Owing to the theological opinions reached by some of his one-time friends Luther, as may well be understood, began to be oppressed by a feeling of lonesomeness. The devil, whom he at least suspected of being the cause of his bodily pains,[867] is now backing the Popish teachers, and making him to be slighted. But, by so doing, thanks to Luther’s perseverance and bold defiance, he will only succeed in magnifying Christ the more. “He hopes to get the better of us or to make us downhearted. But, as the Germans say, _cacabimus in os eius_. Willy-nilly, he shall suffer until his head is crushed, much as he may, with horrible gnashing of teeth, threaten to devour us. We preach the Seed of the woman; Him do we confess and to Him would we assign the first place, wherefore He is with us.”[868] In his painful loneliness he praises “the heavenly Father Who has hidden these things [Luther’s views on religion] from the wise and prudent and has revealed them to babes and little ones who cannot talk, let alone preach, and are neither clever nor learned.”[869] This he says in a sermon. The clever doctors, he adds, “want to make God their pupil; everyone is anxious to be His schoolmaster and tutor. And so it has ever been among the heretics.... In the Christian churches one bishop nags at the other, and each pastor snaps at his neighbour.... These are the real wiselings of whom Christ speaks who know a lot about horses’ bowels, but who do not keep to the road which God Himself has traced for us, but must always go their own little way.” Indeed it is the fate of “everything that God has instituted to be perverted by the devil,” by “saucy folk and clever people.” “The devil has indeed smeared us well over with fools. But they are accounted wise and prudent simply because they rule and hold office in the Churches.”[870] Let us leave them alone then and turn our backs on them, no matter how few we be, for “God will not bear in His Christian Churches men who twist His Divine Word, even though they be called Pope, Emperor, Kings, Princes or Doctors.... We ourselves have had much to do with such wiselings, who have taken it upon themselves to bring about unity or reform.”[871] “They fancy that because they are in power they have a deeper insight into Scripture than other people.”[872] “The devil drives such men so that they seek their own praise and glory in Holy Scripture.” But do you say: I will listen to a teacher “only so long as he leads me to the Son of God,” the true master and preceptor, i.e. in other words, so long as he teaches the truth.[873]