Annoyance at the bad treatment of his preachers also lets loose a flood of complaints. “In many places,” so he laments, “they are treated very ill so that they are minded to depart and are even compelled to take flight.”[1282] The hostility of the politicians at Court and the lawyers, was also a cause of profound grief to him.[1283]
With greater apprehension than usual he saw at the beginning of June terrifying natural portents and prayed with passionate longing for the “overthrow of all things” which he was confidently awaiting.[1284]
Already in spirit he saw the sparks of the coming conflagration which was to consume Germany for her chastisement, “before the outbreak of which may God deliver us and ours from this misery!”[1285]
In July anger at the “contempt of the Word on our side and the blasphemy of our foes,”[1286] the sad sight of the want of unity and growing number of sects in his own camp, where “each one insists on following his own ideas,”[1287] the “decline of learning” amongst his followers, where “many bellies are set only on feeding themselves,”[1288] all this combined with other experiences tended to make his depression unendurable. To be obliged to set in order the public worship spelt a positive torture to him.[1289] Even in his own household he had cause for bitter disappointment in his niece Magdalene who had insisted on making love to a man (whom she was ultimately to marry) of whom Luther did not approve, thus giving Satan an opportunity for “maliciously attacking” Luther’s good name.[1290]
Yes indeed, “Satan rules,” he said to Amsdorf, in a letter of July 9, “and all have lost their wits.”[1291] Here the cause of his vexation was the Emperor, who, so he had been told, was insisting that the Protestants should attend the Council of Trent and submit to it. It is true Luther does not give up all hope of God again making a mockery of Satan,[1292] but, in the meantime, he execrates and curses the Council.[1293] He also vents his wrath on the Emperor, Ferdinand the German King, the King of France and the Pope. And why? Because he was only too ready to give credence to a report which had reached him that they had despatched ambassadors to the Grand Turk with gifts and an offer of peace, and that, clothed in long Turkish garments, they were humbling themselves before the infidel.[1294] “Are these Christians? They are hellish idols of the devil. Yet I hope they are at the same time a glad token of the coming of the end of all things. Let them worship the Turk, but let us call upon the true God, Who will humble both them and the Turk in the Day of His Coming.”[1295]
He is still suffering from the after-effects of the excitement in which he had, as he says, penned his “book brimful of bitter wrath, against the Papal monster,” viz. his “Against the Popedom founded by the Devil.” He has not the strength left to write a sequel to it, but he tells his friend Ratzeberger: “I have not yet done justice either to myself or to the greatness of my anger; I know too that I can never do full justice to it, so great and boundless is the enormity of the Papistic monster.” In such a frame of mind he feels keenly that he is the “trump heralding the Last Judgment.”[1296]
He is conscious, however, that his trump cannot peal loud enough in the world (“parum sonamus”) owing to his state, borne down as he is by pains of body and soul. He was unable to summon up the force to write either the continuation of his work against the Pope, or even the short reply to the Swiss which he had promised Amsdorf.[1297]
The above false report of the Christian embassy to Turkey current at Wittenberg he was at once ready to accept because it was in keeping with his pessimistic outlook. The evil spirits of suspicion, distrust and the mania of persecution made his unhappy mind willing to credit everything that was unfavourable, and even embittered the life of those about him. Melanchthon in particular suffered under this mood owing to his disposition to find a modus vivendi with the Swiss, whilst all the while concealing his leanings under a prudent and timid silence.[1298]
“The wild and immoral life at Wittenberg, a town so greatly favoured by God,”[1299] and the danger this spelt to the good name of the whole of Luther’s work stung him now more keenly than ever before. Of his own remorse of conscience we hear nothing at this time; his letters even to his intimates, usually so communicative, are silent as to any temptations or inward conflicts with the devil. There is no doubt that public affairs were then weighing more heavily on him, for instance the troubles arising from the Hessian bigamy. He was now again suffering from calculus. “I would dearly like to die,” he writes, “a plague on these excruciating pains! If, however, it is the Will of God that I succumb to them, He will give me grace to endure them and to die, if not sweetly, at least bravely!”[1300]