He is very bitter about the Landgrave’s purpose of making the marriage and the Wittenberg “advice” public, should need arise. The fate of the latter was, in fact, his chief anxiety. “In this the Landgrave touches us too nearly, but himself even more, that he is determined to do ‘_palam_’ what we arranged with him ‘_clam_,’ and to make of a ‘_nullum_’ an ‘_omne_’; this we are unable either to defend or to answer for, and we should certainly come to high words.” The last sentence was, however, felt by Luther to be too strong and he accordingly struck it out of the letter. He also says that the Landgrave’s appeal to his sermon on Genesis would be of no avail, because he (Luther) had taught, both previous to and after it, that the law of Moses was not to be introduced, though some of it “might be used secretly in cases of necessity, or even publicly by order of the authorities.” But advice extorted from him in Confession by the distress of a suffering conscience could “not be held to constitute a true precedent in law.” He here touches upon a thought to which he was to return in entirely different circumstances: Neither the preachers, nor the Gospel, lay down outward laws, not even concerning religion; the secular authorities are the only legislators; ecclesiastical guidance comprises only advice, direction and the expounding of Scripture, and has to do only with the interior life, being without any jurisdiction, even spiritual; as public men, the pastors were appointed to preach, pray and give advice; to the individual they rendered service amidst the “secret needs of conscience.”[103] He thereby absolves himself from the consequence apparently involved in the step he had taken, viz. the introduction of polygamy as a “general right”; it does not follow that: “What you do from necessity, I have a right to do”; “necessity knows no law or precedent,” hence a man who is driven by hunger to steal bread, or who kills in self-defence is not punished, yet what thus holds in cases of necessity cannot be taken as a law or rule. On the other hand, Luther will not listen to the proposal then being made in Hesse, viz. that, in order to counteract the bad example, a special edict should be issued declaring polygamy unlawful as a general rule, but allowable in an exceptional case, on the strength “of secret advice given in Confession”; on the contrary, it would be far better simply to denounce polygamy as unlawful. Hence if the Landgrave, so Luther concludes, “will not forsake the sweetheart” on whom “he has so set his heart that she has become a need to him,” and if, moreover, he will “keep her out of the way,” then “we theologians and confessors shall vindicate it before God, as a case of necessity to be excused by the examples of Genesis. But defend it before the world and ‘_iure nunc regente_,’ that we cannot and shall not do. Short of this the Landgrave may count upon our best service.”