When describing the conflicts after Luther's death, historians
frequently deplore "the dreadful controversies of these dark days of
doctrinal extremists and the polemical spirit of rigid Lutheranism." G.
J. Planck, in particular, characterized them all as useless quarrels and
personal wranglings of narrow-minded, bigoted adherents of Luther, who
vitiated original Lutheranism by making it essentially a matter of "pure
doctrine." To the present day indifferentistically inclined historians
are wont to mar their pages with similar views.
True, "pure doctrine," "unity in the pure doctrine of the Gospel," such
was the shibboleth of the faithful Lutherans over against the
Melanchthonians and other errorists. But this was neither reprehensible
doctrinalism nor a corruption of original Lutheranism, but the very
principle from which it was born and for which Luther contended
throughout his life--a principle of life or death for the Lutheran
Church. It was the _false_ doctrine of justification which made Luther a
most miserable man. It was the _pure_ doctrine as taught by St. Paul
which freed his conscience, transported him into Paradise, as he himself
puts it, and made him the Reformer of the Church. Ever since, purity of
doctrine was held, by Luther and all true Lutheran theologians, to be of
paramount import to Christianity and the Church. Fully realizing that
adulteration of any part of the Christian doctrine was bound to infect
also the doctrine of faith and justification and thus endanger
salvation, they earnestly warned against, and opposed, every deviation
from the clear Word of God, no matter how insignificant it might appear.
They loved the truth more than external peace, more even than their own
lives. Hence they found it impossible to be silent, apathetic, and
complacent spectators while the Philippists and others denied, attacked,
and corrupted the truth taught by Luther from the Word of God.
Accordingly, since the Leipzig Interim involved and maintained doctrines
and principles subversive of genuine Lutheranism and was prepared,
introduced, and defended by the very men who were regarded as pillars of
the Lutheran Church, it was evident from the outset that this document
must of necessity precipitate most serious internal troubles. From the
moment the Wittenbergers cast the Interim as a firebrand into the
Church, a domestic warfare was unavoidable,--if indeed any true
disciples of Luther still remained in the Church of which he, and not
Melanchthon, was the founder. While the Augsburg Interim resulted in an
external theological warfare of the Lutherans against the Romanists,
the Leipzig Interim added a most serious domestic conflict, which
conscientious Lutherans could not evade, though it well-nigh brought our
Church to the brink of destruction. For now the issue was not merely how
to resist the Pope and the Romanists, but, how to purge our own Church
from the Interimists and their pernicious principles. And as long as the
advocates of the Interim or of other aberrations from the old Lutheran
moorings refused to abandon their errors, and nevertheless insisted on
remaining in the Church, there was no real unity in the truth. Hence
there could also be no true peace and brotherly harmony among the
Lutherans. And the way to settle these differences was not indifferently
to ignore them, nor unionistically to compromise them by adopting
ambiguous formulas, but patiently to discuss the doctrines at issue
until an agreement in the truth was reached, which finally was done by
means of the Formula of Concord.
True, these controversies endangered the very existence of our Church.
But the real cause of this was not the resistance which the loyal
Lutherans offered to the errorists, nor even the unseemly severity by
which the prosecution of these controversies was frequently marred, but
the un-Lutheran spirit and the false principles and doctrines manifested
and defended by the opponents. In so far as divine truth was defended
and error opposed, these controversies were truly wars to end war, and
to establish real peace and true unity within our Church. A cowardly
surrender to the indifferentistic spirit, the unionistic policy, the
false principles, and the erroneous doctrines of the Interimists would
have been tantamount to a complete transformation of our Church and a
total annihilation of genuine Lutheranism.
The manner in which these controversies were conducted, it is true, was
frequently such as to obstruct, rather than further, mutual
understanding and peace. As a rule, it is assumed that only the genuine
Lutherans indulged in unseemly polemical invective, and spoke and wrote
in a bitter and spiteful tone. But the Melanchthonians were to say the
least, equally guilty. And when censuring this spirit of combativeness,
one must not overlook that the ultimate cause of the most violent of
these controversies was the betrayal of the Lutheran Church by the
Interimists; and that the severity of the polemics of the loyal
Lutherans did not, at least not as a rule, emanate from any personal
malice toward Melanchthon, but rather from a burning zeal to maintain
sound Lutheranism, and from the fear that by the scheming and the
indifference of the Philippists the fruits of Luther's blessed work
might be altogether lost to the coming generations. The "peace-loving"
Melanchthon started a conflagration within his own church in order to
obtain a temporal and temporary peace with the Romanists; while the
loyal Lutherans, inasmuch as they fought for the preservation of genuine
Lutheranism, stood for, and promoted, a truly honorable, godly, and
lasting peace on the basis of eternal truth. And while the latter fought
honestly and in the open, the Philippists have never fully cleared
themselves from the charges of duplicity, dishonesty, and dissimulation.