Luther also refers both to Tauler and to himself elsewhere in the “Operationes,” where he speaks of the fears of conscience regarding the judgment of God which no one can understand who had not himself experienced them; Job, David, King Ezechias and a few others had endured them; “and finally that German theologian, Johannes Tauler, often alludes to such a state of soul in his sermons.”[368] Tauler, however, when speaking of such afflictions, is thinking of those souls who seek God and are indeed united to Him in love, but who are tried and purified by the withdrawal of sensible grace, and by being made to feel a sense of separation from Him and the burden of their nature. In his church-postils he again summons Tauler to his aid in order to depict the fears with which he was so familiar, seeking consolation, as it were, both for himself and for others. In his sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Advent (1522) he speaks of “those exalted temptations concerning death and hell, of which Tauler wrote.” Evidently speaking from experience he says: “This temptation destroys flesh and blood, nay, penetrates into the marrow of the bones and is death itself, so that no one can endure it unless marvellously borne up. Some of the patriarchs tasted this, for instance, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Moses, but, towards the end of the world, it will become more common.” Finally, he assures his hearers, that, there were such as were “still daily tried” in this way, “of which but few people are aware; these are men who are in the agony of death, and who grapple with death”; still Christ holds out the hope that they are not destined to death and to hell; on the other hand, it is certain that the “world, which fears nothing, will have to endure, first death, and, after that, hell.”[369] _Other Ordeals_