CHAPTER XVIII_Luther, vol. 3 of 6

LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON

1. Melanchthon in the Service of Lutheranism, 1518-30

WHEN Melanchthon was called upon to represent Lutheranism officially at

the Diet of Augsburg, while the real head of the innovation remained in

the seclusion of the Coburg (vol. ii., p. 384), he had already been in

the closest spiritual relation with Luther for twelve years.

The talented young man who had given promise of the highest

achievements in the domain of humanism, and who had taken up his

residence at Wittenberg with the intention of devoting his academic

career more particularly to the Greek classics, soon fell under

Luther’s influence. Luther not only loved and admired him, but was, all

along, determined to exploit, in the interests of his new theology,

the rare gifts of a friend and colleague thirteen years his junior.

Melanchthon not only taught the classics, but, after a while, announced

a series of lectures on the Epistle to Titus. It was due to Luther that

he thus gave himself up more to divinity and eventually cultivated it

side by side with humanism. “With all his might” Luther “drove him to

study theology.”[1054] Melanchthon’s “_Loci communes_” or elements of

theology, a scholastically conceived work on the main doctrines of

Lutheranism, was one of the results of Luther’s efforts to profit by

the excellent gifts of the colleague—who he was convinced had been

sent him by Providence—in formulating his theology and in demolishing

the olden doctrine of the Church. The “_Loci_” proved to be a work of

fundamental importance for Luther’s cause.[1055]

The character of the “_Loci_,” at once methodic and positive,

indicated the lines on which Melanchthon as a theologian was afterwards

to proceed. He invented nothing, his aim being rather to clothe

Luther’s ideas in clear, comprehensive and scholastic language—so

far as this could be done. His carefully chosen wording, together

with his natural dislike for exaggeration or unnecessary harshness

of expression, helped him in many instances so to tone down what was

offensive in Luther’s doctrines and opinions as to render them, in

their humanistic dress, quite acceptable to many scholars. As a matter

of fact, however, all his polish and graceful rhetoric often merely

served to conceal the lack of ideas, or the contradictions. The great

name he had won for himself in the field of humanism by his numerous

publications, which vied with those of Reuchlin and Erasmus—his

friends called him “_praeceptor Germaniae_”—went to enhance the

importance of his theological works amongst those who either sided with

Luther or were wavering.

_Earlier Relations of Luther with Melanchthon._

As professor, Melanchthon had at the outset an audience of from five to

six hundred, and, later, his hearers numbered as many as 1500. He was

perfectly aware that this was due to the renown which the University

of Wittenberg had acquired through Luther, and the success of their

common enterprise bound him still more closely to the ecclesiastical

innovation. To the very end of his life he laboured in the interests

of Lutheranism in the lecture-hall, at religious disputations, by

his printed works, his memoranda, and his letters, by gaining new

friends and by acting as intermediary when dissension threatened.—In

his translation of the Bible Luther found a most willing and helpful

adviser in this expert linguist. It is worthy of note that he never

took the degree of Doctor of Divinity or showed the slightest desire

to be made equal to his colleagues in this respect. Unlike the rest of

his Wittenberg associates, he had not been an ecclesiastic previous to

leaving Catholicism, nor would he ever consent to undertake the task of

preacher in the Lutheran Church, or to receive Lutheran Orders, though

for some years he, on Sundays, was wont to expound in Latin the Gospels

to the students; these homilies resulted in his Postils. When Luther at

last, in 1520, persuaded him to marry the daughter of the Burgomaster

of Wittenberg, he thereby succeeded in chaining to the scene of his

own labours this valuable and industrious little man with all his vast

treasures of learning. At the end of the year Melanchthon, under the

pseudonym of Didymus Faventinus, composed his first defence of Luther,

in which he, the Humanist, entirely vindicated against Aristotle and

the Universities his attacks upon the rights of natural reason.[1056]

As early as December 14, 1518, Luther, under the charm of his

friend’s talents, had spoken of him in a letter to Johann Reuchlin as

a “wonderful man in whom almost everything is supernatural.”[1057]

On September 17, 1523, he said to his friend Theobald Billicanus of

Nördlingen: “I value Philip as I do myself, not to speak of the fact

that he shames, nay, excels me by his learning and the integrity of his

life (‘_eruditione et integritate vitae_’).”[1058] Five years later

Luther penned the following testimony in his favour in the Preface

at the commencement of Melanchthon’s Exposition of the Epistle to

the Colossians (1528-29): “He proceeds [in his writings] quietly and

politely, digs and plants, sows and waters, according to the gifts

which God has given him in rich measure”; he himself, on the other

hand, was “very stormy and pugnacious” in his works, but he was “the

rough hewer, who has to cut out the track and prepare the way.”[1059]

In the Preface to the edition of his own Latin works in 1545 he praises

Melanchthon’s “_Loci_” and classes them amongst the “methodic books” of

which every theologian and bishop would do well to make use; “how much

the Lord has effected by means of this instrument which He has sent me,

not merely in worldly learning but also in theology, is demonstrated by

his works.”[1060]

The extravagant praise accorded by Luther to his fellow-worker was

returned by the other in equal measure. When deprived of Luther’s

company during the latter’s involuntary stay at the Wartburg, he wrote

as follows to a friend: “The torch of Israel was lighted by him, and

should it be extinguished what hope would remain to us?... Ah, could I

but purchase by my death the life of him who is at this time the most

divine being upon earth!”[1061] A little later he says in the same

style: “Our Elias has left us; we wait and hope in him. My longing for

him torments me daily.”[1062] Luther was not unwilling to figure as

Elias and wrote to his friend that he (Melanchthon) excelled him in the

Evangel, and should he himself perish, would succeed him as an Eliseus

with twice the spirit of Elias.

We cannot explain these strange mutual encomiums merely by the love

of exaggeration usual with the Humanists. Luther as a rule did not

pander to the taste of the Humanists, and as for Melanchthon, he really

entertained the utmost respect and devotion for the “venerable father”

and “most estimable doctor” until, at last, difference of opinion and

character brought about a certain unmistakable coolness between the two

men.

Melanchthon, albeit with great moderation and reserve, never quitted

the reformer’s standpoint as regards either theory or practice. Many

Catholic contemporaries were even of opinion that he did more harm to

the Church by his prudence and apparent moderation than Luther by all

his storming. His soft-spoken manner and advocacy of peace did not,

however, hinder him from voicing with the utmost bitterness his hatred

of everything Catholic, and his white-hot prejudice in favour of the

innovations. He wrote, for instance, at the end of 1525 in an official

memorandum (“_de iure reformandi_”) intended for the evangelical

Princes and Estates that, even should “war and scandal” ensue, still

they must not desist from the introduction and maintenance of the new

religious system, for our cause “touches the honour of Christ,” and

the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone in particular, so he

says, “will not suffer the contrary.” Why heed the complaints of the

Catholics and the Empire? Christ witnessed “the destruction of the

Kingdom of the Jews” and yet proceeded with His work. According to

this memorandum there was no need of waiting for the Pope’s permission

to “reform” things; the people are everywhere “bound to accept the

doctrine [of Luther]” while evangelical Princes and authorities are

“not bound to obey the edicts [of the Empire]; hence, in fairness, they

cannot be scolded as schismatics.”[1063] For such a ruthless invitation

to overturn the old-established order Melanchthon sought to reassure

himself and others by alleging the “horrible abuses” of Popery which

it had become necessary to remove; the war was to be only against

superstition and idolatry, the tyranny of the ecclesiastical system

challenging resistance.[1064]

Then and ever afterwards the Pope appeared to him in the light of

Antichrist, with whom no reconciliation was possible unless indeed he

yielded to Luther.

In the same year in which he wrote the above his correspondence begins

to betray the anxiety and apprehension which afterwards never ceased

to torture him, due partly to what he witnessed of the results of the

innovations, partly to his own natural timidity. The Peasant War of

1525 plunged him into dismay. There he saw to what lengths the abuse of

evangelical freedom could lead, once the passions of the people were

let loose. At the express wish of the Elector Ludwig of the Palatinate

he wrote in vigorous and implacable language a refutation of the

Peasant Articles; the pen of the scholar was, however, powerless to

stay the movement which was carrying away the people.

A work of much greater importance fell to him when he was invited to

take part in the Visitation of the churches in the Saxon Electorate,

then in a state of utter chaos; it was then that he wrote, in 1527, the

Visitation-booklet for the use of the ecclesiastical inspectors.

In the directions he therein gave for the examination of pastors

and preachers he modified to such an extent the asperities of the

Lutheran principles that he was accused of reacting in the direction

of Catholicism, particularly by the stress he laid on the motive of

fear of God’s punishments, on greater earnestness in penance and on

the keeping of the “law.” Luther’s preaching of the glad Evangel had

dazzled people and made them forgetful of the “law” and Commandments.

According to Melanchthon this was in great part the fault of the

Lutheran preachers.

“In their addresses to the people,” he complains in 1526, “they barely

mention the fear of God. Yet this, and not faith alone, is what they

ought to teach.... On the other hand, they are all the more zealous

in belabouring the Pope.” Besides this they are given to fighting

with each other in the pulpit; the authorities ought to see that only

the “more reasonable are allowed to preach and that the others hold

their tongues, according to Paul’s injunction.”[1065] “They blame our

opponents,” he writes of these same preachers in 1528, “for merely

serving their bellies by their preaching, but they themselves appear

only to work for their own glory, so greatly do they allow themselves

to be carried away by anger.”[1066]

“The depravity of the country population” he declares in a letter of

the same year to be intolerable; it must necessarily call down the

heavy hand of God’s chastisement. “The deepest hatred of the Gospel”

was, however, to be found “in those who play the part of our patrons

and protectors.” Here he is referring to certain powerful ones; he

also laments “the great indifference of the Court.” All this shows the

end to be approaching: “Believe me, the Day of Judgment is not far

distant.” “When I contemplate the conditions of our age, I am troubled

beyond belief.”[1067]

Regarding his recommendation of penance and confession during the

Visitations, a conversation which he relates to Camerarius as having

taken place at the table of a highly placed patron of the innovations,

is very characteristic. A distinguished guest having complained of

this recommendation, the patron chimed in with the remark, that the

people must “hold tight to the freedom they had secured, otherwise

they would again be reduced to servitude by the theologians”; the

latter were little by little re-introducing the old traditions. Thus

you see, Melanchthon adds, “how, not only our enemies, but even those

who are supposed to be favourably bent, judge of us.”[1068] Yet

Melanchthon had merely required a general sort of confession as a

voluntary preparation for Holy Communion.

Melanchthon was also openly in favour of the penalty of

excommunication; in order to keep a watch on the preachers he

introduced the system of Superintendents.

In the matter of marriage contracts his experience led him to the

following conclusion: “It is clearly expedient that the marriage bond

should be tightened rather than loosened”; in this the older Church

had been in the right. “You know,” he writes, “what blame (‘_quantum

sceleris_’) our party has incurred by its wrong treatment of marriage

matters. All the preachers everywhere ought to exert themselves

to put an end to these scandals. But many do nothing but publicly

calumniate the monks and the authorities in their discourses.” And yet

in the same letter he sanctions the re-marriage of a party divorced

for some unknown reason, a sanction he had hitherto been unwilling

to grant for fear of the example being followed by others; he only

stipulates that his sanction is not to be announced publicly; the

sermons must, on the contrary, censure the license which is becoming

the fashion.[1069]

Any open and vigorous opposition to Luther’s views, so detrimental

to the inviolability of the marriage tie, was not in accordance with

Melanchthon’s nature. He, like Luther, condemned the religious vows

on the strange ground that those who took them were desirous of

gaining merit in the sight of God. Hence he too came to invite nuns to

marry.[1070] And yet, at the same time, he, like Luther, again declared

virginity to be a “higher gift,” one which even ranked above marriage

(“_virginitas donum est praestantius coniugio_”).[1071]

He was gradually drawn more and more into questions concerning the

public position of the Lutherans and had to undertake various journeys

on this account, because Luther, being under the Ban, was unable to

leave the Electorate, and because his violent temper did not suit him

for delicate negotiations. Melanchthon erred rather on the side of

timidity.

When, in 1528, in consequence of the Pack business, there seemed a

danger of war breaking out on account of religion, he became the prey

of great anxiety. He feared for the good name and for the evangelical

cause should bloody dissensions arise in the Empire through the

fault of the Princes who favoured Luther. On May 18 he wrote to the

Elector Johann on no account to commence war on behalf of the Evangel,

especially as the Emperor had made proposals of peace. “I must take

into consideration, for instance, what a disgrace it would be to the

Holy Gospel were your Electoral Highness to commence war without

first having tried every means for securing peace.”[1072] There can

be no doubt that the terrible experience of the Peasant War made him

cautious, but we must not forget, that such considerations did not

hinder him from declaring frequently later, particularly previous to

the Schmalkalden War, that armed resistance was allowable, nay, called

for, nor even from going so far as to address the people in language

every whit as warlike as that of Luther.[1073] In the case of the

hubbub arising out of the famous forged documents connected with the

name of Pack, Luther, however, seemed to him to be going much too

far. “Duke George could prove with a clear conscience that it was a

question of a mere forgery and of a barefaced deception,”[1074] got

up to the detriment of the Catholic party. On Luther’s persisting

in his affirmation that a league existed for the destruction of the

Evangelicals, and that the “enemies of the Evangel” really cherished

“this evil intention and will,”[1075] Duke George did, as a matter

of fact, take him severely to task in a work to which Luther at once

replied in another teeming with unseemly abuse.[1076]

Melanchthon, like the rest of Luther’s friends who shared his opinion,

saw their hopes of peace destroyed. They read with lively disapproval

Luther’s charges against the Duke, who was described as a thief, as

one “eaten up by Moabitish pride and arrogance,” who played the fool

in thus raging against Christ; as one possessed of the devil, who in

spite of all his denials meditated the worst against the Lutherans, who

allowed himself to be served in his Chancery by a gang of donkeys and

who, like all his friends, was devil-ridden. Concerning the impression

created, Melanchthon wrote to Myconius that Luther had indeed tried

to exercise greater restraint than usual, but that “he ought to have

defended himself more becomingly. All of us who have read his pages

stand aghast; unfortunately such writings are popular, they pass

from hand to hand and are studied, being much thought of by fools

(‘_praedicantur a stultis_’).”[1077]

It was only with difficulty that he and his Wittenberg friends

dissuaded Luther from again rushing into the fray.

In 1529 Melanchthon, at Luther’s desire, accompanied the Elector of

Saxony to the Diet of Spires. The protest there made by the Lutheran

Princes and Estates again caused him great concern as he foresaw the

unhappy consequences to Germany of the rupture it betokened, and the

danger in which it involved the Protestant cause. The interference of

the Zwinglians in German affairs also filled him with apprehension, for

of their doctrines, so far as they were opposed to those of Wittenberg,

he cherished a deep dislike imbibed from Luther. The political alliance

which, at Spires, the Landgrave of Hesse sought to promote between

the two parties, appeared to him highly dangerous from the religious

point of view. He now regretted that he had formerly allowed himself to

be more favourably disposed to Zwinglianism by the Landgrave. In his

letters he was quite open in the expression of his annoyance at the

results of the Diet of Spires, though he himself had there done his

best to increase the falling away from Catholicism, and, with words

of peace on his lips, to render the estrangement irremediable. In his

first allusion to the now famous protest he speaks of it as a “horrid

thing.”[1078] His misgivings increased after his return home, and he

looked forward to the future with anxiety. He was pressing in his

monitions against any alliance with the Zwinglians. On May 17, 1529,

he wrote to Hieronymus Baumgärtner, a member of the Nuremberg Council:

“Some of us do not scorn an alliance with the [Zwinglian] Strasburgers,

but do you do your utmost to prevent so shameful a thing.”[1079] “The

pains of hell have encompassed me,” so he describes to a friend his

anxieties. We have delayed too long, “I would rather die than see ours

defiled by an alliance with the Zwinglians.”[1080] “I know that the

Zwinglian doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is

untrue and not to be answered for before God.”[1081]

After he had assisted Luther in the religious discussion held at

Marburg between him and Zwingli in the autumn of 1529, and had

witnessed the fruitless termination of the conference, he again voiced

his intense grief at the discord rampant among the innovators, and

the hopelessness of any effort to reunite Christians. “I am quite

unable to mitigate the pains I suffer on account of the position of

ecclesiastical affairs,” so he complains to Camerarius. “Not a day

passes that I do not long for death. But enough of this, for I do not

dare to describe in this letter the actual state of things.”[1082]

Luther was much less down-hearted at that time, having just succeeded

in overcoming a persistent attack of anxiety and remorse of conscience.

His character, so vastly different from that of his friend, now, after

the victory he had won over his “temptations,” was more than ever

inclined to violence and defiance. Luther, such at least is his own

account, refused to entertain any fear concerning the success of his

cause, which was God’s, in spite of the storm threatening at Augsburg.

_Melanchthon at the Diet of Augsburg, 1530._

At Augsburg the most difficult task imaginable was assigned to

Melanchthon, as the principal theological representative of

Lutheranism. His attitude at the Diet was far from frank and logical.

He made his own position quite puzzling by his vain endeavour to unite

things incapable of being united, and to win, by actual or apparent

concessions, temporary toleration for the new religious party within

the Christian Church to which the Empire belonged. Owing to his

lack of theological perspicuity he does not appear to have seen as

clearly as Luther how hopeless was the rupture between old and new. He

still had hopes that the Catholics would gradually come over to the

Wittenberg standpoint when once an agreement had been reached regarding

certain outward and subordinate matters, as he thought them. “Real

unification,” as Johannes Janssen says very truly, “was altogether

out of the question.” For the point at issue in this tremendous

ecclesiastical contest was not this or that religious dogma, this or

that addition or alteration in Church discipline; it was not even

a question merely of episcopal jurisdiction and the sense in which

this was understood and allowed by Protestant theologians; what was

fundamentally at stake was no less than the acceptance or rejection of

the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church, and the recognition

or non-recognition of the Church as a Divine and human institution

of grace, resting upon the perpetual sacrifice and priesthood. The

Protestants rejected the dogma of the infallibility of the Church

and set up for themselves a novel ecclesiastical system, they also

rejected the perpetual sacrifice in that they denied the doctrine of

the perpetual priesthood.... Hence the attempts at reconciliation

made at Augsburg, as indeed all later attempts, were bound to come to

nothing.[1083]

In the “Confession of Augsburg,” where the author shows himself a

past-master in the art of presentation, Melanchthon presents the

Lutheran doctrine under the form most acceptable to the opposite

party, calculated, too, to prove its connection with the teaching of

the Roman Church as vouched for by the Fathers. He passes over in

silence certain capital elements of Lutheran dogma, for instance, man’s

unfreedom in the performance of moral acts pleasing to God, likewise

predestination to hell,[1084] and even the rejection on principle

of the Papal Primacy, the denial of Indulgences and of Purgatory. A

Catholic stamp was impressed on the doctrine of the Eucharist so as to

impart to it the semblance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation; even

in the doctrine of justification, any clear distinction between the

new teaching of the justifying power of faith alone and the Catholic

doctrine of faith working by love (“_fides formata charitate_”) is

wanting. Where, in the second part, he deals with certain traditions

and abuses which he holds to have been the real cause of the schism,

he persists in minimising the hindrances to mutual agreement, or at

least to toleration of the new religious party. According to this

statement, all that Protestants actually demanded was permission

to receive communion under both kinds, the marriage of priests, the

abolition of private masses, obligatory confession, fasts, religious

vows, etc. The bishops, who were also secular princes, were to retain

their jurisdiction as is expressely stated at the end, though they were

to see that the true Gospel was preached in their dioceses, and not to

interfere with the removal of abuses.[1085]

In the specious and seductive explanation of the “Confession,” errors

which had never been advocated by the Church were refuted, while

propositions were propounded at great length which had never been

questioned by her, in both cases the aim being to win over the reader

to the author’s side and to divert his attention from the actual

subject of the controversy.

Luther, to whom the work was submitted when almost complete, allowed

it to pass practically without amendment. He saw in it Melanchthon’s

“soft-spoken manner,” but nevertheless gave it his assent.[1086]

He was quite willing to leave the matter in the hands of such trusty

and willing friends as Melanchthon and his theological assistants at

Augsburg, and to rely on the prudence and strength of the Princes

and Estates of the new profession there assembled. Secure in the

“Gospel-proviso” the Coburg hermit was confident of not being a loser

even in the event of the negotiations not issuing favourably. Christ

was not to be deposed from His throne; to “Belial” He at least could

not succumb.[1087]

The “Confession of Augsburg” was not at all intended in the first

instance as a symbolic book, but rather as a deed presented to the

Empire on the part of the protesting Princes and Estates to demonstrate

their innocence and vindicate their right to claim toleration. During

the years that followed it was likewise regarded as a mere Profession

on the part of the Princes, i.e. as a theological declaration standing

on the same level as the Schmalkalden agreement, and forming the bond

of the protesting Princes in the presence of the Empire; each one

was still free to amplify, explain, or modify the faith within his

own territories. Finally, however, after the religious settlement at

Augsburg in 1555, Melanchthon’s work began to be regarded as a binding

creed, and this character was to all practical purposes stamped on it

by the “Concord” in 1580.[1088]

On August 3, 1530, a “Confutation of the Confession of Augsburg,”

composed by Catholic theologians, was read before the Estates at the

Diet of Augsburg. The Emperor called upon the Protestants to return to

the Church, threatening, in case of refusal, that he, as the “Guardian

and Protector” of Christendom, would institute proceedings. Yet in

spite of this he preferred to follow a milder course of action and to

seek a settlement by means of lengthy “transactions.”

The “Reply” to the Confession (later known as “_Confutatio Confessionis

Augustanæ_”), which was the result of the deliberations of a Catholic

commission, set forth excellent grounds for rejecting the errors

contained in Melanchthon’s work, and also threw a clear light on

his reservations and intentional ambiguities.[1089] Melanchthon’s

answer was embodied in his “_Apologia Confessionis Augustanæ_,”

which well displays its author’s ability and also his slipperiness,

and later took its place, side by side with the Confession, as

the second official exposition of Lutheranism. It energetically

vindicates Luther’s distinctive doctrines, and above all declares,

again quite falsely, that the doctrine of justificatory faith was

the old, traditional Catholic doctrine. Nor does it refrain from

strong and insulting language, particularly in the official German

version. The opposite party it describes as shameless liars, rascals,

blasphemers, hypocrites, rude asses, hopeless, senseless sophists,

traitors, etc.[1090] This, together with the “_Confessio Augustana_,”

was formally subscribed at the Schmalkalden meeting in 1537 by all

the theologians present at the instance of the Evangelical Estates.

Thus it came to rank with the Confession of the Princes and, like the

former, was incorporated later, in both the Latin and the oldest German

version, in the symbolic books.[1091]

Melanchthon, in the “_Apologia_,” re-stated anew the charges already

raised in the “_Confessio_” against Catholic dogma, nor did the proofs

and assurances to the contrary of the authors of the “_Confutatio_”

deter him from again foisting on the Catholic Church doctrines she had

never taught. Thus he speaks of her as teaching, that the forgiveness

of sins could be merited simply by man’s own works (without the grace

and the merits of Christ); he also will have it that the effect of

grace had formerly been altogether lost sight of until it was at last

brought again to light—though as a matter of fact “it had been taught

throughout the whole world.”[1092]

We must come back in detail to the allegations made in the Confession,

and more particularly in the Apology, that Augustine was in favour of

the Lutheran doctrine of Justification; this is all the more necessary

since the Reformers, at the outset, were fond of claiming the authority

of Augustine on their behalf. At the same time the admissions contained

in Melanchthon’s letters will show us more clearly the morality of his

behaviour in a matter of such capital importance.

At the time when the Confession was printed it had already long been

clear to him that the principal exponent of the doctrine of grace in

the ancient Church, viz. St. Augustine, was against the Protestant

conception of justification.

On this subject he expressed himself openly at the end of May, 1531,

in a confidential letter to Brenz. Here he speaks of the doctrine of

Augustine as “a fancy from which we must turn aside our mind (‘_animus

revocandus ab Augustini imaginatione_’)”; his ideas disagreed with St.

Paul’s doctrine; whoever followed Augustine must teach like him, “that

we are regarded as just by God, through fulfilling the commandments

under the action of the Holy Ghost, and not through faith alone.”[1093]

In spite of this, Melanchthon, in the “_Confessio Augustana_,” had

the courage to appeal publicly to Augustine as the most prominent and

clearest witness to the Lutheran view of faith and justification, and

this he did almost at the very time when penning the above letter,

viz. in April or May, 1531, when the first draft of the “_Confessio_”

was sent to the press.[1094] According to the authentic version,

Melanchthon’s words were: “That, concerning the doctrine of faith,

no new interpretation had been introduced, could be proved from

Augustine, who treats diligently of this matter and teaches that we

obtain grace and are justified before God by faith in Christ and not

by works, as his whole book ‘_De Spiritu et littera_’ proves.”[1095]

The writer of these words felt it necessary to explain to Brenz why

he had ventured to claim this Father as being in “entire agreement.”

He had done so because this was “the general opinion concerning him

(‘_propter publicam de eo persuasionem_’),[1096] though, as a matter

of fact, he did not sufficiently expound the justificatory potency

of faith.” The “general opinion” was, however, merely a groundless

view invented by Luther and his theologians and accepted by a

certain number of those who blindly followed him. In the Apology of

the Confession, he continues, “I expounded more fully the doctrine

[of faith alone], but was not able to speak there as I do now to

you, although, on the whole, I say the same thing; it was not to be

thought of on account of the calumnies of our opponents.” Thus in

the Apology also, even when it was a question of the cardinal point

of the new teaching, Melanchthon was of set purpose having recourse

to dissimulation. If he had only to fear the calumnies of opponents,

surely his best plan would have been to silence them by telling them

in all frankness what the Lutheran position really was; otherwise he

had no right to stigmatise their attack on weak points of Luther’s

doctrine as mere calumnies. Yet, even in the “_Apologia_,” he appeals

repeatedly to Augustine in order to shelter the main Lutheran

contentions concerning faith, grace, and good works under the ægis of

his name.[1097]

Melanchthon’s endeavour to secure for Protestantism a place within the

older Church and to check the threatened repressive measures, led him

to write letters to the Bishop of Augsburg, to Campeggio, the Papal

Legate, and to his secretary, in which he declares stoutly, that the

restoration of ecclesiastical harmony simply depended on two points,

viz. the sanction of communion under both kinds and the marriage of the

clergy, as though forsooth the two sides agreed in belief and as though

his whole party acknowledged the Pope and the Roman Church.

In the letter to Cardinal Campeggio he even assures him: “We reverence

the authority of the Pope of Rome and the whole hierarchy, and only beg

he may not cast us off.... For no other reason are we hated as we are

in Germany than because we defend and uphold the dogmas of the Roman

Church with so much persistence. And this loyalty to Christ and to the

Roman Church we shall preserve to our last breath, even should the

Church refuse to receive us back into favour.” The words “Roman Church”

were not here taken in the ordinary sense, however much the connection

might seem to warrant this; Melanchthon really means his pet phantom

of the ancient Roman Church, though he saw fit to speak of fidelity to

this phantom in the very words in which people were wont to protest

their fidelity to the existing Roman Church. He further asked of the

Cardinal toleration for the Protestant peculiarities, on the ground

that they were “insignificant matters which might be allowed or passed

over in silence”; at any rate “some pretext might easily be found for

tolerating them, at least until a Council should be summoned.”[1098]

Campeggio and his advisers refused to be led astray by such assurances.

On the other hand, some representatives of the Curia, theologians or

dignitaries of the German Church, allowed themselves to be cajoled by

Melanchthon’s promises to the extent of entering into negotiations with

him in the hope of bringing him back to the Church.[1099] Such was, for

instance, in 1537, the position of Cardinal Sadolet.

To Sadolet, Johann Fabri sent the following warning: “Only the man who

is clever enough to cure an incurable malady, will succeed in leading

Philip—a real Vertumnus and Proteus—back to the right path.”[1100]

Melanchthon was nevertheless pleased to be able to announce that

Cardinal Campeggio had stated he could grant a dispensation for

Communion under both kinds and priestly marriage.[1101]

With this Luther was not much impressed: “I reply,” he wrote to his

friends in the words of Amsdorf, “that I s—— on the dispensation of

the Legate and his master; _we_ can find dispensations enough.”[1102]

His own contention always was and remained the following: “As I have

always declared, I am ready to concede everything, but they must let us

have the Evangel.”[1103] To Spalatin, he says later: “Are we to crave

of Legate and Pope what they may be willing to grant us? Do, I beg you,

speak to them in the fashion of Amsdorf.”[1104]

On the abyss which really separated the followers of the new faith

from the Church, Luther’s coarse and violent writing, “Vermanũg an die

Geistlichen zu Augsburg,” throws a lurid light. Luther also frequently

wrote to cheer Melanchthon and to remind him of the firmness which was

needed.

Melanchthon was a prey to unspeakable inward terrors, and had admitted

to Luther that he was “worn out with wretched cares.”[1105] Luther

felt called upon to encourage him by instancing his own case. He was

even more subject to such fits of anxiety than Melanchthon, but,

however weak inwardly, he never winced before outward troubles or ever

manifested his friend’s timidity. Melanchthon ought to display the same

strength in public dealings as he did in his inward trials.[1106]

The Landgrave Philip, a zealous supporter of Luther and Zwingli, was

not a little incensed at Melanchthon’s attempts at conciliation, the

more so as the latter persisted in refusing to have anything to do with

Zwinglianism. In one of his dispatches to his emissaries at Augsburg,

Philip says: “For mercy’s sake stop the little game of Philip, that

shy and worldly-wise reasoner—to call him nothing else.”[1107]

The Nuremberg delegates also remonstrated with him. Baumgärtner of

Nuremberg, who was present at the Diet of Augsburg, relates that Philip

flew into a temper over the negotiations and startled everybody by his

cursing and swearing; he was determined to have the whole say himself

and would not listen to the Hessian envoys and those of the cities. He

“did nothing” but run about and indulge in unchristian manœuvres; he

put forward “unchristian proposals” which it was “quite impossible” to

accept; “then he would say, ‘Oh, would that we were away!’” The result

would be, that, owing to this duplicity, the “tyrants would only be all

the more severe”; “no one at the Reichstag had hitherto done the cause

of the Evangel so much harm as Philip”; it was high time for Luther “to

interfere with Philip and warn pious Princes against him.”[1108]

Amongst the Protestant so-called “Concessions” which came under

discussion in connection with the “_Confutatio_” was that of

episcopal jurisdiction, a point on which Melanchthon and Brenz laid

great stress. It was, however, of such a nature as not to offend in

the least the protesting Princes and towns. In the event of their

sanctioning the innovations, the bishops were simply “to retain their

secular authority”: Melanchthon and Brenz, here again, wished to

maintain the semblance of continuity with the older Church, and, by

means of the episcopate, hoped to strengthen their own position. Such

temporising, and the delay it involved, at least served the purpose

of gaining time, a matter of the utmost importance to the Protestant

representatives.[1109]

Another point allowed by Melanchthon, viz. the omission of the word

“alone” in the statement “man is justified by faith,” was also of

slight importance, for all depended on the sense attached to it,

and the party certainly continued to exclude works and charity.

Melanchthon, however, also agreed that it should be taught that

penance has three essential elements, viz. contrition, confession of

sin and satisfaction, i.e. active works of penance, “a concession,”

Döllinger says, “which, if meant seriously, would have thrown the whole

new doctrine of justification into confusion.”[1110] It may be that

Melanchthon, amidst his manifold worries, failed to perceive this.

At any rate, all his efforts after a settlement were ruled by the

“Proviso of the Gospel”[1111] as propounded by Luther to his friends

in his letters from the Coburg. According to this tacit reservation

no concession which in any way militated against the truth or the

interests of the Evangel could be regarded as valid. “Once we have

evaded coercion and obtained peace,” so runs Luther’s famous admonition

to Melanchthon, “then it will be an easy matter to amend our wiles

and slips because God’s mercy watches over us.”[1112] “All our

concessions,” Melanchthon wrote, “are so much hampered with exceptions

that I apprehend the bishops will suspect we are offering them chaff

instead of grain.”[1113]

A letter, intended to be reassuring, written from Augsburg on

September 11 by Brenz, who was somewhat more communicative than

Melanchthon, and addressed to his friend Isenmann, who was anxious

concerning the concessions being offered, may serve further to

elucidate the policy of Melanchthon and Brenz. Brenz writes: “If you

consider the matter carefully you will see that our proposals are such

as to make us appear to have yielded to a certain extent; whereas, in

substance, we have made no concessions whatsoever. This they plainly

understand. What, may I ask, are the Popish fasts so long as we hold

the doctrine of freedom?” The real object of the last concession,

he had already pointed out, was to avoid giving the Emperor and his

Court the impression that they were “preachers of sensuality.” The

jurisdiction conceded to the bishops will not harm us so long as they

“agree to our _Via media_ and conditions”; they themselves will then

become new men, thanks to the Evangel; “for always and everywhere we

insist upon the proviso of freedom and purity of doctrine. Having

this, what reason would you have to grumble at the jurisdiction of

the bishops?”[1114] It will, on the contrary, be of use to us, and

will serve as a buffer against the wilfulness of secular dignitaries,

who oppress our churches with heavy burdens. “Besides, it is not to

be feared that our opponents will agree to the terms.” The main point

is, so Melanchthon’s confidential fellow-labourer concludes, that only

thus can we hope to secure “toleration for our doctrine.”[1115]

When Melanchthon penned this confession only a few days had elapsed

since Luther, in response to anxious letters received from Augsburg,

had intervened with a firm hand and spoken out plainly against the

concessions, and any further attempts at a diplomatic settlement.[1116]

In obedience to these directions Melanchthon began to withdraw more and