Stephen Nichols, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World:
Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God.…Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place [Rom. 1:17] most ardently to know what St. Paul wanted.
At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.'” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive righteousness with which the merciful God justifies by faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.…And I extolled my sweetest words with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the words “righteousness of God.” Thus that place in Paul was for me the very gate to paradise.
Words of Grace 