Modern historians are generally agreed that also with respect to the
Lord's Supper the later Melanchthon was not identical with the earlier.
Tschackert: "Melanchthon had long ago [before the outbreak of the second
controversy on the Lord's Supper] receded from the peculiarities of the
Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper; he was satisfied with
maintaining the personal presence of Christ during the Supper, leaving
the mode of His presence and efficacy in doubt." (532.) Seeberg, who
maintains that Melanchthon as early as 1531 departed from Luther's
teaching concerning the Lord's Supper, declares: "Melanchthon merely
does not want to admit that the body of Christ is really eaten in the
Supper, and that it is omnipresent as such." (4, 2, 449.) Theo. Kolde:
"It should never have been denied that these alterations in Article X of
the _Augustana_ involved real changes.... In view of his gradually
changed conception of the Lord's Supper, there can be no doubt that he
sought to leave open for himself and others the possibility of
associating also with the Swiss." (25.) Schaff: "Melanchthon's later
view of the Lord's Supper agreed essentially with that of Calvin." (1,
280.)
Such, then, being the attitude of Melanchthon as to the doctrine of the
Lord's Supper, it was but natural and consistent that his pupils, who
looked up to Master Philip with unbounded admiration, should become
decided Calvinists. Melanchthon, chiefly, must be held responsible for
the Calvinistic menace which threatened the Lutheran Church after the
death of Luther. In the interest of fraternal relations with the Swiss,
he was ready to compromise and modify the Lutheran truth. Sadly he had
his way, and had not the tendency which he inaugurated been checked, the
Lutheran Church would have lost its character and been transformed into
a Reformed or, at least, a unionistic body. In a degree, this guilt was
shared also by his older Wittenberg colleagues: Caspar Cruciger, Sr.,
Paul Eber, John Foerster, and others, who evidently inclined toward
Melanchthon's view and attitude also in the matter concerning the Lord's
Supper. Caspar Cruciger, for example, as appears from his letter to Veit
Dietrich, dated April 18, 1538, taught the bodily presence of Christ in
the use of the Lord's Supper, but not "the division or separation of the
body and blood." (_C. R._ 3, 610.) Shortly before his death, as related
in a previous chapter, Luther had charged these men with culpable
silence with regard to the truth, declaring: "If you believe as you
speak in my presence then speak the same way in church, in public
lectures, in sermons, and in private discussions, and strengthen your
brethren, and lead the erring back to the right way, and contradict the
wilful spirits; otherwise your confession is a mere sham and will be of
no value whatever." (Walther, 40.) Refusal to confess the truth will
ultimately always result in rejection of the truth. Silence here is the
first step to open denial.