Of the devil, who unsettles him, he says: “Often I am shaken, but not always.”[597] To the devil it was given to play the part of torturer. “I prefer the tormentor of the body to the torturer of the soul.”[598]—“Alas, the Apostles believed, of this there can be no doubt; I can’t believe, and yet I preach faith to others. I know that it is true, yet believe it I cannot.”[599] “I know Jonas, and if he [like Christ] were to ascend to heaven and disappear out of our sight, what should I then think? And when Peter said: ‘In the name of Jesus, arise’ [Acts iii. 6], what a marvel that was! I don’t understand it and I can’t believe it; and yet all the Apostles believed.”[600] “I have been preaching for these twenty years, and read and written, so that I ought to see my way ... and yet I cannot grasp the fact, that I must rely on grace alone; and still, otherwise it cannot be, for the mercy-seat alone must count and remain since God has established it; short of this no man can reach God. Hence it is no wonder that others find it so hard to accept faith in its purity, more particularly when these devil-preachers [the Papists] add to the difficulty by such texts as: ‘Do this and thou shalt live,’ item ‘Wilt thou enter into life, keep the commandments’ (Luke x. 28; Matthew xix. 17).”[601] He is unable to find within him that faith which, according to his system, ought to exist, and, in many passages, he even insists on its difficulty in a very curious manner. “Ah, dear child, if only one could believe firmly,” he said to his little daughter, who “was speaking of Christ with joyful confidence”; and, in answer to the question, “whether then he did not believe,” he replied by praising the innocence and strong faith of children, whose example Christ bids us follow.[602] In the notes among which these words are preserved there follows a collection of similar statements belonging to various periods: “This argument, ‘The just shall live in his faith’ (Hab. ii. 4), the devil is unable to explain away. But the point is, who is able to lay hold on it?”[603]—“I, alas, cannot believe as firmly as I can preach, speak and write, and as others fancy I am able to believe.”[604]—When the Apostle of the Gentiles speaks of dying daily (1 Cor. xv. 31), this means, so Luther thinks, that he had doubts about his own teaching. In the same way Christ withdraws Himself from him, Luther, “so that at times I say: Truly I know not where I stand, or whether I am preaching aright or not.”[605] “I used to believe all that the Pope and the monks said, but now I am unable to believe what Christ says, Who cannot lie. This is an annoying business, but we shall keep it for that [the Last] Day.”[606]