For the Wittenberg consistory to relieve him of the matrimonial cases was in many respects just what he desired. He had himself frequently dealt with these cases according to the dictates of his own ever-changing views on marriage, so far as he was allowed by his frequent quarrels with the lawyers who questioned his right to interfere. He now declared: “I am glad that the consistoria have been established, especially on account of the matrimonial cases.”[655] As early as 1536, he had written: “The peasants and rude populace who seek nothing but the freedom of the flesh, and likewise the lawyers, who, whenever possible, oppose our decisions, have wearied me so much that I have flung aside the matrimonial cases and written to some telling them that they may do just as they please in the name of all the devils; let the dead bury their dead; for though I give much advice, I cannot help the people when afterwards they are robbed and teased [by the lawyers]. If the world will have the Pope then let it have him if otherwise it cannot be.” “So far I have not found one single lawyer,” he continues, speaking of a certain matrimonial question, “who would hold with me against the Pope in this or any similar case.... We theologians know nothing, and are not supposed to count.”[656] It was in part nausea and wounded vanity, in part also his abhorrence for the ecclesiastical and sacramental side of marriage which caused him repeatedly to declare: “I would we were rid of the matrimonial business”;[657] “marriage and all its circumstances is a political affair” (both statements date from 1538);[658] “leave the matrimonial cases to the secular authorities, for they concern, not the conscience, but the external law of the Princes and magistrates” (1532).[659] Of the ecclesiastical powers of the sovereign he declared however (1539), “We must make the best of him as bishop, since no other bishop will help us.”[660] “But if things come to such a pass that the Courts try to rule as they please,” so he wrote at a time when this principle had already begun to bear its bitter fruit, “then the last state will be worse than the first ... in that case let the Lords themselves be our pastors and preachers, let them baptise, visit the sick, give communion and perform all the other offices of the Church! Otherwise let them stop confusing the two callings, attend to their own Courts and leave the Churches to the clergy.... It is Satan who in our day is seeking to introduce into the Church the counsels and the authority of the government officials; we shall, however, resist him and keep the two callings separate.”[661]