Nevertheless, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that, subsequent to 1525, Luther tended at times to be less insistent on his revelations. From strategic considerations he was careful to keep more in the background his revelations from the Spirit now that the fanatics were also claiming their own special enlightenment by the “Spirit.” His eyes were now opened to the danger inherent in such arbitrary claims to revelation, and, accordingly, he now begins to insist more on the outward “Word.”[475]
It is true, that, in Nov., 1525, in refutation of the Zwinglian theologians of Strasburg, he still appealed not merely to his visions of angels (see above, p. 127) but also to the certain light of his doctrine inspired by the Holy Ghost, and to his sense of the “Spirit.” “I see very well,” he says, “that they have no certainty, but the Spirit is certain of His cause.”[476] Even then, however, a change had begun and he preferred to appeal to Holy Scripture, which, so he argued, spoke plainly in his favour, rather than to inspirations and revelations. Hence his asseveration that this outward Word of God has much more claim to consideration than the inward Word, which can so easily be twisted to suit one’s frame of mind. He now comes unduly to depreciate the inward Word and the Spirit which formerly he had so highly vaunted, though, on the other hand, he continues to teach that the Spirit and the inward enlightening of the Word are necessary for the interpretation of Holy Scripture.
His Commentary on Isaias contains a delightful attack on the “all-too spiritual folk, who, to-day, cry Spirit, Spirit!” “Let us not look for any private revelations. It is Christ who tells us to ‘search the Scriptures’ [John v. 39]. Revelations puff us up and make us presumptuous. I have not been instructed,” so he goes on, “either by signs or by special revelations, nor have I ever begged signs of God; on the contrary I have asked Him never to let me become proud, or be led astray from the outward Word through the devil’s tricks.” He then launches out against those who pretend they have “particular revelations on the faith,” being “misled by the devil.” These words occur in the revised and enlarged Scholia on Isaias published in 1534. It may, however, be that they did not figure in Luther’s lectures on Isaias (1527-30) but were appended somewhat later.[477]
After thus apparently disowning any title to private revelation and a higher light Luther’s inevitable appeal to the certainty of his doctrine only becomes the more confident. Thanks to his temptations and death-throes, he had become so certain, that he can declare: Possessed of the “Word” as I am, I have not the least wish “that an angel should come to me, for, now, I should not believe him.”
“Nevertheless, the time might well come,” so he continues in this passage of the Table-Talk, “when I might be pleased to see one [an angel] on certain matters.” “I do not, however, admit dreams and signs, nor do I worry about them. We have in Scripture all that we require. Sad dreams come from the devil, for everything that ministers to death and dread, lies and murder is the devil’s handiwork.”[478]
It is true Luther was often plagued by terrifying dreams, and as he numbered them among his “anxieties and death-throes” what he says about them may fittingly be utilised to complete the picture of his inward state. To such an extent was the devil able to affright him, so he says, that he “broke out into a sweat in the midst of his sleep”; thus “Satan was present even when men slept; but angels too were also there.”[479] He assures us, that, in his sleep, he had witnessed even the horrors of the Last Judgment.
The “Temptations” as one of Luther’s Bulwarks
The states of terror and the temptations he underwent were to Luther so many confirmations of his doctrine. Some of his utterances on this subject ring very oddly.
To be “in deaths often” was, according to him, a sort of “apostolic gift,” shared by Peter and Paul. In order to be a doctor above suspicion, a man must have experienced the pains of death and the “melting of the bones.” In the Psalms he hears, as it were, an echo of his own state of soul. “To despair where hope itself despairs,” and “to live in unspeakable groanings,” “this no one can understand who has not tasted it.” This he said in 1520 in a Commentary on the Psalms.[480] And, later, in 1530, when engaged at the Coburg in expounding the first twenty-five psalms: “‘My heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels’ [Ps. xxi. 15]. What that was no one grasps who has not felt it.”[481] “In such trouble there must needs be despair, but, if I say: ‘This I do simply and solely at God’s command,’ there comes the assurance: Hence God will take your part and comfort you. It was thus we consoled ourselves at Augsburg.”[482]
Many others who followed him were also overtaken by similar distress of mind. Struggles of conscience and gloomy depression were the fate of many who flocked to his standard (cp. above, vol. iv., pp. 218-27). Johann Mathesius, Luther’s favourite pupil, so frequently referred to above, towards the end of his life, when pastor at Joachimsthal, once declared, when brooding sadly, that the devil with his temptations was sifting him as it were in a sieve and that he was enduring the pangs of hell described by David. The very mention of a knife led him to think of suicide. He was eager to hold fast to Christ alone, but this he could not do. After the struggle had lasted two or three months his condition finally improved.[483]