In various other ways Melanchthon showed his impatience with the
defenders of Luther's doctrine and his sympathy with their Calvinistic
opponents. When Timann of Bremen, who sided with Westphal, opposed
Hardenberg, a secret, but decided Calvinist, Melanchthon admonished the
latter not to rush into a conflict with his colleagues, but to
dissimulate. He says in a letter of April 23, 1556: "_Te autem oro, ne
properes ad certamen cum collegis. Oro etiam, ut multa dissimules_."
(_C. R._ 8, 736.) Another letter (May 9, 1557), in which he advises
Hardenberg how to proceed against his opponents, begins as follows:
"Reverend Sir and Dear Brother. As you see, not only the controversy,
but also the madness (_rabies_) of the writers who establish the
bread-worship is growing." (9, 154.) He meant theologians who, like
Timann and Westphal, defended Luther's doctrine that in the Lord's
Supper the bread is truly the body of Christ and the wine truly the
blood of Christ and that Christ is truly present also according to His
human nature. Again, when at Heidelberg, in 1569, Hesshusius refused to
acknowledge the Calvinist Klebitz (who had publicly defended the
Reformed doctrine) as his assistant in the distribution of the Lord's
Supper, and Elector Frederick III, the patron of the Crypto-Calvinists,
who soon after joined the Reformed Church, demanded that Hesshusius
come to an agreement with Klebitz, and finally deposed the former and
dismissed the latter, Melanchthon approved of the unionistic methods of
the Elector, and prepared ambiguous formulas to satisfy both parties.
In the _Opinion_ requested by the Elector, dated November 1, 1559,
Melanchthon said: "To answer is not difficult, but dangerous....
Therefore I approve of the measure of the illustrious Elector,
commanding silence to the disputants on both sides [Hesshusius and the
Calvinist Klebitz], lest dissension occur in the weak church.... The
contentious men having been removed, it will be profitable that the rest
agree on one form of words. It would be best in this controversy to
retain the words of Paul: 'The bread which we break is the communion
(_koinonia_) of Christ.' Much ought to be said concerning the fruit of
the Supper to invite men to love this pledge and to use it frequently.
And the word 'communion' must be explained: Paul does not say that the
nature of the bread is changed, as the Papists say; He does not say, as
those of Bremen do, that the bread is the substantial body of Christ; he
does not say that the bread is the true body of Christ, as Hesshusius
does; but that it is the communion, _i.e._, that by which the union
occurs (_consociatio fit_) with the body of Christ, which occurs in the
use, and certainly not without thinking, as when mice gnaw the bread....
The Son of God is present in the ministry of the Gospel, and there He is
certainly efficacious in the believers, and He is present not on account
of the bread, but on account of man, as He says, 'Abide in Me and I in
you,' Again: 'I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you,' And in
these true consolations He makes us members of His, and testifies that
He will raise our bodies. Thus the ancients explain the Lord's Supper."
(_C. R._ 9, 961.) No doubt, Calvin, too, would readily have subscribed
to these ambiguous and indefinite statements. C. P. Krauth pertinently
remarks: "Whatever may be the meaning of Melanchthon's words in the
disputed cases, this much is certain, that they practically operated as
if the worse sense were the real one, and their mischievousness was not
diminished, but aggravated, by their obscurity and double meaning. They
did the work of avowed error, and yet could not be reached as candid
error might." (_Cons. Ref._, 291.)