The doctor next availed himself of some moments still left him to communicate with his friends at Wittemberg.
"Peace and felicity!" wrote he to Doctor Carlstadt. "Accept these few lines as if they were a long letter; for time and events are pressing on me. Another time I will write you and others at greater length. For three days my affair has been under discussion, and things are now come to this, that I have no hope of returning to you, and expect nothing but excommunication. The legate is absolutely determined that I shall have no discussion, either public or private. He says, he wishes not to be my judge but my father, and yet the only words he will hear from me are, 'I retract, and own that I have been mistaken.' These, again, are words which I won't say.
"My cause is in so much the greater peril, that its judges are not only implacable enemies, but, moreover, men incapable of comprehending it. However, the Lord God lives and reigns; to his care I commend myself, and I doubt not that, in answer to the prayers of some pious souls, he will send me assistance; methinks I feel that I am prayed for.
"Either I shall return to you without having suffered harm, or, struck with excommunication, will be obliged to seek an asylum elsewhere.
"Be this as it may, comport yourself valiantly, stand firm, exalt Christ intrepidly and joyfully....
"The cardinal always calls me his dear son. I know what this amounts to. Nevertheless, I am persuaded I would be to him the dearest and most agreeable of men, if I would only pronounce the single word Revoco, I retract. But I will not become a heretic by retracting the faith which made me become a Christian. Better be hunted, cursed, burnt, and put to death....
"Take care of yourself, my dear doctor, and show this letter to our theologians, to Amsdorff, Philip, Otten, and others, in order that you may pray for me, and also for yourselves; for the affair which is here discussed is yours also. It is that of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and of divine grace."[585]
Delightful thought! which ever gives full peace and consolation to those who have borne testimony to Jesus Christ, to his divinity and grace, when the world from all quarters showers down its censures, ejections, and frowns. "Our cause is that of faith in our Lord!" And how sweet also the conviction expressed by the Reformer, "I feel that I am prayed for." The Reformation was the work of prayer and piety. The struggle between Luther and De Vio was a struggle between the religious element re-appearing in full life, and the expiring remains of the quibbling dialectics of the middle ages.
Such was Luther's converse with his absent friends. Staupitz soon returned; Doctor Ruhel and the Chevalier de Ferlitzoch, the Elector's envoys, also arrived after they had taken leave of the cardinal. Some other friends of the gospel joined them; and Luther, seeing the generous men thus assembled on the point of separating, perhaps separating from himself for ever, proposed that they should join in celebrating the Lord's Supper. The proposal was accepted, and this little flock of believers communicated in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. What feelings must have filled the hearts of these friends of the Reformer at this moment when celebrating the Eucharist with him and thinking that it was perhaps the last time he would be permitted to do so! What joy and love must have animated Luther's heart at seeing himself so graciously received by his Master at an hour when men were repulsing him! How solemn must that supper have been—how sacred that evening![586]
The next day[587] Luther waited for the articles which the legate was to send him, but no message arriving, he begged his friend, Dr. Winceslaus Link, to go to the cardinal. De Vio received Link with the greatest affability, and assured him that he would act only as a friend. "I no longer," says he, "regard Doctor Martin Luther as a heretic. I will not excommunicate him at this time, at least if I do not receive other orders from Rome. I have sent his reply to the pope by an express." Then, to give a proof of his good intentions, he added, "Would Doctor Martin Luther only retract what relates to the indulgences, the affair would soon be ended; for, with regard to faith in the sacrament, it is an article which every one may interpret and understand in his own way." Spalatin, who relates these words, adds the sarcastic but just remark: "It clearly follows, that Rome has more regard for money than for the purity of the faith and the salvation of souls."[588]