To Conrad Cordatus,Pastor in Austria - Martin Luther

TO CONRAD CORDATUS, PASTOR IN AUSTRIA

Cordatus now entered into the circle of Luther’s most intimate friends. November 28, 1526.

Grace and peace! You write me truly wondrous things of your Liegnitz friends — of the power of the spirit and of the flesh in that place, where the one part of the people seem to love intellectual pursuits, while the others live after the flesh. The greatest evil here is lukewarmness, indifference, against which we must constantly strive. Who knows if God has not turned it upside down with you, so that when the gospel has been warmly received at first it cools down through time, while here, on the contrary, and at variance with all precedent, it is embraced coldly to begin with, and then slowly

gathers strength, till at last it bursts forth in flame. God grant this people may resemble that son who at the beginning refused to go into the vineyard, and afterwards repented and went. He will be preferred to him who at first promised to go and afterwards did not. So go on your way unweariedly, and the Lord will be with you, and do not be afraid of those highly enlightened spirits (in their own eyes). Nothing is more foolish in God’s sight than such self — deception. May the Lord Christ ever be with you. Write as often as you can. Your letters will always be welcome, partly because they testify

to the uprightness of your heart, which is so much needed by your people as well as ours, and partly because they contain so much information calculated to satisfy our curiosity.

I herewith commit you to God. MARTIN LUTHER .

This was the year of the first church visitation in Electoral Saxony. Plague in Wittenberg. Sack of

Rome