# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 12 24_S65
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's doctrine shall pass away nevermore." (Rev. John, ch. 14, v. 6, 7.)

Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Year 7.  St. Louis, Mo., the 24th of December 1850.  No. 9.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for subscribers out of town, who are to pay the same in advance and bear the postage. -- In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents.

Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted.)

Luther and Melanchthon.

(Conclusion.)

In the year 1540 Melanchthon assured in his testament that he would remain, even unto death, by the doctrine of the Wittenberg Concord concerning the holy Lord's Supper. In the following year he declared himself at Regensburg, on this point, for the unaltered Augsburg Confession, and in the year 1542 he also signed an answer of the Wittenberg theological faculty against the Zwinglians. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that in the two following years he fell again into great weakness, and was led sorely astray especially through an overly intimate correspondence with the Swiss theologians, as he also proved by his conduct at the Reformation in Cologne, although he sought to throw all the blame upon Bucer there.

"That Melanchthon, during the last two years of Luther's life, aroused still more suspicion against himself, several circumstances unhappily show. To this belongs especially a letter of Chancellor Brück to the Elector of Saxony, in which he reports to him: "I said to Luther, whereof Your Electoral Grace regards Philip's mind, namely that he is holding back behind the mountain until he finds a convenient time, which he hopes and awaits especially after Luther's death; and I fear indeed that Your Electoral Grace thinks so not without cause. Dr. Martin thinks, if he does it, he will become a wretched man and will have no peace for his conscience's sake."

How much ground there was for such fears is made still more plain by a conversation of Melanchthon with Luther, which the former's son-in-law Peucer has reported. For when Luther wished to publish his last writing against the Swiss (Kurzes Bekenntniß vom heil. Abendmahle wieder die Schwärmer, of the year 1543), Melanchthon declared himself for the Zwinglian doctrine and admonished Luther to moderation, but received this emphatic dismissal: "That is my affair, and I will defend it without you; abide by your perverse opinion, if you hold it to be the more correct; I need neither your protection nor your help." With reference to this Melanchthon wrote soon afterward to the Reformed theologian Bullinger the following: "Perhaps before the receipt of this letter you will have received Luther's writing, sharp beyond all measure, in which he renews the controversy over the Supper of the Lord. (?) Never yet has he pursued this matter with such great vehemence, and I therefore lose all hope for the peace of the Church." Hereby the assertion in the "Kirchenfreund" is at the same time refuted, that the clouding of the bond of friendship between Luther and Melanchthon was but a passing one; and one sees also from this that Luther could and would permit absolutely no supplementing or mediation of his doctrine with respect to that of the Reformed.

In the next year (1545) Melanchthon appears to have changed his mind again, for in the name of the theological faculty he drew up an opinion that one should keep away from the Zwinglians, and he also disclosed by letter to Chancellor Brück that he was not satisfied with them.

Even then Melanchthon's tendency was not without harmful influence upon others, especially upon the elder Cruciger, otherwise so worthy a man, as appears from one of his letters, written about this time, as also from the circumstance that he, with Melanchthon, not long before Luther's death, wished to leave Wittenberg, because they could no longer endure his unbending strictness in doctrine. But with others also of the theologians there it may by then no longer have stood well, as one must conclude from the words which Luther wrote on Major's door before his last journey to Eisleben: "Our professors shall be examined upon the article of the Supper of the Lord!

In conclusion of these proofs, a conversation shall be communicated which Ratzenberger has preserved for us in his manuscript description of Luther; it runs thus: "It happened once that M. George Aemilius, as his private pupil, asked Master Philip concerning the dispute con-