We must not forget, in view of the numerous enigmas which the boldness of the Commentary on Romans presents, that it bears merely a semi-public character and was not intended for publication. In this work, destined only for the lecture-room, Luther did not stop to weigh or fine down his words, but gave the reins to his impulse, thus offering us a so much the more interesting picture of his inmost thoughts. Some important particulars, in which this work differs from other public utterances made by Luther about the same time, are to be explained by the familiarity with which he is speaking to his pupils. In the sermons on the Ten Commandments, published in 1518 but preached in the two preceding years and consequently intended for general consumption, he speaks differently of concupiscence than in the Commentary. In the sermons he declares that desires so long as they are involuntary are certainly not sinful. He even says to a man who is troubled on account of his involuntary temptations against purity: “No, no, you have not lost your chastity by such thoughts; on the contrary, you have never been more chaste if you are only sure they came to you against your will.... It is a true sign of a lively sense of chastity when a man feels displeasure, and it need not even be absolute displeasure, otherwise there would be no attraction; he is in an uncertain state, now willing, now unwilling.... In the struggle for chastity the little bark is tossed hither and thither on the waters, while [according to the gospel] Christ is asleep within. Rouse Christ so that He may command the sea, i.e. the flesh, and the wind, i.e. the devil.”[677] In the public Indulgence theses of 1517, he is also careful not to express his erroneous views on grace and the nature of man. It is characteristic of him how he changes even the form of expression when repeating an assertion which is also made in the Commentary on Romans. In the Commentary he had written, that too great esteem of outward works led to a too frequent granting of Indulgences, and that the Pope and the Bishops were more cruel than cruelty itself if they did not freely grant the same, or even greater Indulgences, for God’s sake and the good of souls, seeing that they themselves had received all they had for nothing.[678] This violent utterance here appears as the expression of his own opinion. In the theses, however, he presents the same view to the public with much greater caution; he says, these and similar objections brought forward by scrupulous laymen, were caused, contrary to the wishes of the Pope, by dissolute Indulgence preachers; one might hear “such-like calumnious charges and subtle questions from seculars,” and they must “be taken into account and answered.”[679]