# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1846 02 07_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall not pass away, now nor forevermore."

Published by C. F. W. Walther.

St. Louis, Mo., February 7, 1846.

No. 12.

Volume 2.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, for a subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay half of this in advance and bear the postage themselves. — In St. Louis, each individual issue is sold for 5 cents.

(Submitted by Pastor Keyl.)

The Commemoration of the Anniversary of the Death of Dr. Martin Luther.
Luther's Last Journey to Eisleben and the Negotiations There.

God had so protected his servant, Dr. Luther, for sixty-three years, that Satan and all his instruments, with all their cunning and might, had not been able to take his life; it was not God's will that this martyr should also die a martyr's death, yet he did wish to grant him his most ardent desire, to be released and to be with Christ; and so he now hastened to take him out of this evil life — indeed, he wished to take him from this vale of tears into heaven in his native city of Eisleben. Therefore God so guided things that he journeyed there.

The occasion for this last journey of Luther's to Eisleben was the mediation he had been asked to provide in the long-standing disputes that existed both among the Counts of Mansfeld themselves and between them and their subjects. Several of the latter, namely, owned profitable mines, for which they paid certain annual dues to the counts; the counts, however, tempted by the owners' growing profit, sought to seize the mines for themselves. This was done in particular by the Lutheran Count Albrecht, while the count who was still Roman Catholic opposed this undertaking. But from the year 1540 on, the latter's two sons, Philip and Georg, who now also professed the Lutheran church, sided with Count Albrecht, for which reason Luther issued three forceful letters to them, in which he earnestly reproached them for their wrongdoing. (See L. W. XXI, 436ff., 454ff., and 463ff.) He did this out of love for his fatherland and for his territorial lords, out of compassion for the heavy loss suffered by the mine owners, among whom were several of his brothers-in-law, and also for the sake of his preaching office, by virtue of which he had to rebuke public sins.

When Count Georg came to Wittenberg in 1545, Luther asked him in person no longer to support Count Albrecht in his unjust undertaking against his subjects, but to show the latter every fairness and to be intent upon a settlement that would end the vexatious disputes. The count indeed gave Luther his hand and promised to follow his counsel, but mocked him behind his back, and everything remained as before. Count Albrecht behaved not much better; he was indeed favorably disposed toward Luther, but he could not bear Luther's opposition in the matter of the mines, and although he promised to submit this to the decision of honest men, and Luther in particular, this was nevertheless only an empty pretense; for when, in the autumn of 1545, Luther, accompanied by Melanchthon and Dr. Jonas, traveled to Eisleben with the elector's permission in order to bring about a settlement, they had to return to Wittenberg with the matter unaccomplished. Soon afterward the counts again showed themselves inclined toward settlement negotiations, and had Luther invited, through the chancellor Lauterbeck, to take part in person. Luther resolved to accept this invitation as well, and wrote to Count Albrecht on December 6, 1545: "There must be no difficulty about a week's time, though I have much to do, which I am willing to risk, so that I may lay myself joyfully in my coffin, having first reconciled my dear territorial lords and seen their hearts friendly and united." (L. W. XXI, 512.)

How much Luther still had to labor and suffer in the last weeks of his life is made clear by a letter he wrote on January 17, 1546 — and thus one month before his death — to one of his oldest and best friends, Jacob Probst, the first preacher of the Gospel in Bremen. (L. W. XVII, 2634ff.) The beginning of this letter reads as follows: "Grace and peace. I, old, worn-out, sluggish, weary, cold, and moreover one-eyed,*) write now. And whereas I thought that I, being half-dead, ought fairly to be left in peace, it happens instead as if I had never written, spoken, or done anything, so that I am overwhelmed with writing, speaking, doing, and enduring. But Christ, who is all in all, he is mighty and active; blessed be he forever, Amen." Luther also hints in it at his approaching end, when he writes: "So if I also go before you (which I desire), I will draw you after me." He closes with the words: "We are sinners; but he is our righteousness, who lives forever, Amen."

*) The injury to the eye which Luther probably means to indicate by this expression "one-eyed" is shown in a portrait of him by the hand of his friend L. Cranach, which is to be found in the art collection of the orphanage at Halle.

Of his last journey Luther said — as Aurifaber heard from his own lips on several occasions — that he had undertaken it so that he might have a little rest from his daily labor and burdens, and that at Eisleben he wished only to preach, to pray, and to admonish his territorial lords to harmony and peace. (L. W. XII, 1566.) From what has been said so far, the slanders of Cochlaeus, as though Luther had here improperly meddled in worldly affairs, can be sufficiently refuted. Moreover, he traveled to Eisleben also at the express command of his elector, and brought from him a letter of admonition urging that the settlement be brought about.

Shortly before his departure for Eisleben, Luther, at the end of a sermon delivered on a Sunday, admonished the people to pray diligently and to test the spirits, and also spoke beforehand of much of the corruption of doctrine that was to occur some years later among the Wittenbergers, and asked his hearers that, if they heard he was ill, they should not pray to God for him for a long life, but for a gracious final hour. "I am," he said, "weary of the world, and the world of me; it is as easy to part as a guest quite gladly quits an inn." (Seckendorf, p. 2612.)

Luther preached his last sermon in Wittenberg on the second Sunday after Epiphany, that is, on January 17 (the very day on which the above letter to Probst is also dated), on Romans 12:3ff. In this sermon Luther deals, after the example of St. Paul in all his epistles and especially in that to the Romans, with the two chief parts of Christian doctrine — first, faith and everything belonging to it (deliverance from sin, the law, death, and the attainment of eternal life), Romans chapters 1–11, and then the fruits of faith, or good works according to the Ten Commandments, Romans chapters 12–16. Luther shows in this that a Christian's sin is indeed forgiven in baptism, but that also after baptism much

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