Not merely in the case of his life-work in general, but even in individual matters of importance, the inward struggles and “agonies” through which he had passed were signs by which to recognise that he was in the right. Thus, for instance, referring to his hostile action in Agricola’s case, Luther says: “Oh, how many pangs and agonies did I endure about this business. I almost died of anxiety before I brought these propositions out into the light of day.”[256] Hence it was plain, he argued, how far he was from the palpable arrogance displayed by his Antinomian foe, and how evidently his present conduct was willed by God. _The Help of Conscience at Critical Junctures_ It was the part played by subjectivism in Luther’s ethics that led him in certain circumstances to extend suspiciously the rights of “conscience.” In the matter of the bigamy of Philip of Hesse he soothed the Elector of Saxony by telling him he must ignore the general outcry, since the Landgrave had acted “from his need of conscience”; in his “conscience” the Prince regarded his “wedded concubine” as “no mere prostitute.” “By God’s Grace I am well able to distinguish between what by way of grace and before God may be permitted in the case of a troubled conscience and what, apart from such need of conscience, is not right before God in outward matters.”[257] In his extreme embarrassment, consequent on this matrimonial tangle, Luther deemed it necessary to make so hair-splitting a distinction between lawfulness and permissibility when need of conscience required it. The explanation—that, in such cases, something must be conceded “before God and by way of grace”—which he offers together with the Old-Testament texts as justifying the bigamy, must look like a fatal concession to laxity. He also appealed to conscience in another marriage question where he made the lawfulness of bigamy depend entirely on the conscience.