In a sermon on Jan. 22 of the same year he had quoted a saying current at that time about Rome, applying it to Wittenberg: “The nearer to Rome, the worse the Christians.” “For wherever the Evangel is, there it is despised.” “The Lord Himself says in to-day’s Gospel: ‘I have not found such faith as this in Israel.’ The chosen people do not believe, though some few do.… In other regions Christ may find adherents with a stronger faith than any in our principalities.” “At Court and elsewhere things go ill.… We tread the pearls under foot.” “So great is their shamelessness, ingratitude and hate that it is a sign that God is getting ready to show us something; the persecution of the Evangel in our principality is worse than ever. I am already sick of preaching (‘_iam tædet me prædicatio_’).” “Those who refuse the offered kingdom may go to the devil, etc.”[218] The faults of the government and the increase in the prices of necessaries drew from him bitter words in a sermon of April 23 of the same year: “There is no government, the biggest criminals (‘_pessimi nebulones_’) rule; this we have deserved by our sins.” “When things become cheaper then war and pestilence will come upon us.”[219] Thus the ill will gathering within him was poured forth, as occasion offered, on the various classes indiscriminately. It seemed to him as though little by little the whole world was becoming a hostel of which the devil was the landlord and where wickedness and lust reigned supreme—above all because it was so slow to receive his preaching.[220] Even the supreme Court of Justice of the Empire became in 1541 a “devil’s whore,”[221] because the judges and imperial authorities were against him and stood for the old order of things. It was also at this time that his pent-up anger broke out against the Jews.[222] Here it will be sufficient to give a few new quotations.