have, let us be considerate of one another and each allow the other to hold his own opinion.* I, and the rest of your best friends, have not taken it so ill that you have turned away from us, as rather that you have put yourself into the hands of that infamous monster, your Cardinal.* The world can hardly endure the things he chooses and permits himself to do in his raging; but you are compelled to bear
^ Staup!tz had not answered Luther's last letter. Supra no. 551.
- In suo sensu abundare (Romans xiv, 5).
'Matthew Lang. Cardinal Archbishop of Salzburg. Vid9 Vol. I. p. X13 and P. Batterer: D§s Card, und Ersb. von Salsburg, M. Lang VerhalUn sur Refor- mation, 1519-25. Erlangen Dissertation, Freising, 1890; and: Hauthaler: Card. Mi, Lang und dU reUgids-sociale Bewegung seiner Zeit, 1517-40. Salsburg, 1896.
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