Once, when the word of the Lord was precious and there was no open vision,
and the prophets had been slain almost to a man by the wicked Jezebel, the
prophet Elijah, the Tishbite, thought that he only was left. Therefore, weary of
life, he wished to die; being alone, he felt unequal to the task of bearing the
intolerable burden of his wicked people and their leaders. For he did not know
that seven thousand men were still left to the Lord, and that Obadiah was safe
with one hundred prophets in hiding.
This, if I may compare the small with the great, seems to me to be a
parable of our own age. For I, being forced through some providence of God into
the public arena, felt that I was alone in my fight with these monsters of
indulgences and pontifical laws and so-called theology. And yet I have always
had sufficient courage to cause me to be accused everywhere of being too biting
and unrestrained, because of the great faith with which I was burning. Still I
always desired to be taken away—even I—from the mist of my Baalites, and escaping
my civic obligations, to live to myself in some corner, in utter despair of
being able to accomplish anything against the brazen foreheads and iron necks
of impiety.
But lo! word comes to me that the Lord has saved a remnant at this time,
and that His prophets are safe in hiding. And this is not only told me, but to
my joy it is proven to me. For behold! a Wessel has appeared, whom they call
Basil, a Frisian from Groningen, a man of remarkable ability and of rare and
great spirit; and it is evident that he has been truly taught of the Lord, even
as Esaias prophesied the Christians would be. For no one could think that he
received these doctrines from me, any more than I mine. If I had read his works
earlier, my enemies might think that Luther had absorbed everything from
Wessel, his spirit is so in accord with mine.
But now my joy and courage begin to increase, and I have not the slightest
doubt that I have been teaching the truth, since he, living at so different a
time, under another sky, in another land, and under such diverse circumstances,
is so consistently in accord with me in all things, not only as to substance,
but in the use of almost the same words.
I wonder, however, what ill fortune has prevented this most Christian
author from being widely read. Possibly it was because he lived free from blood
and war, in which particular alone he differs from me. Or he may have been
overwhelmed by fear of our Jews who with their wicked inquisitions seem to have
been born for the purpose of pronouncing all the best books heretical, in order
that their own Aristotelian and hypercritical writers may be set forth as
Christian. But through the deliverance of God they are now ending in confusion.
Therefore peruse his works, pious reader; and read with discernment. For
in discernment lies his special excellence; this he displays to a remarkable
degree. And those who are offended by excessive harshness in me or by too great
elegance of style in others, will have nothing to complain of here. His style
is unpolished, in accordance with his age, while he treats his subject with moderation
and fidelity. If Vergil found gold in the dungheaps of Ennius, the reader of
our Wessel will discover how a theologian may adorn his writing with the riches
of eloquence. (Martin Luther, Letter Prefacing Certain Minor Works of Wessel,
in Wessel Gansfort: Life and Writings, ed. Edward Waite Miller, 2 vols.
[trans. Jared Waterbury Scudder; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917], 1:231-33)