e earnest desire to receive it suffices for
salvation. The desire is known as the _votum sacramenti_.

[27] In Spain. The shrine of St. James at that place was a famous
resort for pilgrims. Cf. below, p. 191, and note.

[28] See the _Treatise on the Sacrament of Baptism_, above, pp. 68
ff.

[29] Luther doubtless refers to the decrees of the popes by which
special rewards were attached to worship at certain shrines.

[30] The oath of office and the oath of allegiance.

[31] The story is repeated by Melanchthon in the Apology of the
Augsburg Confession, Ch. XIII, Art. xxvii, 38 (_Book of Concord_,
Eng. Trans., p. 288). The "Alexander Coriarius" of text is
misleading.

THE FOURTEEN OF CONSOLATION

FOR SUCH AS LABOR AND ARE HEAVY LADEN

(TESSARADECAS CONSOLATORIA)

1520

INTRODUCTION

1. When Luther's Elector, Frederick the Wise (1486-1525),
returned to his residence at Torgau, after participating in the
election of Emperor Charles V, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in the
summer of 1519, he was stricken with a serious illness, from
which there seemed little hope of his recovery Concerned for his
noble patron, and urged by Dr. George Spalatin, his friend at
court, to prepare a "spiritual consolation" for the Elector,
Luther wrote "The Fourteen of Consolation," one of his finest and
tenderest devotional writings, and, in conception and execution,
one of the most original of all his works.

Its composition falls within the months of August and September
of the year 1519. On August 29th, the Day of the Beheading of St.
John Baptist, we find him writing in Part I, chapter vi: "Does
not the example of St. John Baptist, whom we commemorate on this
day as beheaded by Herod, shame and amaze us all?" On September
22d, he sends the completed manuscript (in Latin) to Spalatin,
requesting him to make a free translation of it into German and
present it to the Elector. By the end of November Spalatin had
completed his task (one marvels at the leisureliness of this, in
view of the serious condition of the Elector; or was the
manuscript translated and administered piecemeal to the noble
patient?), and early in December he returned the original,
doubtless together with his own translation, to Luther, who had
requested its return, "in order to comfort himself therewith."

The work was, therefore, in the strictest sense, a private
writing, and not in the least intended for publication.[1] But
the importunities of those who h