Letters4: v. 21a, Luther's Letters 1507-1532, in English (Part 4 of 5)

      This continues from Part 3 in a series presenting the St. Louis Edition's Luther's Letters. — Now we present the English translation (by DeepL) of Volume 21a, Luther's letters for the years 1507 to 1532. In this period are the letters associated with the Diet of Augsburg which led to the establishment of the Lutheran Church through the Augsburg Confession.  Many, if not most, of the letters associated with this period are connected with the Diet of Augsburg at which the Confession was presented.  Now let us hear again what C. F. W. Walther had to say about these letters:

As for Luther's letters, let him read especially on the preparation for the Diet of Augsburg (1530), and during that as well, and those dealing with the proceedings of the Diet, indeed all letters relating to church events. No better letters have been written. Such courage of faith, such boldness and assurance of victory is unequaled. You get just the right sense of the events if you read what Luther wrote about it.

Many of the letters associated with this period were published in other volumes of the St. Louis Edition, especially Volume 16, which I hope to publish soon. (keep watching this blog for more volumes to come). However there are many letters from this period that are found in this volume 21a. The following letter, written on the day that the Augsburg Confession was presented, is just one of the letters not published by the American Edition, Old or New Series:

No. 1584.

Fortress Coburg. June 25, 1530.

To Nicolaus Hausmann in Zwickau.

News from the Diet of Augsburg. Luther is busy with the translation of Ezekiel.

      To the man to be highly honored in the Lord, Mr. Nicolaus Hausmann, Bishop of the people at Zwickau, his brother and superior.

      Grace and peace in Christ! I have ordered my family in Wittenberg, my dear man, to send to you in Zwickau all the news they have received from us, from which you will know what is happening in Augsburg at this Imperial Diet. I hope that all this has reached you, for I do not have time to write everything to everyone. Let us only pray diligently, as we have done hitherto, remembering how our fathers were saved. "The hand of the Lord is not shortened" [Isa. 59:1], then the matter is not ours, but His; He will surely hear us.

      I have written to your brother Valentin, and comforted him as much as I could; you will see to it that the letter is given to him. I have leisure here now and am working on the translation of Ezekiel; in the meantime I am also doing some other things.

      The papists indeed raged mightily, but our prince, gifted with an admirable constancy, confessed Christ freely. Likewise also Margrave George. The unbelievable mildness of the Emperor is extraordinarily praised; he seems to have been provided by God with a good angel. You will learn more from Wittenberg. In the meantime, you too pray for me, O man of God; in fine grace be well with you for eternity, Amen. From the desert, on Saturday after John the Baptist's day [25 June] 1530.

Your Mart. Luther.

The following is only a partial excerpt including the first 200 letters (1st 131 pages):  

English: The full DOCX >> HERE << (2 MB!;  Direct); PDF (7 MB); or Internet Archive HERE

German: The full DOCX original file may be downloaded >> HERE <<.

Many weeks were spent on these volumes (21a and 21b) to make not just the Fraktur German, but even the Latin text available. Again, these files are most useful if used in conjunction with the online Luther's Letters Index (blog here). One may cross reference the letters across several other editions and compare these with the DeepL machine translations to see how well the machine translation did, or how badly the previous translations were done.  And as I review again the American Edition that Concordia Publishing House sells (volumes 48, 49, and 50) it does have many helpful comments, along with incorrect and spiritually blind commentary, about the surrounding conditions, people involved, and matters of language and phrases. The best case is that the reader have the American Edition volumes for comparison with the more complete St. Louis Edition. —  More notes on the English translation to follow in the concluding Part 5 where we publish the second part, Volume 21b.