To Hans von Sternberg - Martin Luther
TO HANS VON STERNBERG
Luther dedicates the new edition of the 117th Psalm to the caretaker at Coburg Castle. August 27, 1530.
Grace and peace in Christ our Lord! Most excellent and honorable sir and friend — I lately brought out a little book on the 117th Psalm, but did it hastily and issued it with no dedication, so I have again placed it in the oven to have it better fired, that it might bring forth more fruit. For the Holy Scriptures are well worthy of being adorned and made the best of, so that they may win as many admirers as they have enemies. I wish it to go out under your name, so that it may receive more consideration from certain parties, who know that there are many excellent people among the nobility.
For the majority of the upper classes are acting so disgracefully that they are a stone of stumbling to the common man, making him fancy that all the nobility is corrupt. And it is most disastrous that the masses should despise and lightly esteem those who bear rule in the world. It is certain to bear evil fruit whenever the devil has time to stir up mischief, as in the Munster disturbances and the Peasant Rising (1525). We have the clergy’s example before our eyes, who lived so securely and shamefully that they were despised of all, never dreaming they should sink into such contempt. But this has happened, and we must see that they never again are held in the same esteem. The nobility are following their example, and will inherit the lot of the clergy. To prevent such ideas taking possession of the people, it is good that those who deserve it should be praised. For God always arranges that there should be some excellent people in high positions so that He may not have made His people in vain, even should there only be one Lot in Sodom. . . . Therefore as God has endowed you with great love to His Holy Word and to all virtue, I could not refrain from lauding His grace in you (for it is God’s grace and not your merits), to see if perchance your example might not move some of the reckless nobility to act worthy of their pedigree and not in such a boorish manner. It is the bounden duty of those who desire to rule in the world that they set an honorable and virtuous example to those beneath them. God demands this. I trust your heart may have as much pleasure in this and such-like little books as those who make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem have. Not that I despise such a pilgrimage, for I would gladly make the journey, and now that it is too late, I listen and read eagerly about it, as I did lately, only we have not a very high opinion of such pilgrimages. And it might happen to me as it
did at Rome, when I was such a bigot as to rush through all the churches and cloisters believing all the lies they told. I said one or two masses at Rome, and it was actually a grief to me that my father and mother still lived, so gladly would I have delivered them from purgatory through good works, masses, and prayers, etc. There is a saying in Rome, “Blessed is the mother whose son holds a mass on the Saturday of St. John’s!” How gladly would I have made my mother blessed! But the church was so full that I could not get in, and I ate a kippered herring instead. Well, well, this we did, for we knew no better, and the Papal chair did not punish such monstrous lies. But God be praised that we have the gospels, psalms, and other sacred writings from which we may draw refreshment with profit and bliss, and visit the true promised land — the real Jerusalem — nay, the very paradise and kingdom of heaven, and not by means of the graves of the saints, but may wander at will through their hearts, thoughts, and spirits. I herewith commit you and yours to God, and forgive my garrulity, for it is a joy to me to see pious nobility, as there is such an outcry against them. God help us all. Amen.
Your obedient, MARTIN LUTHER . (De Wette.)