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Once more he celebrated his birthday in the circle of his friends, Melancthon, Bugenhagen, Cruciger, and some others. Just before that day a rich present of wine and fish had arrived from the Elector. Luther was very merry with his friends, but could not restrain sad thoughts of an apostasy from the gospel which might follow with many after his death.
For this work he assembled around him a circle of learned colleagues, whose assistance he succeeded in obtaining and whom he regularly consulted. These were Melancthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen, Cruciger, Matthew Aurogallus, professor of Hebrew, and afterwards the chaplain Rorer, who attended to the corrections.
He began to pray aloud, and talked earnestly of spiritual things, although a short swoon came over him in the interval. The physician Augustin Schurf, who was called in, ordered his body, now quite cold, to be warmed. Bugenhagen too was sent for again.
'My head, he says, 'will do no more: so remember that, if I die, your talents and eloquence will be wanted for the preface. For a whole month, as he remarked at the beginning of April, he was prevented from reading, writing, and lecturing. He informed Spalatin, in a letter of May 20, which Bugenhagen wrote for him, that at present, God willing, he must take a holiday.
But on the evening of June 13, on the Tuesday after the feast of the Trinity, he invited to his house his friends Bugenhagen, the parish priest of the town, Jonas, the professor and provost of the church of All Saints, Lucas Cranach with his wife, and the juristic professor Apel, formerly a dean of the Cathedral at Bamberg, who himself had married a nun, and in their presence was married to Catharine.
When the nuncio and ambassador reached John Frederick at Weimar, the Elector consulted with Luther, Bugenhagen, Jonas, and Melancthon about the object of their coming, and for that purpose, on June 15, 1533, he came in person to Wittenberg, and had an opinion drawn up in writing.
To organise the new Church, the Lubeckers would have preferred the assistance of Luther himself; but failing him, their delegates begged the Elector John, when at Augsburg, to send them at least Bugenhagen. Under these circumstances Luther agreed that Bugenhagen should be allowed to go, although the Wittenberg congregation and university could hardly spare him.
So that until his twenty-eighth year he lived where the Government and Worship of the church were ordered under the directions of the two branches of the great family of KOO of Brunswick-Lueneburg. In the preparation of these books such men as Luther, Melancthen, Bugenhagen, Amsdorf, Corvinus, Chemnitz, Andreae and John Arndt took part.
He resumed, in short, the duties of Bugenhagen, who was given leave of absence till 1539 to visit Denmark, for the purpose of organising there, under the new king Christian III., the new Evangelical Church. He preached regularly on week-days, in addition to his Sunday sermons; continuing his discourses, as Bugenhagen had done, though with many interruptions, on the Gospels of St. Matthew and St.
At length an attempt was actually made to remove him to Gotha, the necessary medical appliances being not procurable at Schmalkald. On the 26th of the month the Erfurt physician, Sturz, drove him thither, together with Bugenhagen, Spalatin, and Myconius, in one of the Elector's carriages. Another carriage followed them, with instruments and a pan of charcoal, for warming cloths.
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