ost serene, high-born Elector, most gracious
Lord:--I am sorry to learn that Your Grace is importuned by the court of
Dresden about the Landgrave's business. Your Grace asks what answer to
give the men of Meissen. As the affair was one of the confessional, both
Melanchthon and I were unwilling to communicate it even to Your Grace,
for it is right to keep confessional matters secret, both the sin
confessed and the counsel given, and had the Landgrave not revealed the
matter and the confessional counsel, there would never have been all
this nauseating unpleasantness.--I still say that if the matter were
brought before me to-day, I should not be able to give counsel different
from what I did. Setting apart the fact that I know I am not as wise as
they think they are, I need conceal nothing, especially as it has
already been made known. The state of affairs is as follows: Martin
Bucer brought a letter and pointed out that, on account of certain
faults in the Landgrave's wife, the Landgrave was not able to keep
himself chaste, and that he had hitherto lived in a way which was not
good, but that he would like to be at one with the principal heads of
the Evangelic Church, and he declared solemnly before God and his
conscience that he could not in future avoid such vices unless he were
permitted to take another wife. We were deeply horrified at this tale
and the offense which must follow, and we begged his Grace not to do as
he proposed. But we were told again that he could not abandon his
project, and if he could not obtain what he wanted from us, he would
disregard us and turn to the Emperor and Pope. To prevent this we
humbly begged that if his Grace would not, or, as he averred before God
and his conscience, could not, do otherwise, yet that he could keep it a
secret. Though necessity compelled him, yet he could not defend his act
before the world and the imperial laws; this he promised to do, and we
accordingly agreed to help him before God and cover it up as much as
possible with such examples as that of Abraham. This all happened as
though in the confessional, and no one can accuse us of having acted as
we did willingly or voluntarily or with pleasure or joy. It was hard
enough for our hearts, but we could not prevent it, we thought to give
his conscience such counsel as we could.--I have indeed learned several
confessional secrets, both while I was still a papist and later, which,
if they were revealed, I should live to d