need for a moment, yet are we comforted in his promise, where he
saith, "I am daily with you to the world's end;" the same is our
best and richest treasure.


Of the Name Jesus Christ.

I know nothing of Jesus Christ, said Luther, but only his name; I
neither have heard nor seen him corporeally; yet notwithstanding I
have, God be praised, learned so much out of the Scriptures that I
am well and thoroughly satisfied; therefore, I desire neither to see
nor to hear him corporeally. And besides this, when I was left and
forsaken of all men, in my highest weakness, in trembling and in
fear of death, when I was persecuted of the wicked world, then I
oftentimes felt most evidently the divine power which this name
(Christ Jesus) communicated unto me; this name (Christ Jesus)
oftentimes delivered me when I was in the midst of death, and made
me alive again. It comforted me in the greatest despair, and
particularly at the Imperial Assembly at Augsburg, anno 1530, when I
was forsaken of every man; insomuch that, by God's grace, I will
live and die for that name.

And rather than I will yield, or through silence endure that Erasmus
Roterodamus, or any other whosoever he be, should too nearly touch
my Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus with his ungodly false doctrine,
how fairly coloured soever it be trimmed or garnished, I say I will
rather die; yea, it should be more tolerable for me, with wife and
children, to undergo all plagues and torments, and at last to die
the most shameful death, than that I should give way thereunto.