He was deluded into seeing in his own states just what he desired, viz. the proof of the truth of his own doctrine and exalted mission to proclaim it; he will not hear of this being a mere figment of his own brain. On the contrary, he is convinced that he, like the inspired Psalmist, has passed through every kind of the terrors which the latter so movingly describes. Like the Psalmist, he too must pray, “O Lord, chastise me not in thy wrath,” and like him, again, he is justified in complaining that his bones are broken and his soul troubled exceedingly (Ps. vi.). He even opines that those who have endured such things rank far above the martyrs; David, according to him, would much rather have perished by the sword than have “endured this murmuring of his soul against God which called forth God’s indignation.”[360] There is no doubt that Johann Lang might have been able to tell us much about these gloomy aberrations of Luther’s, for he had a large share in Luther’s development. It is worthy of note that it was to this bosom friend that Luther sent his edition of “Eyn Deutsch Theologia.”[361] “_Taulerus tuus_” (“Your Tauler”[362]) so he calls the German mystic when writing to his friend, and in a similar way, in a letter to Lang, he speaks of the new theology built entirely on grace and passive reliance as “our theology.” “Our theology and St. Augustine,” he says, “are progressing bravely at our University and gaining the upper hand, thanks to the working of God, whereas Aristotle is now taking a back seat.”[363] We must not be of those who, “like Erasmus, fail to give the first place to Christ and grace,” so he writes to Lang, knowing that here he would meet with a favourable response. The man who “knows and acknowledges nothing but grace alone” judges very differently from one “who attributes something to man’s free-will.”[364]