Satan is a great foe of marriage and the blessing of children. “This is why you find he has so many malicious tricks and ways of frightening women who are with child, and causes such misfortune, cunning, murder, etc.”[1086] “Satan bitterly hates matrimony,” he says in 1537,[1087] and, in 1540, “he has great power in matrimonial affairs, for unless God were to stand by us how could the children grow up?”[1088] In matrimonial disputes “the devil shows his finger”; the Pope gets along easily, “he simply dissolves all marriages”; but we, “on account of the contentions instigated by the devil,” must have “people who can give advice.”[1089] Not him alone but many others had the devil affrighted by the “noisy spirits.”[1090] These noisy spirits were, however, far more numerous before the coming of the Evangel. They were looked upon, quite wrongly, as the souls of the dead, and Masses and prayers were said and good works done to lay them to rest;[1091] but now “you know very well who causes this; you know it is the devil; he must not be exorcised[1092], we must despise him and waken our holy faith against him;[1093] we must be willing to abide the ‘spooks and spirits’ calmly and with faith if God permits them to ‘exercise their wantonness on us’ and ‘to affright us.’”[1094] Nevertheless, as he adds with much truth, “we must not be too ready to give credence to everyone, for many people are given to inventing such things.”[1095] At the present time the noisy spirits are not so noticeable; “among us they have thinned”;[1096] the chief reason is, that the devils now prefer the company of the heretics, anabaptists and fanatics;[1097] for Satan “enters into men, for instance into the heretics and fanatics, into Münzer and his ilk, also into the usurers and others”;[1098] “the fanatic spirits are greatly on the increase.”[1099] The false teachers prove by their devilish speech how greatly the devil, “clever and dangerous trickster that he is,” “can deceive the hearts and consciences of men and hold them captive in his craze.” “What is nothing but lies, idle error and gruesome darkness, that they take to be the pure, unvarnished truth!”[1100]