tion 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.'
"Such was the strange and scandalous document to which Luther, Melancthon and Bucer appended their names.
"Of course the thing could not be kept secret, and the moral effect of the revelation was disastrous among friends and foes."[1]
Professor Lindsay has convinced himself, by a careful study of all the evidence, that in this deplorable proceeding Luther was not actuated by any unworthy motive, but led astray by his inherited theory of the dispensing power of the Church." He thought honestly that the Church did possess this power of dispensation even to the length of tampering with a fundamental law of Christian society, provided it did not contradict a positive scriptural commandment to the contrary. The crime of the Curia, in his eyes, was not issuing dispensations in necessary cases, but in giving them in cases without proved necessity, and for money."
- ↑ See "History of the Reformation," vol. i. p. 380.
