“Alas, good God,” he groaned in 1540, “how we have to suffer from divisions!... And many more sects will come. For the spirit of lies and murder does not sleep.... But God will save His Christendom.”[609]—In 1542 someone remarked in his presence: “Were the world to last fifty years longer many things would happen.” Thereupon Luther interjected: “God forbid, things would get worse than ever before; for many sects will arise which yet are hidden in men’s hearts, so that we shall not know how we stand. Hence, dear Lord, come with Thy Judgment Day, for no further improvement is now to be looked for!”[610]—After instancing the principal sects that had arisen up to that time he said, in 1540: “After our death many sects will arise, God help us!”[611] “But whoever after my death despises the authority of this school—so long as the Church and the school remain as they are—is a heretic and an evil man. For in this school [of Wittenberg] God has revealed His Word, and this school and town can take a place side by side with any others in the matter of doctrine and life, even though our life be not yet quite above reproach.... Those who flee from us and secretly contemn us have denied the faith.... Who knew anything five-and-twenty years ago [before my preaching started]? Alas for ambition; it is the cause of all the misfortunes.”[612] Frequently he reverts to the theory, that the Church must needs put up with onsets and temptations to despair. “Now even greater despair has come upon us on account of the sectarians,” he said in 1537; “the Church is in despair according to the words of the Psalmist (cviii. 92): ‘Unless Thy Law had been my meditation I had then perhaps perished in my abjection.’”[613]