Erelong there appeared a courier on horseback carrying despatches from the Elector to Torgau. "Do you bring me any letters?" asked Luther. "No!" "How are those gentlemen?" continued he, fearfully. "Well!" "This is strange," thought the Reformer. A waggon having left Coburg laden with flour (for they were almost in want of provisions at Augsburg), Luther impatiently awaited the return of the waggoner; but he returned empty. Luther then began to revolve the gloomiest thoughts in his mind, not doubting that they were concealing some misfortune from him.[546] At last another individual, Jobst Nymptzen, having arrived from Augsburg, Luther rushed anew towards him, with his usual question. "Do you bring me any letters?" He waited trembling for the reply. "No!" "And how then are those gentlemen?" "Well!" The Reformer withdrew, a prey to anger and to fear.
Then Luther opened his Bible, and to console himself for the silence of men, he conversed with God. There were some passages of Scripture in particular that he read continually. We point them out below.[547] He did more; he wrote with his own hand many declarations of Scripture over the doors and windows, and on the walls of the castle. In one place were these words from the 118th Psalm: I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. In another, those of the 12th chapter of Proverbs: The way of the wicked seduceth them; and over his bed, these words from the 4th Psalm: I will both lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, O Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Never perhaps did man so environ himself with the promises of the Lord, or so dwell in the atmosphere of his Word and live by his breath, as Luther at Coburg.
LUTHER TO MELANCTHON.
At length letters came. "If the times in which we live were not opposed to it, I should have imagined some revenge," wrote Luther to Jonas; "but prayer checked my anger, and anger checked my prayer.[548] I am delighted at that tranquil mind which God gives our prince. As for Melancthon, it is his philosophy that tortures him, and nothing else. For our cause is in the very hands of Him who can say with unutterable pride: No one shall pluck it out of my hands. I would not have it in our hands, and it would not be desirable that it were so.[549] I have had many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have been able to place in God's, I still possess."
On learning that Melancthon's anguish still continued, Luther wrote to him: and these are words that should be preserved. "Grace and peace in Christ! in Christ, I say, and not in the world, Amen. I hate with exceeding hatred those extreme cares which consume you. If the cause is unjust, abandon it; if the cause is just, why should we belie the promises of Him who commands us to sleep without fear? Can the devil do more than kill us? Christ will not be wanting to the work of justice and of truth. He lives; he reigns; what fear, then, can we have? God is powerful to upraise his cause if it is overthrown, to make it proceed if it remains motionless, and if we are not worthy of it, he will do it by others.
"I have received your Apology,[550] and I cannot understand what you mean, when you ask what we must concede to the Papists. We have already conceded too much. Night and day I meditate on this affair, turning it over and over, perusing all Scripture, and the certainty of the truth of our doctrine continually increases in my mind. With the help of God, I will not permit a single letter of all that we have said to be torn from us.
THE PALATINE CHAPEL.
"The issue of this affair torments you, because you cannot understand it. But if you could, I would not have the least share in it. God has put it in a 'common place,' that you will not find either in your rhetoric or in your philosophy: that place is called Faith.[551] It is that in which subsist all things that we can neither understand nor see. Whoever wishes to touch them, as you do, will have tears for his sole reward.
"If Christ is not with us, where is he in the whole universe? If we are not the Church, where, I pray, is the Church? Is it the Dukes of Bavaria, is it Ferdinand, is it the Pope, is it the Turk, who is the Church? If we have not the Word of God, who is it that possesses it?
"Only we must have faith, lest the cause of faith should be found to be without faith.[552]