so strictly, but if the prince be not of the pope's persuasion, or be by him judged a tyrant, his subjects shall owe him no obedience."[1]
There was unquestionably large justification for such language, yet we cannot but perceive that it fails to do substantial justice to the system it so severely condemns. The ambition and greed of the popes were no doubt factors in the development of the dispensation system which the reformers repudiated, but they were not the dominant factors. Allowance must be made for the standing problem of ecclesiastical administration, viz.: how to reconcile a divine, and therefore an unyielding, law to the infinite and bewildering eccentricities of human action. Very soon Luther had to realise in a very humiliating and unfortunate experience the difficulties of that problem. The story of Luther's condemnation of bigamy in a special case is thus given by Professor Lindsay in his admirable history of the Reformation:
- ↑ See "A Dissuasive from Popery," Works, ed. Heber vol. x. p. 252.
