“They had both promulgated opinions in favor of polygamy, to the extent of vindicating to the spiritual minister a right of private dispensation, and to the temporal magistrate the right of establishing the practice if he chose by public law” (Ibid).
In accordance with these views, John of Leydon, a zealous Protestant, established polygamy at Munster, and murdered or drove from their homes all who dared to oppose the odious custom. Other Protestants followed his example.
On the 19th of December, 1539, at Wittenberg, Luther and Melanchthon drew up the famous “Consilium,” authorizing the landgrave, Philip of Hesse, to have a plurality of wives. This instrument bears the signatures of Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, Dionysius Melander, John Lening, Antony Corvinus, Adam Kraft, Justus Winther, and Balthasar Raida, nine of the leading Protestant divines of Germany.
It is a well-known fact that Luther advised Henry VIII. to adopt polygamy in his case, but by divorcing two wives, and murdering two more, the founder of the English church avoided it.
The advocacy of polygamy by the chief Reformers prevented Ferdinand I. from declaring for the Reformation. The German princes, too, generally opposed it; and this opposition, coupled with the fact that the most licentious sects espoused it, finally caused a reaction in favor of monogamy.
Protestants, it ill became you to point the finger of scorn at the Mormons of Utah. Yet with characteristic consistency you were demanding the suppression of polygamy in the territories, while at the same time you were endeavoring to have the whole country accept as infallible authority a book which sanctions the pernicious custom. Make the Bible the fundamental law of the land, as you demand, and polygamy will become, in theory at least, a national instead of a local institution.