and have published many loving sermons and books so that all could see that I meant no ill by my attack but wished to serve everyone as best I could.
But as I observe that your Grace does not turn from your disfavor but continues it, I am minded once more to approach your Grace, perhaps for the last time, with this humble, affec- tionate letter. It looks to me as if God would soon take one of us away, and so makes it desirable that Duke George and Luther should speedily become friends.
I call your Grace to witness that all that I do is done from my sense of duty and obligation to act for your Grace's good, which makes me look out for and promote the salvation of your soul ; this duty I recognize even to my enemies. Your Grace may believe it (God grant!) or not (God forbid!) as you like, but you will soon see that I with my severity mean better than all those who highly praise and loudly flatter your Grace.
I come now and fall at your Grace's feet, and b^ with utter humility that your Grace would leave off your un- gracious persecution of my doctrine. Not that much harm could come to me through your Grace's persecution; I have little to lose but my poor body which daily hastens to death. Truly I have a greater enemy, namely, the devil and his angels, but God has hitherto given me strength, although I am a poor sinful man, to stand fast against him. If I sought my own profit nothing better could happen to me than to be persecuted. I cannot say how much persecution has helped me, and I kindly thank my enemies for that. If yoiu- Grace's mis- fortunes were pleasing to me, which they are not, I should irritate your Grace still more, and wish that you would always persecute me. But you have done enough to see the result of such conduct, now the time to change has come. In regard to your Grace's disbelief of my doctrine, I can only say that it speaks for itself and needs not my exhortation to aid it. But I do exhort you to believe, because I feel that at the peril of my own soul I must care for your Grace's soul, pray and ad- monish in hopes of accomplishing something. Let not your Grace despise my humble person, for God once spoke through an ass, and in Psalm xiii [rather xiv, 6] reproaches tKc^^^
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