"Reverend father, will you die steadfast in Christ and the doctrines you have preached?" "Yes," replied the clear voice for the last time. On February 18, 1546, even as he lay dying in Eisleben, far from home, Martin Luther was not to be spared a final public test, not to be granted privacy even in this last, most personal hour. His longtime confidant Justus Jonas, now pastor in Halle, having hurriedly summoned witnesses to the beside, shook the dying man by the arm to rouse his spirit for the final exertion. Luther had always prayed for a "peaceful hour": resisting Satan - the ultimate, bitterest enemy - through that trust in the Lord over life and death which is God's gift of liberation from the tyranny of sin. It transforms agony into no more that a brief blow.
-Heiko A. Oberman, from the Prologue to Luther: Man Between God and The Devil
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