ntrol,
without consent.

Luther, though free from the lasciviousness of the old priesthood, was
not monogamic in principle. When applied to by the German Elector,
Philip,[206] Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, for permission to marry a
second wife, while his first, Margaret of Savoy, was still living,
Luther called a synod of six of the principal reformers, who in joint
consultation decided that as the Bible nowhere condemned polygamy, and
as it had been invariably practiced by the highest dignitaries of the
Church, the required permission should be granted. History does not
tell us that the wife was consulted in the matter. She was held as in
general subordination to the powers that be, as well as in special
subordination to her husband; but more degrading than all else is the
fact that the doctrine of unchastity for man was brought into the
Reformation, as not inconsistent with the principles of the
Gospel.[207]

Many Protestant divines have written in favor of polygamy. John Lyser,
a Lutheran minister, living in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, defended it strongly in a work entitled "Polygamia
Triumphatrix." A former general of the Capuchin Order, converted to
the Protestant faith, published, in the sixteenth century, a book of
"Dialogues in Favor of Polygamy." Rev. Mr. Madan, a Protestant divine,
in a treatise called "Thalypthora," maintained that Paul's injunctions
that bishops should be the husbands of one wife, signified that laymen
were permitted to marry more than one. The scholarly William Ellery
Channing could find no prohibition of polygamy in the New Testament.
In his "Remarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton," he
says: "We believe it to be an indisputable fact, that although
Christianity was first preached in Asia, which had been from the
earliest days the seat of polygamy, the apostles never denounced it as
a crime, and never required their converts to put away all wives but
one. No express prohibition of polygamy is found in the New
Testament." The legitimate result of such views is seen in Mormonism,
the latest Protestant sect, which claims its authority from the Bible
as well as from the Book of Mormon. We give the remarks recently made
in defence of polygamy by Bishop Lunt of the Mormon Church, to a
reporter of _The San Francisco Chronicle_:

God revealed to Joseph Smith the polygamous system. It is quite
true that his widow declared that no such revelation was ever