# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 12 10_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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expressed himself thus: "We would give hearty thanks to the heavenly Father, who through Dr. Luther has wonderfully and happily restored in this our time the sum of the Gospel, that in faith in our LORD Jesus Christ all our salvation is contained." He calls him the "sent-forth apostle of the pure Gospel, the foremost defender of the pure doctrine and the most valiant witness of true Christianity." Even Calvin wrote the following to a friend: "I wish above all that you consider what a great man Luther is, what excellent gifts, what a valiant and steadfast spirit he possesses, how great is the power of his doctrine, with which he has hitherto been unceasingly engaged to overthrow the kingdom of Antichrist and at the same time to spread the wholesome doctrine. I have often said: supposing even that he should call me a devil, I would yet show him the honor of recognizing in him an excellent servant of God. I therefore adjure you and your colleagues, above all to be intent upon making common cause with this most excellent servant of Christ, to whom we all owe so much."

These few testimonies alone justify the assertion that Luther, and he only, was the chosen instrument of God, whereby the Reformation, in its peculiar nature, namely as to doctrine, was not only bravely and wisely begun, but also gloriously and happily carried through, so that the honorable name of Reformer belongs to him alone. This we assert neither for the sake of vain glory, nor from a disparagement of the gifts of those whom God has placed at his side as fellow-laborers, but only because we may not give up anything of the truth. If we must now protest against it, that open opponents of the Lutheran doctrine, such as Zwingli and Calvin, are put in one rank with Luther and regarded as promoters of one and the same work, whereas instead of Reformers they would rather have to be called Deformers, we shall also soon be able to convince ourselves with regard to Melanchthon that, with all his undeniable great services to the Reformation, he nevertheless can make no claim to the surname of Reformer, and indeed all the less because later, in that he formed a bridge from the strict Lutheran tendency to the Reformed Church, he in many people partly undid and partly hindered Luther's Reformation in this direction.

If we would gain a sure standard for judging Melanchthon, we must above all note that he did not always remain the same, but later, and indeed already from the year 1536 on, but especially after Luther's death, became quite another man than he was before. Formerly he held fast to the wholesome doctrine, he was one of Luther's most faithful and active fellow-laborers, and did and wrote hardly anything publicly without his counsel and judgment. Later he stood there orphaned and left to himself; he was often, against his will, consulted in all sorts of difficult church controversies and theological disputes. He fell moreover, what was the worst, into the company of many impure people, who, under the pretense of wishing to promote peace and concord in the Church, knew how to ingratiate themselves with him and to win his unbounded confidence. This association, especially also with his son-in-law Peucer, as well as the correspondence in which he stood with several opponents of the Lutheran doctrine, worked the more harmfully upon him, since, with his weakness of character and of faith, he was already inclined to untimely yieldingness. This yieldingness the "Kirchenfreund" would not only excuse, but even justify, in that he asserts "it had its ground by no means merely in natural timidity and weakness of character, but just as much in Melanchthon's deep humility and tender conscientiousness." What would the "Kirchenfreund" say if one should similarly assert of Peter's denial that it had its ground by no means merely in his disobedience to Christ's warning and in fear of men, but just as much in the duty of self-preservation as in a prudent accommodation to the prevailing circumstances? But that it is a false humility and conscientiousness which yields to adversaries in divine things, and that in such matters one must rather go by the principle: cedo nulli, this we have already learned in the first point of comparison from Luther's words on Gal. 2, 6.

That assertion about the real ground of Melanchthon's yieldingness the "Kirchenfreund" seeks to justify still further by saying: "Among all the Reformers he felt most the heavy responsibility which rested upon them, and most clearly foresaw the confusions and dangers which in days to come would follow, and actually have followed, from the great rent in Western Christendom. "If one will paraphrase this, about the following sense results: the great rent in Western Christendom, which arose through the separation of the Papists and Reformed from the Lutherans, as well as all the confusions and dangers which have followed from it to this very hour, rests with heavy responsibility upon Luther and his fellow-laborers; consequently they, and Luther in particular, because they did not even feel this responsibility, are to blame for that rent and for all the evils arising from it; they ought not to have held so stiffly and obstinately to the right doctrine as their opponents held to the false doctrine; the latter, however, therefore had no heavy responsibility and accordingly did not feel it; Melanchthon, however, was among all the only one who felt it and by his yieldingness sought to forestall that rent. But since he did not succeed in this, as history teaches, and on the contrary the divisions have been enlarged and have become almost incurable, the blame for this must lie chiefly with Melanchthon, who erred in the choice of means.

The same holds with the remark: "Melanchthon loved peace above all" (thus also more than the truth of the Gospel, contrary to the word of the LORD, Zech. 8: "love the truth and peace") "and therefore we comprehend the deep grief which in his later years he felt over the growing rent in Protestantism, as well as the longing which he felt for the unity of the Church, for deliverance also from the rage of the theologians (a rabie theologorum)."

But who bore the blame for this growing rent in the Church, who hindered unity in the Spirit (for the unity of the Church remains unimpaired amid all separations, according to the third article, I believe one holy Christian Church)? Were they not those who caused division and offence contrary to the doctrine which they had learned (Rom. 16, 17)? Who were the theologians from whose rage Melanchthon wished to be delivered? The "Kirchenfreund" will answer: They were the Lutheran zealots, who pushed the matter to the extreme; but we must add by way of explanation: They were chiefly the Jena theologians (for the Wittenbergers all held with Melanchthon), to whose zeal in that dangerous time we owe chiefly the preservation of the pure doctrine. Supposing now, yea granting, that they often erred in words against the person of Melanchthon and even showed something that might be taken for rage, one must nevertheless regret that Melanchthon grieved only over this, but not over himself, since he himself, by his persistent straying from the way of truth, gave occasion for all those disputes.

To the ever-repeated reproach of the Reformed, as if Luther and the Lutherans were to blame for the separation that has arisen, in that they did not show enough love of peace, one must again and again point to the answer which Luther gives in his writing: "That these words of Christ, This is my body, still stand fast." In the first place, that we begin there, where they write, make books and exhort, that for the sake of these matters one should not rend Christian unity, love and peace, for it is (they say) a small thing and a little quarrel, for the sake of which Christian love should not be hindered, and they chide us that we hold so stiffly and hard thereto and make disunity. See now, dear man, what shall one say? It befalls us as it did the sheep that came with the wolf to the drinking place at the water. The wolf stood above, the sheep stood below in the water; then the wolf chided the sheep, it made the water muddy for him; the sheep said: How should I make it muddy for thee,