#1943-To Eberhard Brisger, Pastor in Altenburg

(Brisger along with Spalatin were transferred to the Stift-kirch in Altenburg in the early days of the Reformation to counter- balance the number of priests loyal to the Pope.)
Grace and peace in the LOrd! That I rarely write to you, my dear Eberhard, is not only because of the pressure of the mass of other extensive things to be written and their frequency but also because you sit in peace and have no need of my writing. But now because of the tribulation of your soul over the death of your father and the lovelessness of your mother and the dispossession of your inheritance you must again, with Job, compare the good which you have experienced with the opposing evils. Also do you not see and is it your desire rather to have the favor of your father and mother and be without Christ than to be in Christ and have the hatred of your mother? You must commend these people to the judgment of God and sing with the Psalm and with Joseph (Genesis 41:51 ff.):" The LOrd has permitted me to forget my father and the house of my father in a foreign land." So then how do you know what the end of your father was like and or what God did with him? Further, your mother has yet twelve hours (another day?) and who knows whether soon the Gospel will prevail so that the Papists will cry that the Emperor has become a Lutheran because he does not want to rage against it and exalt their godlessness. If everything yet does not turn out right you can yet consider yourself lucky to have been plucked as a stick out of the fire and as an Ohrlaeppchen(?)(delicacy?) from the vengenace of the wolf. Lot had to leave his own wife back in Sodom, and David lost his beloved Absalom; moreover Christ (lost?) the synagogue and Paul the children of Israel his brethren. Not only you must suffer evil but others have suffered it more and do so now. This truth must also be for some:"I am come to set the son against father." (Matthew 1:35). Likewise you have many ( other verses) to comfort you. For us the one Christ is sufficient if we lose everything else. The LOrd be with you and all of yours. On the 12th of December Anno 1532. Your Martin Luther,D.
NOTE: No doubt a vote for ML as Pastor.