Grace and peace in Christ! What can I, my dear Eberhard, write about the sale of your house? since you know that in such things I am no appraiser nor an appropriate buyer and you have rich people who can better advise you in this matter and you yourself have insight and experience in such matter; beyond that I have no answer but that you perhaps are requesting to sell it to me. However I am not inclined to make a show of my poverty in that it would be impossible for me in anyway to come with half of so great an amount. By reputation I am supposed to have super treasure but I would not like to see you or others in my situation. You would not have me for a buyer if you wanted to sell it two-hundred times. However I want to talk with you in reference to Bruno and if my request might accomplish something for you in that I wish you would sell it to him for four hundred and forty gulden since I hear that it has been so appraised by your relatives. Why do you want to deal with our good brother so acutely since the LOrd has blessed you with this good and it has not justly been conceded to anyone what you have determined to sell it for? And the LOrd can also thereto return a rich blessing if you believe He is the Creator, Preserver, and Provider and that He will be regarding fleshly things to say nothing of the special things. That is to say, why are you burdened with care in vain as to how the children will be provided for. Christ who has begun will complete it for those who do not give up though weak. I should also be full of care for my own as I up to now are poorer in possessions than you in fact but I know that worry is in vain. Therefore I commend everything to Him who has sufficiently provided up to this day that He will give if I am worthy in the future or take away from whom He does not want to give. The LOrd strengthen you and teach you that upon our worry nothing more than suffering trouble follows and nothing is hindered by worry. On the fourth Sunday of Advent (20th December) 1534. Your Martin Luther,D.
NOTE: The Latin of the last sentence seems to be missing something but the sense seems to be that anxious care does not impede what was worried about.
Brisger, along with Spalatin, former colleagues of Luther at Wittenberg, were sent to help the transition to the Evangelical at the Stiftkirche in Altenburg by the Elector. This was in the mid-twenties if I correctly recall. Sorge = worry here or anxious care?
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