It is no pleasant task to examine Luther’s sermons and writings of those years, and to represent to ourselves the turmoil of his mind at the time directly preceding his marriage.
In 1524 he repeatedly discourses to his Wittenberg hearers on his favourite theme, i.e. that man cannot control himself in sexual matters, save by a miracle and with the help of an “exceedingly rare grace.” Speaking of impotence, he says, that although he himself “by the grace of God does not desire a wife,” yet he would not like, as a married man, to go through the experience of those who are impotent. If nature was not to be satisfied, “then death were preferable.” “I have no need of a wife,” he says, “but must provide a relief for your need.”[372] This was perhaps his reply to those who said: “Oh, how the monk feels the weight of his frock, how glad he would be to have a wife!”[373] “Hitherto,” he says, “the married state has been condemned and styled a sensual state.... Alas, would that all men were therein ... in support of it we have the Word of God.... Those who have the grace to be chaste are few, and among a thousand there is scarcely one to be found.”[374]
“I have frequently tried to be good,” he says to his hearers in 1524, “but the more I try the less I succeed. See from this what free-will amounts to.” And then, in excuse, he unfolds his theology. “Sin urges so greatly that we long for death. If to-day I avoid one sin, to-morrow comes another. We are obliged to fight without ceasing: the Kingdom of Christ admits all, provided only they fight and hold fast to the Head of the Kingdom, namely, [believe] that Christ is the Redeemer. But if we exalt works, then all is lost!... If we desire to attain to purity, this must not be done by works, but Christ must be born in us anew [by faith].... Sin cannot harm (‘_mordere_’) us; the power of sin is at an end. We hold fast to Him who has conquered sin.” “‘_Summa, summarum_,’ works or no works, all is comprised under faith and true doctrine.... But do not let us sleep meanwhile and lull ourselves into security.”[375]
In 1523 Luther wrote on “the Devil’s chastity,” as he called it, an exposition of the 7th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, which the Papists used, so he says, as a “fig-leaf” for celibacy and the monastic state. In it he deals with the inspiring, spiritual teaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles in the chapter which commences with the words: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”[376]