He was helped in this, on the one hand, by his terrible energy, and, on the other, by a theological fallacy: “God has commanded that we should look to Christ for forgiveness of our sins; hence whoever does not do so makes God a liar; I must therefore say to the devil: Even though I be a scamp, yet Christ is just.”[1333]
Thus we find him declaring, for instance, in July, 1528: “to yield to such disquiet of conscience is to be overcome by Satan, nay, to set Satan on the throne!” “Such thoughts may appear to be quite heavenly and called for, but they are nevertheless Satanic and cannot but be so.” When they refuse to depart, even though spurned by us, and we endure them patiently, then do we indeed “present a sublime spectacle to God and the angels.”[1334]—“Away with the devil’s sadness!” so, at a later date, in 1544, he exhorts his old friend Spalatin; “conscience stands in the cruel service of the devil; a man must learn to find consolation even against his own conscience.”[1335]
[4. Progress of his Mental Sufferings until their Flood-tide in 1527-1528]
If we glance at the history of Luther’s so-called “temptations” throughout the whole course of his career, we shall find that they were very marked at the beginning of his enterprise. Before 1525 they had fallen off, but they became again more frequent during the terrors of the Peasant War and then reasserted themselves with great violence in 1527. After abating somewhat for the next two years they again assumed alarming proportions in 1530 in the solitude of the Coburg and thus continue, with occasional breaks, until 1538. From that time until the end of his life he seemed to enjoy greater peace, at least from doubts regarding his own salvation, though, on the other hand, gloomy depression undoubtedly darkened the twilight of his days, and he complains more than ever of the weakness of his own faith; we miss, however, those vivid accounts of his struggles of conscience which he had been wont to give.
The Period Previous to 1527
Let us listen first of all to Luther’s self-reproach in the early days of his public labours; we may recall those words of 1521 where he confesses, that, before he had grown so bold and confident, “his heart had often quaked with fear,” when he thought of the words of his foes: “Are you alone wise and are all others mistaken? Is it likely that so many centuries were all in the wrong? Supposing, on the contrary, you were in the wrong and were leading so many others with you into error and to eternal perdition!”[1336] He admits similarly that he had still to fight with his conscience even after having passed through the storm in which, “amidst excitement and confusion of conscience,” he had discovered the true doctrine of salvation.[1337] That discovery did not bring him into a haven of rest even though we have his word that, for a while, he was quite overcome with joy. “Oh, what great trouble and labour did it cost me, even though grounded on Holy Scripture, to convince my conscience that I had a right to stand up all alone against the Pope, and denounce him as Antichrist, the Bishops as his Apostles and the Universities as his brothels.”[1338]
The days he spent in the Wartburg and the opportunity they afforded him to look back on his past, awakened anew these self-reproaches; whilst in the solitude, we hear him complaining, that his “distress of soul still persisted and that his former weakness of spirit and of faith had not yet left him.”[1339] Later on he remembered having had to battle with every kind of despair (“omnibus desperationibus”) for three long years.[1340] At a much later date, in 1541, he reminds his friends of the many inward struggles (“tot agones”) the first proclamation of the Evangel and his crusade against the word of man had cost him.[1341]
About 1521 he must have arrived at a pitch of “despair and temptation regarding the wrath of God” such as he never before had tasted; for he told one of his pupils, on Dec. 14, 1532, that it was “about ten years since he had felt this struggle so severely; after that better days had dawned, but later the difficulties began anew.”[1342]
But, as he often admits, he was all too addicted to thoughts of despair, thanks to the devil who was ever lying in wait for him; as for the “better days” they might easily be counted. “When these thoughts come upon me I forget everything about Christ and God, and even begin to look upon God as a miscreant”; the “Laudate” stops, so he says, and the “Blasphemate” begins as soon as we begin to think of the fate to which from all eternity we are predestined.[1343]
Subsequent to 1525 his new state of life with its domestic cares and distractions, added to his satisfaction with the growing damage inflicted on the Papacy, appear to have contributed to diminish his trouble of mind.