At any rate, so he will have it, there was a call to struggle most earnestly against all the inward voices that make themselves heard against the new teaching and the apostasy, just as though they came from the devil.
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.”
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.”— “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.”
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!” 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. 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.”
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.” Later on he remembered having had to battle with every kind of despair (“omnibus desperationibus”) for three long years. 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.
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.”
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.
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.
Later, however, in 1527, it “began anew.”
Atrocious suffering of mind and bitter anxiety concerning the abuses in the new Church— “a vinegar sourer than all other vinegars, as he calls it,” — immediately preceded his illness which began about July 7, 1527. Mental uneasiness and self-reproaches accompanied the fainting-fits which at that time seemed to threaten his life. His inward struggles were so severe that Bugenhagen, who tried to comfort him, compares them with the darkness of the soul “so frequently mentioned in the Psalms as illustrative of the spiritual pangs of hell.” “Dr. Martin,” writes the latter, who was pastor at Wittenberg and Luther’s “confessor,” “had in all likelihood been through other such temptations, but none had ever been so severe; this he admitted on the following day to Dr. Jonas, to Dr. Christian [Schurf] and to me. He said they were worse and more dangerous than the bodily ailment which befell him on that same Saturday evening about five o’clock and which was so serious that we feared he would succumb under it.” Luther himself, in those critical days, declared “that he would not retract his doctrine,” and, after making his confession to Bugenhagen as the latter relates, “spoke at considerable length of the spiritual temptation he had been through the same morning, with such fear and trembling as could not be described in words.” It was then that the curious complaint was involuntarily wrung from him that those who saw his outward behaviour fancied he “lay on a bed of roses, though God knew how it stood with him.” Bugenhagen and Jonas have embellished their accounts of this illness of their friend with many pious utterances supposed to have been spoken by him then.
The Height of the Storm, 1527-28
The worst struggles, lasting over many months, followed upon Luther’s illness of 1527.
Hardly had he recovered his normal health than we find his letters full of sad allusions to his abiding state of despair and to his fears concerning the faith, probably the most melancholy outpourings of his whole life.
“For more than a week I have been tossed about between death and hell,” he writes to Melanchthon, “so that I still tremble in every limb and feel utterly broken. Waves and storms of despair and blasphemy against God broke over me and I lost Christ almost entirely. But, at the intercession of the saints [his friends] God has begun to take pity on me and has delivered my soul from the lowest hell.”— “This struggle,” he writes to Justus Menius, “goes beyond my strength.... I am tried not only in body but still more, and worst of all, in soul. God allows Satan and his angels thus to torment me.”
In a letter of Aug. 21, addressed to Johann Agricola, then still his friend, he informed him that the fight was not yet at an end. “Satan rages against me with all his might. Like another Job (Job xvi. 12), God has set me up as a mark, and He tempts me with intolerable weakness of spirit. The prayers of holy men indeed save me from remaining in his hands, but the wounds I have received in my heart will be hard to heal. I trust that my strivings will turn to the salvation of many.” He concludes by saying that those in power (the Catholics) were unable to get at him, but that so much the more was he plagued in spirit “by the Prince of this world.” He writes in much the same vein on Aug. 26 to Nicholas Hausmann.
Truly, so he again wrote to Johann Agricola, on Aug. 31, “neither world nor reason can understand how hard it is to real
ise that Christ is our righteousness, so deeply rooted in us is the doctrine of works, which has grown up with us and become part of us. That Christ may strengthen me I commend myself to your prayers.” Hence it was his chief dogma, the very rock of his Evangel, that “Satan” was then tampering with. The call for good works was, as he felt, beyond even his power to deny.
“For wellnigh three months I have been feeling wretched,” he wrote on Oct. 8, “not so much in body as in soul, so that I have written little or nothing, so greatly has Satan tossed me in the sieve [Luke xxii. 31]”— “God has not yet completely restored me to health,” he announces on Oct. 19, “but in His wisdom leaves me a prey to Satan who assails me and buffets me; but God also sends help and protection.”
He speaks of himself, on Oct. 27, as “a wretched and abject worm, harassed by the spirit of sadness,” “I seek and thirst for nought else than for a gracious God, for as such He reveals Himself even to His enemies and contemners.” Luther had claimed, that, through his new doctrine and through flinging aside his monkish frock he had found “a gracious God,” and proclaimed Him to men for their reconciliation; this has been extolled as the greatest gain achieved by the Lutheran schism; yet here we have his word for it that the solace of a Gracious God was still withheld from him.— “I have always been in the habit of comforting others,” he says in a letter to Amsdorf on Nov. 1; “and now I myself stand in desperate need of such consolation; only one thing, however, do I wish, viz. never to be the foe of Christ, although I have offended Him by many and great sins. Satan tries to make a Job of me; he would like to sift me like Peter and his brethren. Oh, that God would say to him: ‘Yet spare his life’ [Job ii. 6], and to me: ‘I am thy salvation’ [Ps. xxxiv. 3]. Even now I still hope that His anger at my sins will not last for ever.... Meanwhile fighting goes on outside and fears reign within, yea, very bitter ones indeed.”
Thus in spite of everything he tries to buoy himself up with hope.
Yet his lamentations continue. “Hardly can I breathe for storms and faintheartedness.... My Katey, however, is strong in faith and in good health.... As for me, my body is whole but I am tempted” (Nov. 4).— “From several sides at once fears rush in on me. My temptations torment me ... for months storms and faintness of spirit have never left me; pray that my faith may not fail” (Nov. 7).— “I have surely troubles enough already, please do not add to them by crucifying me with your dissensions” (Nov. 9).— “Erasmus and the Sacramentarians are now come to stamp me under foot, to persecute a man already utterly worn out in spirit!”— “I endure God’s wrath because I have sinned against Him. My sins, death, and Satan with his angels all rage against me without a break; and now Pope and Emperor, Princes, Bishops and the whole world too storms in upon me, making common cause with the crew who vex me”; everything would be endurable provided only Christ — for Whose sake he, the “most abject of all sinners,” was hated — did not desert one “whom God has smitten” and whom they persecute (Nov. 10).— “I believe that it is no mere fiend from the ranks of the devil’s hosts who fights with me, but the Prince of the demons himself; so powerful is he and so armed to the teeth with Bible-texts that my knowledge of the Bible is left stranded and I am obliged to have recourse to the words of others; from this you may get some idea of the devil’s height, as they say” (Nov. 17).
“I am well in body, but as to how it stands with me in spirit I am not certain.... I seek only for a gracious Christ.... Satan wants to prevent me from writing and to drag me down with him to hell. May Christ tread him under foot, Amen!” (Nov. 22).
His work and his doctrine must, according to him, be pleasing to heaven; the difficulties and the attacks from without and from within, all these he attributes to Satan’s raging and sees in them proofs “that our word is the Word of God; this alone it is that makes him so furious against us” (Dec. 30). — It has been said that Luther held fast to this with a “bold faith”; it would, however, be more correct to say that he catches at such thoughts as a drowning man does at a straw, a phenomenon which of itself throws a lurid light on his delusions and the misty trend of his thoughts. He is determined to be sure of his cause — and at this very time, with the help of the State, he has a Coburg Zwinglian put to silence, because the latter “neither is nor can be sure of his cause.”
“I myself am weak and in wretchedness,” he again confesses. “If only Christ does not forsake me.... Satan expends his fury on me because I have attacked him by deed, and word, and writing; but I feel consoled when I boldly believe (‘fortiter credo’) that what I did was pleasing to the Lord and to His Christ. I am tossed about between the two warring princes [Christ and Satan] till all my bones are sore. Many works of Satan have I done and still do, nevertheless I hope to please my Christ Who is merciful and inclined to forgive; but from Satan I desire no forgiveness for what I have done against him and for Christ. He is a murderer and the father of lies.... I feel in the depths of my soul how, with unbelievable wrath, he plots against me, assuming even the guise of Christ, to say nothing of that of the angel of light” (Nov. 27, 1527). — The “guise of Christ” and of the “angel of light,” to which he here alludes, are sufficient to show those who look below the surface that what was troubling him was something not very different from the inner voice of conscience.
How far he could go in deluding himself the better to appease his conscience is plain from what he says in his letter “to the Christians at Erfurt”: During the whole time he had spent at Erfurt in his Catholic days he had longed in vain to hear “a Gospel or even a little Psalm”; there, as was everywhere the case in Popery, Holy Scripture lay buried deep, and “no one had even thought of preaching a really Christian sermon.”
No less vain than this consolation from the past was that which he sought in the future. He clung wildly to his delusion that the end of all was at hand; “Satan,” he cries, “has but a short respite before being completely overthrown, therefore does he make such furious and incredible efforts” (Dec. 31).
“Now that the Word is preached Satan plainly comes off second best; hence he persecutes me secretly; he is unchained, and, with all his engines he seeks to tear Christ from me.” Thus (on Nov. 28).— “I am the wretched ‘off-scourings of Christ’” (Nov. 29).— “I am to all intents and purposes dead, as the Apostle calls it, yet still I live” (Dec. 10).
The long and terrible year was drawing to a close. He had almost grown accustomed to his inward troubles. “I have not yet shaken off my temptation, nor do I desire to be free if it is to God’s glory. The devil rages against me simply because Christ has vanquished him through me, his most wretched of vessels” (Dec. 14).— “Well in body, in soul I am as Christ wills, to Whom I am now bound only by a slender thread. The devil on the other hand is moored to me with mighty cords, nay, real cables; he drags me down into the depths, but the weak Christ has still the upper hand owing to your prayers, or at least He puts up a brave fight” (Dec. 29).
The Trouble Continues
Even his lectures on the 1st Epistle of St. John testify to Luther’s inward excitement during that unhappy year (1527). The Preface to the commentary as preserved in the Vatican MS. (Palat., 1825) is dated Aug. 19, and begins: “You know that we are so placed by God in this life as to be exposed to all the darts of Satan. And not Satan alone storms against us, but also the world, and our heart, and our flesh. Hence we must despair of peace so long as we remain here below. Against all these evils God has given us no other weapon than His Word which He commands us to preach, who live in the midst of wolves.... Thus, since we are exposed to all these dangers, to death, sin, heretics and the whole might of Satan, I have undertaken to expound this Epistle.”
Amidst all this inward woe there was a cheerier side of things to look at. A little daughter had been born to him at the end of 1527. He and his family had happily been spared by the plague. He had succeeded in imposing silence on most of his opponents among the preachers of the new faith. His sovereign too was more than ever resolved to
support him in his work. In the German lands, and even beyond, the Evangel was daily gaining new ground. Hence there was every reason for self-gratulation. In spite of all this what he says to his friends retains a tone of bitterness and apprehension: “Help me in my agony!” “At times indeed the temptation becomes less severe, but then again it overwhelms me more relentlessly than before” (Dec. 30).— “We are all well excepting Luther himself, who, though he feels well in body, is tormented outwardly by the whole world and inwardly by the devil and all his angels.” “Satan gnashes his teeth furiously all around us” (Dec. 31).— “I have been well acquainted with such temptations from my youth upwards, but that they could assume such dimensions I had never dreamed. Christ holds His own with the utmost difficulty, yet so far He has been victorious. I commend myself to your prayers and those of your brethren. I have saved others and cannot save myself. Praised be my Christ,” he adds, convinced in spite of all that he was in the right, “praised be He in the midst of despair, death and blasphemy.... It is our glory to have lived in the world agreeably with the will of Christ, forgetful of our former very evil life. Let it suffice that Christ is our life and our righteousness, though this is indeed a hard truth and one which the flesh knows not. It is a bitter chalice that I must drink as the end of the world draws nigh” (Jan. 1, 1528).
After this sad New Year’s letter Luther’s complaints of his pains of soul cease for a while, though, not long after, they reappear at intervals in an even more startling form.
That bodily sickness was not entirely responsible is clear from his frequent allusions to his good state of health even during such spells of stress; in the end, too, he got the better of these fears, not as the result of any improvement in bodily health, but thanks to the defiant spirit with which he clung to what he deemed was his Divine mission. Everybody knows how much a forceful will is able to do, even in the profoundest depths of the soul. Nevertheless the unhappy victory he ultimately succeeded in gaining over his own self has a right to be accounted something quite out of the common, something of which few in his position would have been capable. Hardly ever has a man had such Titanic forces at his disposal as Luther. He neither could nor would go back, the gap was already too wide; the inward voices spoke in vain which urged him to put away the “hard truth” of the doctrine he had discovered, and to return to the Church which he had spurned.
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 812