# Introduction

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Introduction
> Martin Luther Index  Next: The Three Walls Of The Romanists  
> 
> Introduction
> 
> To his most Serene and Mighty Imperial Majesty and to the Christian Nobility
> of the German Nation.
> Dr. Martinus Luther.
> 
>      The grace and might of God be with you, Most Serene Majesty, most
> gracious, well-beloved gentlemen!
> 
>      It is not out of mere arrogance and perversity that I, an individual poor
> man, have taken upon me to address your lordships. The distress and misery
> that oppress all the Christian estates, more especially in Germany, have led
> not only myself, but every one else, to cry aloud and to ask for help, and
> have now forced me too to cry out and to ask if God would give His Spirit to
> any one to reach a hand to His wretched people. Councils have often put
> forward some remedy, but it has adroitly been frustrated, and the evils have
> become worse, through the cunning of certain men. Their malice and wickedness
> I will now, by the help of God, expose, so that, being known, they may
> henceforth cease to be so obstructive and injurious. God has given us a young
> and noble sovereign, [1] and by this has roused great hopes in many hearts; now
> it is right that we too should do what we can, and make good use of time and
> grace.
> 
> [1: Charles V. was at that time not quite twenty years of age.]
> 
>      The first thing that we must do is to consider the matter with great
> earnestness, and, whatever we attempt, not to trust in our own strength and
> wisdom alone, even if the power of all the world were ours; for God will not
> endure that a good work should be begun trusting to our own strength and
> wisdom. He destroys it; it is all useless, as we read in Psalm xxxiii., "There
> is no king saved by the multitude of a host; a mighty man is not delivered by
> much strength." And I fear it is for that reason that those beloved princes
> the Emperors Frederick, the First and the Second, and many other German
> emperors were, in former times, so piteously spurned and oppressed by the
> popes, though they were feared by all the world. Perchance they trusted
> rather in their own strength than in God; therefore they could not but fall;
> and how would the sanguinary tyrant Julius II. have risen so high in our own
> days but that, I fear, France, Germany, and Venice trusted to themselves? The
> children of Benjamin slew forty-two thousand Israelites, for this reason: that
> these trusted to their own strength (Judges xx., etc.).
> 
>      That such a thing may not happen to us and to our noble Emperor Charles,
> we must remember that in this matter we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
> but against the rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph. vi. 12), who may
> fill the world with war and bloodshed, but cannot themselves be overcome
> thereby. We must renounce all confidence in our natural strength, and take the
> matter in hand with humble trust in God; we must seek God's help with earnest
> prayer, and have nothing before our eyes but the misery and wretchedness of
> Christendom, irrespective of what punishment the wicked may deserve. If we do
> not act thus, we may begin the game with great pomp; but when we are well in
> it, the spirits of evil will make such confusion that the whole world will be
> immersed in blood, and yet nothing be done. Therefore let us act in the fear
> of God and prudently. The greater the might of the foe, the greater is the
> misfortune, if we do not act in the fear of God and with humility. If popes
> and Romanists have hitherto, with the devil's help, thrown kings into
> confusion, they may still do so, if we attempt things with our own strength
> and skill, without God's help.
>
> — *Introduction*