From his artificial position of security he ventures to stand up vigorously against others, great men even, who “abused” his doctrine. Count Albert of Mansfeld was one of those who, according to Luther’s account, said of predestination and the helplessness of the will: “The Gospel? What is predestined must come to pass. Let us then do as we please. If we are to be saved, we shall be saved,” etc. Luther, therefore, takes him to account in a letter addressed to him on December 8, 1542. He tells him that he intends to speak freely, being himself “a native of the county of Mansfeld.” “He, too, had been tormented with such thoughts or temptations” and had thus been in danger of hell. “For in the case of silly souls such devilish thoughts breed despair and cause them to distrust God’s grace; in the case of brave people, they make them contemners and enemies of God, who say: let me alone, I shall do as I please, for in any case all I do is to no purpose.” He does not forbear to scold the Count for his behaviour, for “withdrawing himself from the Word and the Sacrament,” for “growing cold and set upon Mammon.” In the end he is, however, only able to give him the following questionable consolation concerning his doctrine. “It is perfectly true that what God has determined must certainly take place,” but there is “a great distinction to be observed” between the revealed and the secret will of God. He should not “trouble himself much” about the latter; for those who do soon “come to care nothing for the Word of God or the Sacrament, give themselves up to a wild life, to Mammon, tyranny and everything evil; for, owing to such thoughts, they can have no faith, hope or charity for either God or man.” Instead of this he desires, as he had explained in his book against Erasmus, that we should simply cling to the God Who has revealed Himself; “what He has promised we must believe, and what He has commanded we must do.” A servant, for instance, does not presume to seek out “the secret thoughts” of his master before obeying him. “Has not God the same right to secret knowledge of His own beyond what He chooses to tell us?” Some say: If it is to be, then all will happen in any case according to God’s will; “of what use, then, is baptism, Holy Scripture and every other creature to us? If God wills it, He can surely do it without all that.”[852]