Still it is sufficiently tragic, that, in spite of the gratification of the sensual impulse of nature playing the principal part in his new and supposedly more exalted view of conjugal intercourse, Luther should, on account of the concupiscence involved, characterise the “_actus matrimonialis_” as a mortal sin. In “_De votis monasticis_,” his work written at the Wartburg, he says: “According to Ps. 1. 7, it is a sin differing in nothing from adultery and fornication so far as the sensual passion and hateful lust are concerned; God, however, does not impute it to the married, though simply because of His compassion, since it is impossible for us to avoid it, although our duty would really be to do without it.”[477] We are already familiar with his curious and impossible theory of imputation, according to which God is able to close His eyes to a sin, which nevertheless is really there. That there is actual sin in the act Luther also insists elsewhere, at the same time pleading, however, that the sin is not imputed by God, who, as it were, deliberately winks at it: “In spite of all the good I say of married life, I will not grant so much to nature as to admit that there is no sin in it; what I say is that we have here flesh and blood, depraved in Adam, conceived and born in sin (Ps. 1. 7), and that no conjugal due is ever rendered without sin.”[478]--The blessing which God bestowed on marriage, he says elsewhere, fallen human nature was “not able to accomplish without sin”; “without sin no married persons could do their duty.”[479] Hence the following inference would seem justified: Matrimony is really a state of sin. Such was the opinion, not of the Church before Luther’s day, but of her assailant, whose opponents soon pointed out to him how unfounded was his supposition.[480] The ancient Church, by the voice of her theologians, declared the “_actus matrimonialis_,” when performed in the right way and to a right end, to be no sin; they admitted the inevitable satisfaction of concupiscence, but allowed it so long as its gratification was not all that was sought. According to Luther--whom the author above referred to has quite rightly understood--it is different: Sin is undoubtedly committed, but we may, nay, are bound, to commit it.