A History of the Reformation Volume I Part 21

The Augsburg Confession (_Confessio Augustana_) was what it claimed to be, a statement of "opinion and grievances," and does not pretend to be a full exposition of doctrinal tenets. The men who wrote it (Melanchthon was responsible for the phraseology) and presented it to the Diet, claimed to belong to the ancient and visible Catholic Church, and to believe in all the articles of faith set forth by the Universal Church, and particularly in the _Apostles'_ and _Nicene Creeds_; but they maintained that abuses had crept in which obscured the ancient doctrines. The Confession showed why they could not remain in connection with an unreformed Church. Their position is exactly defined in the opening sentence of the second part of the Confession. "Inasmuch as the Churches among us dissent in no articles of faith from the Holy Scriptures nor the Church Catholic, and only omit a few of certain abuses, which are novel, and have crept in with time partly and in part have been introduced by violence, and contrary to the purport of the canons, we beg that your Imperial Majesty would clemently hear both what ought to be changed, and what are the reasons why people ought not to be forced against their conscience to observe these abuses."

The Confession is often represented as an attempt to minimise the differences between Lutherans and Romanists and exaggerate those between Lutherans and Zwinglians, and there are some grounds for the statement.

Melanchthon had come back from the Diet of Speyer (1529) convinced that if the Lutherans had separated themselves more thoroughly from the cities of South Germany there would have been more chance of a working compromise, and it is only natural to expect that the idea should colour his sketch of the Lutheran position at Augsburg. Yet in the main the a.s.sertion is wrong.

The distinctively Protestant conception of the spiritual priesthood of all believers inspires the whole doc.u.ment; and this can never be brought into real harmony with the Romanist position and claims. It is not difficult to state Romanist and Protestant doctrine in almost identical phrases, provided this one great dogmatic difference be for the moment set on one side. The conferences at Regensburg in 1541 (April 27-May 22) proved as much. No one will believe that Calvin would be inclined to minimise the differences between Protestants and Romanists, yet he voluntarily signed the Augsburg Confession, and did so, he says, in the sense in which the author (Melanchthon) understood it. This Augsburg Confession and Luther's Short Catechism are the symbolical books still in use in all Lutheran churches.

The _Augsburg Confession_ (_Confessio Augustana_) is divided into two parts, the first expressing the views held by those who signed it, and the second stating the errors they protested against. The form and language alike show that the authors had no intention of framing an exhaustive syllabus of theological opinions or of imposing its articles as a changeless system of dogmatic truth. They simply meant to express what they united in believing. Such phrases as _our Churches teach_, _it is taught_, _such and such opinions are falsely attributed to us_, make that plain. In the first part the authors show how much they hold in common with the mediaeval Church; how they abide by the teaching of St. Augustine, the great theologian of the West; how they differ from more radical Protestants like the Zwinglians, and repudiate the teachings of the Anabaptists. The Lutheran doctrine of Justification by Faith is given very clearly and briefly in a section by itself, but it is continually referred to and shown to be the basis of many portions of their common system of belief. In the second part they state what things compel them to dissent from the views and practices of the mediaeval Church-the enforced celibacy of the clergy, the sacrificial character of the Ma.s.s, the necessity of auricular confession, monastic vows, and the confusion of spiritual and secular authority exhibited in the German episcopate.

The origin of the doc.u.ment was this. When the Emperor's proclamation summoning the Diet reached Saxony, Chancellor Gregory Bruck suggested that the Saxon theologians should prepare a statement of their opinions which might be presented to the Emperor if called for.(343) This was done. The theologians went to the Schwabach Articles, and Melanchthon revised them, restated them, and made them as inoffensive as he could. The doc.u.ment was meant to give the minimum for which the Protestants contended, and Melanchthon's conciliatory spirit shows itself throughout. It embalms at the same time some of Luther's trenchant phrases: "Christian perfection is this, to fear G.o.d sincerely; and again, to conceive great faith, and to trust a.s.suredly that G.o.d is pacified towards us for Christ's sake; to ask, and certainly to look for, help from G.o.d in all our affairs according to our calling; and outwardly to do good works diligently, and to attend to our vocation. In these things doth true perfection and the true wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d consist: it doth not consist in being unmarried, in going about begging, nor in wearing dirty clothes." His indifference to forms of Church government and his readiness to conserve the old appears in the sentence: "Now our meaning is not to have rule taken from the bishops; but this one thing only is requested at their hands, that they would suffer the gospel to be purely taught, and that they would relax a few observances, which cannot be observed without sin."

When the Romanist theologians presented their Confutation of this Confession to the Emperor, it was again left to Melanchthon to draft an answer-the _Apology of the Augsburg Confession_. The _Apology_ is about seven times longer than the _Confession_, and is a n.o.ble and learned doc.u.ment. The Emperor refused to receive it, and Melanchthon spent a long time over it before it was allowed to be seen.

After taking counsel with the Romanist princes (_die Chur und Fursten so bepstisch gewesen_),(344) it was resolved to hand the Confession to a committee of Romanist theologians whom the cardinal nuncio(345) undertook to bring together, to examine and answer it. Among them were John Eck of Ingolstadt, Faber, and Cochlaeus. There was little hope of arriving at a compromise with such champions on the papal side; and Charles was soon to discover that his strongest opponents in effecting a peaceful solution were the nuncio and his committee of theologians. Five times they produced a confutation, and five times the Emperor and the Diet returned their work, asking them to redraft it in milder and in less uncompromising terms.(346) The sixth draft went far beyond the wishes of Charles, but the Emperor had to accept it and let it appear as the statement of his beliefs. It made reconciliation hopeless.

-- 8. The Reformation to be crushed.

The religious difficulty had not been removed by compromise. There remained force-the other alternative foreshadowed by the Emperor. The time seemed to be opportune. Protestantism was divided, and had flaunted its differences in the Emperor's presence. Philip of Hesse had signed the Augsburg Confession with hesitation, not because he did not believe its statements, but because it seemed to shut the door on a complete union among all the parties who had joined in the Protest of 1529. The four cities of Stra.s.sburg, Constance, Lindau, and Memmingen had submitted a separate Confession (the _Confessio Tetrapolitana_) to the Emperor; and the Romanist theologians had written a confutation of it also. Zwingli had sent a third.

Luther was not among the theologians present at the Diet of Augsburg.

Technically he was still an outlaw, for the ban of the Diet of Worms had never been legally removed. The Elector had asked him to stay at his Castle of Coburg. There he remained, worried and anxious, chafing like a caged eagle. He feared that Melanchthon's conciliatory spirit might make him barter away some indispensable parts of evangelical truth; he feared the impetuosity of the Landgrave of Hesse and his known Zwinglian sympathies. His secretary wrote to Wittenberg that he was fretting himself ill; he was longing to get back to Wittenberg, where he could at least teach his students. It was then that Catharine got their friend Lucas Cranach to paint their little daughter Magdalena, just twelve months old, and sent it to her husband that he might have a small bit of home to cheer him. Luther hung the picture up where he could always see it from his chair, and he tells us that the sweet little face looking down upon him gave him courage during his dreary months of waiting. Posts brought him news from the Diet: that the Confession had been read to the Estates; that the Romanists were preparing a Confutation; that their reply was ready on August 3rd; that Philip of Hesse had left the Diet abruptly on the 6th, to raise troops to fight the Emperor, it was reported; that Melanchthon was being entangled in conferences, and was giving up everything. His strong ardent nature pours itself forth in his letters from Coburg (April 18th-Oct. 4th)-urging his friends to tell him how matters are going; warning Melanchthon to stand firm; taking comfort in the text, "Be ye angry, and sin not"; comparing the Diet to the rooks and the rookery in the trees below his window.(347) It was from Coburg that he wrote his charming letter to his small son.(348) It was there that he penned the letter of encouragement to the tried and loyal Chancellor Bruck:

"I have lately seen two wonders: the first as I was looking out of my window and saw the stars in heaven and all that beautiful vault of G.o.d, and yet I saw no pillars on which the Master-Builder had fixed this vault; yet the heavens fell not, and the great vault stood fast. Now there are some who search for the pillars, and want to touch and to grasp them; and when they cannot, they wonder and tremble as if the heaven must certainly fall, just because they cannot grasp its pillars. If they could only lay their hands on them, they think that the heaven would stand firm!

"The second wonder was: I saw great clouds rolling over us with such a ponderous weight that they seemed like a great ocean, and yet I saw no foundation on which they rested or were based, and no sh.o.r.e which bounded them; yet they fell not, but frowned on us and flowed on. But when they had pa.s.sed by, then there shone forth both their floor and our roof, which had kept them back-a rainbow!

A frail, thin floor and roof which soon melted into the clouds, and was more like a shadowy prism, such as we see through coloured gla.s.s, than a strong, firm foundation, and we might well distrust the feeble rampart which kept back that fearful weight of waters.

Yet we found that this unsubstantial prism was able to bear up the weight of waters, and that it guarded us safely! But there are some who look more to the thickness and ma.s.sive weight of the waters and the clouds than at this thin, light, narrow bow of promise. They would like to feel the strength of that shadowy vanis.h.i.+ng arch, and because they cannot do this, they are always fearing that the clouds will bring back the flood."(349)

The Protestants never seemed to be in a worse plight; but, as Luther wrote, the threatened troubles pa.s.sed away-for this time at least.

Campeggio was keen to crush the Reformation at once. His letters to the Curia insist that the policy of the strong arm is the only effectual way of dealing with the Lutheran princes. But Charles found that some of the South German princes who were eager that no compromise should be made with the Lutherans, were very unwilling to coerce them by force of arms. They had no wish to see the Emperor all-powerful in Germany. The Romanist Dukes of Bavaria (the Wittelsbachs) were as strongly anti-Hapsburg as Philip of Hesse himself; and Charles had no desire to stir the anti-Hapsburg feeling. Instead, conferences(350) were proposed to see whether some mutual understanding might not after all be reached; and the Diet was careful to introduce laymen, in the hope that they would be less uncompromising than the Romanist theologians. The meetings ended without any definite result. The Protestant princes refused to make the needful concessions, and Charles found his plans thwarted on every side. Whereupon the Romanist majority of the Diet framed a "recess," which declared that the Protestants were to be allowed to exist unmolested until April 15th, 1531; and were then to be put down by force. Meanwhile they were ordered to make no more innovations in wors.h.i.+p or in doctrine; they were to refrain from molesting the Romanists within their territories; and they were to aid the Emperor and the Romanist princes in stamping out the partisans of Zwingli and the Anabaptists. This resolution gave rise to a second Protest, signed by the Lutheran princes and by the fourteen cities.

Nothing had stirred the wrath of Charles so much as the determined stand taken by the cities. He conceived that he, the Emperor, was the supreme Lord within an imperial city; and he employed persuasion and threats to make their delegates accept the "recess." Even Augsburg refused.

Having made their Protest, the Lutheran princes and the delegates from the protesting towns left the Diet, careless of what the Romanist majority might further do. In their absence an important ordinance was pa.s.sed. The Diet decided that the Edict of Worms was to be executed; that the ecclesiastical jurisdictions were to be preserved, and all Church property to be restored; and, what was most important, that the Imperial Court of Appeals for all disputed legal cases within the Empire (the _Reichskammersgericht_) should be restored. The last provision indicated a new way of fighting the extending Protestantism by hara.s.sing legal prosecutions, which, from the nature of the court, were always to be decided against the dissenters from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the mediaeval Empire.(351) All instances of seizure of ecclesiastical benefices, all defiances of episcopal decisions, could be appealed against to this central court; and as the legal principles on which it gave its decisions and the controlling authorities which it recognised were mediaeval, the Protestants could never hope for a decision in their favour.

The Lutheran Church in Saxony, for example, with its pastors and schoolmasters, was supported by moneys taken from the old ecclesiastical foundations. According to this decision of the Diet, every case of such transfer of property could be appealed to this central court, which from its const.i.tution was bound to decide against the transfer. If the Protestant princes disregarded the decisions of the central court, the Emperor was within his rights in treating them as men who had outraged the const.i.tution of the Empire.(352)

Charles met at Augsburg the first great check in his. .h.i.therto successful career, but he was tenacious of purpose, and never cared to hurry matters to an irrevocable conclusion. He carefully studied the problem, and three ways of dealing with the religious difficulty shaped themselves in his mind at Augsburg-by compromise, by letting the Protestants alone for a period longer or shorter, and by a General Council which would be free. It would seem that at Augsburg he first seriously resolved that the condition of Europe was such that the Pope must be _compelled_ to summon a Council, and to allow it freedom of debate and action. Charles tried all three plans in Germany during the fifteen years that followed.

-- 9. The Schmalkald League.(353)

The Emperor published the decision of the Diet on the 19th of November, and the Protestants had to arrange some common plan of facing the situation. They met, princes and delegates of cities, in the little upland town of Schmalkalden, lying on the south-west frontier of Electoral Saxony, circled by low hills which were white with snow (December 22-31).

They had to face at once hara.s.sing litigation, and, after the 15th of April, the threat that they would be stamped out by force of arms. Were they still to maintain their doctrine of pa.s.sive resistance? The question was earnestly debated. Think of these earnest German princes and burghers, their lives and property at stake, debating this abstract question day after day, resolute to set their own consciences right before coming to any resolution to defend themselves! The lawyers were all on the side of active defence. The terms of the bond were drafted. The Emperor's name was carefully omitted; and the causes which compelled them to take action were rather alluded to vaguely than stated with precision. The Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Luneburg, the Prince of Anhalt, the two Counts of Mansfeld, and the delegates from Magdeburg and Bremen signed. Pious old George of Brandenburg was not convinced that it was lawful to resist the Emperor; the deputies of Nurnberg had grave doubts also. Many others who were present felt that they must have time to make up their minds. But the league was started, and was soon to a.s.sume huge proportions.

The confederates had confessed the new doctrines, and had published their Confession. They now resolved that they would defend themselves if attacked by litigation or otherwise. There was no attempt to exclude the South German cities; and Charles' expectations that theological differences would prevent Protestant union within Germany were frustrated.

Zwingli's heroic death at Cappel (October 11th, 1531) softened all Protestant hearts towards his followers. The South German cities followed the lead of Bucer, who was anxious for union. Many of these towns now joined the Schmalkald League. Brunswick joined. Hamburg and Rostock in the far north, Goslar and Gottingen in the centre, joined. Almost all North Germany and the more important imperial towns in the South were united in one strong confederacy by this Schmalkald League. It became one of the European Powers. Denmark wished to join. Thomas Cromwell was anxious that England should join. The league was necessarily anti-Hapsburg, and the Emperor had to reckon with it.

Its power appeared at the Diet of Nurnberg in 1532. The dreaded day (April 15th, 1531) on which the Protestants were to be reduced by fire and sword pa.s.sed quietly by. Charles was surrounded with difficulties which made it impossible for him to carry out the threats he had published on November 19th, 1530. The Turks were menacing Vienna and the Duchy of Austria; the Pope was ready to take advantage of any signs of imperial weakness; France was irreconcilable; England was hostile; and the Bavarian dukes were doing what they could to lessen the Hapsburg power in Germany.

When the Diet met at Nurnberg in 1532, the Emperor knew that he was unable to coerce the Lutherans, and returned to his earlier courteous way of treating them. They were more patriotic than the German Romanists for whom he had done so much. Luther declared roundly that the Turks must be met and driven back, and that all Germans must support the Emperor in repelling the invasion. At the Diet a "recess" was proposed, in which the religious truce was indefinitely extended; the processes against the Protestants in the _Reichskammersgericht_ were to be quashed, and no State was to be proceeded against in matters arising out of religious differences. The Romanist members refused to accept it; the "recess" was never published. But the Protestant States declared that they would trust in the imperial word of honour, and furnished the Emperor with troops for the defence of Vienna, and the invasion was repelled.

The history of the struggle in Germany between the Diet of 1532 and the outbreak of war in 1546 is very intricate, and cannot be told as a simple contest between Reformation and anti-Reformation.

In the sixteenth century, almost all thoughtful and earnest-minded men desired a Reformation of the Church. The Roman Curia was the only opponent to all reforms of any kind. But two different ideas of what Reformation ought to be, divided the men who longed for reforms. The one desired to see the benumbed and formalist mediaeval Church filled with a new religious life, while it retained its notable characteristics of a sacerdotal ministry and a visible external unity under a uniform hierarchy culminating in the Papacy. The other wished to free the human spirit from the fetters of a merely ecclesiastical authority, and to rebuild the Church on the principle of the spiritual priesthood of all believing men and women. In the struggle in Germany the Emperor Charles may be taken as the embodiment of the first, as Luther represented the second. To the one it seemed essential to maintain the external unity and authority of the Church according to the mediaeval ideal; the other could content himself with seeing the Church of the Middle Ages broken up into territorial Churches, each of which he contended was a portion of the one visible Catholic Church. Charles had no difficulty in accepting many changes in doctrine and usages, provided a genuine and lasting compromise could be arrived at which would retain all within the one ecclesiastical organisation. He consented once and again to suspend the struggle; but he would never have made himself responsible for a permanent religious settlement which recognised the Lutheran Churches. He had no objection to a truce, but would never accept a lasting peace. If the Lutherans could not be brought back within the mediaeval Church by compromise, then he was prepared to go to all extremes to compel them to return. Of course, he was the ruler over many lands; he was keen to extend and consolidate the family possessions of his House,-as keen as the most grasping of the petty territorial princes,-and he had to be an opportunist. But he never deviated in the main from his idea of how the religious difficulty should be solved.

But all manner of political and personal motives were at work on both sides in Germany (as elsewhere). Philip of Hesse combined a strenuous acceptance of the principles of the Lutheran Reformation with as thorough a hatred of the House of Hapsburg and of its supremacy in Germany. The Dukes of Bavaria, who were the strongest partisans of the Romanist Church in Germany, were the hereditary enemies of the House of Austria. The religious pacification of the Fatherland was made impossible to Charles, not merely by his insistence on maintaining the conceptions of the mediaeval Church, but also by open and secret reluctance to see the imperial authority increased, and by jealousies aroused by the territorial aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of the House of Hapsburg. The incompatibility between the aims of the Emperor and those of his indispensable ally, the Pope, added to the difficulties of the situation.

In 1534, Philip of Hesse persuaded the Schmalkald League to espouse the cause of the banished Duke of Wurtemberg. His territories had been incorporated into the family possessions of the Hapsburgs, and the people groaned under the imperial administration. The Swabian League, which had been the mainstay of the Imperialist and Romanist cause in South Germany, was persuaded to remain neutral by the Dukes of Bavaria, and Philip had little difficulty in defeating Ferdinand, and driving the Imperialists out of the Duchy. Ulrich was restored, declared in favour of the Lutheran Reformation, and Wurtemberg was added to the list of Protestant States. By the terms of the Peace of Cadan (June 1534), Ferdinand publicly engaged to carry out Charles' private a.s.surance that no Protestant was to be dragged before the _Reichskammersgericht_ for anything connected with religion.(354) Another important consequence followed. The Swabian League was dissolved in 1536. This left the Schmalkald League of Protestant States and cities the only formidable confederation in Germany.

The political union among the Protestants suggested a closer approximation. The South German pastors asked to meet Luther and discuss their theological differences. They met at Wittenberg, and after prolonged discussion it was found that all were agreed save on one small point-the presence, _extended in s.p.a.ce_, of the Body of Christ in the elements in the Holy Supper. It was agreed that this might be left an open question; and what was called the _Wittenberg Concord_ was signed, which united all German Protestants (May and June 1536).(355)

Three years later (1539), Duke George of Saxony died, the most honest and disinterested of the Romanist princes. His brother Henry, who succeeded him, with the joyful consent of his subjects, p.r.o.nounced for the Evangelical faith. Nothing would content him but that Luther should come to Leipzig to preside clerically on so auspicious an occasion. Luther preached in the great hall of the Castle, where twenty years earlier he had confronted Eck, and had heard Duke George declare that his opinions were pestilential.

In the same year the new Elector of Brandenburg also came over to the Evangelical side amid the rejoicings of his people; and the two great Romanist States of North Germany, Electoral Brandenburg and Ducal Saxony, became Protestant.

The tide flowed so strongly that the three clerical Electors, the Archbishops of Mainz, Koln, and Trier, and some of the bishops, contemplated secularising their princ.i.p.alities, and becoming Protestants.

This alarmed Charles thoroughly. If the proposed secularisation took place, there would be a large Protestant majority in the Electoral College, and the next Emperor would be a Protestant.

Charles had been anxiously watching the gradual decadence of the power of the Romanist princes in Germany; and reports convinced him that the advance of the Reformation among the people was still more marked. The Roman Catholic Church seemed to be in the agonies of dissolution even in places where it had hitherto been strong. Breslau, once strongly Romanist, was now almost fanatically Lutheran; in Vienna, Bishop Faber wrote, the population was entirely Lutheran, save himself and the Archduke. The Romanist Universities were almost devoid of students. In Bavaria, it was said that there were more monasteries than monks. Candidates for the priesthood had diminished in a very startling way: the nuncio Vergerio reported that he could find none in Bohemia except a few paupers who could not pay their ordination fees.

The policy of the Pope (Paul III., 1534-1549) had disgusted the German Romanist princes. He subordinated the welfare of the Church in their dominions to his anti-Hapsburg Italian schemes, and had actually allied himself with Francis of France, who was intriguing with the Turks, in order to thwart the Emperor! The action and speeches of Henry VIII. had been watched and studied by the German Romanist leaders. Could they not imitate him in Germany, and create a Nationalist Church true to mediaeval doctrine, hierarchy, and ritual, and yet independent of the Pope, who cared so little for them?

All these things made Charles and Ferdinand revise their policy. The Emperor began to consider seriously whether the way out of the religious difficulty might not be, either to grant a prolonged truce to the Lutherans (which might, though he hoped not, become permanent), or to work energetically for the creation of a German National Church, which, by means of some working compromise in doctrines and ceremonies, might be called into existence by a German National Council a.s.sembled in defiance of the Pope.

It was with these thoughts in his mind that he sent his Chancellor Held into Germany to strengthen the Romanist cause there. His agent soon abandoned the larger ideas of his master, if he ever comprehended them, and contented himself with announcing publicly that the private promise given by Charles at Nurnberg, and confirmed by Ferdinand at the Peace of Cadan, was withdrawn. The lawsuits brought against the Protestants in the _Reichskammersgericht_ were not to be quashed, but were to be prosecuted to the bitter end. He also contrived at Nurnberg (June 1538) to form a league of Romanist princes, ostensibly for defence, but really to force the Protestants to submit to the decisions of the _Reichskammersgericht_.

These measures did not make for peace; they almost produced a civil war, which was only avoided by the direct interposition of the Emperor.

Chancellor Held was recalled, and the Emperor sent the Archbishop of Lund to find out what terms the Protestants would accept. These proved larger than the Emperor could grant, but the result of the intercourse was that the Protestants were granted a truce which was to last for ten years.

The proposed secularisation of the ecclesiastical Electorates made Charles see that he dared not wait for the conclusion of this truce. He set himself earnestly to discover whether compromises in doctrine and ceremonies were not possible. Conferences were held between Lutheran and Romanist theologians and laymen, at Hagenau (June 1540), at Worms (November 1540), and at Regensburg (Ratisbon, April 1541).(356) The last was the most important. The discussions showed that it was possible to state Romanist and Lutheran doctrine in ambiguous propositions which could be accepted by the theologians of both Confessions; but that there was a great gulf between them which the Evangelicals would never re-cross. The spiritual priesthood of all believers could never be reconciled with the special priesthood of the mediaeval clergy. This was Charles' last attempt at a compromise which would unite of their own free will the German Lutherans with the German Romanists. He saw that the Lutherans would never return to the mediaeval Church unless compelled by force, and it was impossible to use force unless the Schmalkald League was broken up altogether or seamed with divisions.

-- 10. The Bigamy of Philip of Hesse.(357)

The opportunity arrived. The triumphant Protestantism received its severest blow in the bigamy of Philip of Hesse, which involved the reputations of Bucer, Luther, and Melanchthon, as well as of the Landgrave.

Philip had married when barely nineteen a daughter of Duke George of Saxony. Latterly, he declared that it was impossible to maintain conjugal relations with her; that continence was impossible for him; that the condition in which he found himself hara.s.sed his whole life, and prevented him coming to the Lord's Table. In a case like his, Pope Clement VII. only a few years previously had permitted the husband to take a second wife, and why should not the Protestant divines permit him? He prepared a case for himself which he submitted to the theologians, and got a reply signed by Bucer, Melanchthon, and Luther, which may be thus summarised:-

According to the original commandment of G.o.d, marriage is between one man and one woman, and the twain shall become one flesh, and this original precept has been confirmed by our Lord; but sin brought it about that first Lamech, then the heathen, and then Abraham, took more than one wife, and this was permitted by the law. We are now living under the gospel, which does not give prescribed rules for the regulation of the external life, and it has not expressly prohibited bigamy. The existing law of the land has gone back to the original requirement of G.o.d, and the plain duty of the pastorate is to insist on that original requirement of G.o.d, and to denounce bigamy in every way. Nevertheless the pastorate, in individual cases of the direst need, and to prevent worse, may sanction bigamy in a purely exceptional way; such a bigamous marriage is a true marriage (the necessity being proved) in the sight of G.o.d and of conscience; but it is not a true marriage with reference to public law or custom. Therefore such a marriage ought to be kept secret, and the dispensation which is given for it ought to be kept under the seal of confession. If it be made known, the dispensation becomes _eo ipso_ invalid, and the marriage becomes mere concubinage.