# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 12 24_S67
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67

Church, as also for the complete presentation of her theological and religious life and for the happy execution of her present mission"? Could the means which Melanchthon seized upon for the realization of his "holy longing for the restoration of the disturbed peace of the Church" be the right ones, since, as experience has taught, the evil has thereby only grown worse, as well in the midst of the Lutheran Church as in the relation of the Reformed Church to her?

But not merely through his departures from the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper, but also in other ways, Melanchthon gave nearer or remoter occasion to many evils which at that time troubled the Church.

It was Melanchthon who, immediately after Luther's death, had a decidedly harmful influence upon his other colleagues, and thereby, alas, helped to fulfil Luther's repeated prophecy: "After my death none of these theologians will remain steadfast." Yes, already in the year 1537 there must have been grounds for such fears; for when the Elector of Saxony visited Luther in his severe illness at Schmalkald, the latter declared: "after his death dissension would arise at the University of Wittenberg, and his doctrine would be altered." This awakened, as Seckendorf relates, in the pious lord anxious thoughts, which he soon afterward caused to be disclosed to Luther through the Chancellor Brück, namely that Your Electoral Grace had heard that Melanchthon and Creutziger used other modes of speech in the articles on justification (who would believe it? and yet it was so, as may be read at length in Luther's Table Talk, W. XXII. 710-722.) in regard to good works than Luther, complained especially bitterly that Melanchthon, in the publication of the Augsburg Confession, had altered some words (thus already then!). "This," said the Elector, "and other things happen while we and your Dr. Martin are still living; what will happen when we both close our eyes? Our eldest prince is a child, and our brother still young, and of capable men there is a great lack. (!)" He thereupon admonished Luther not to hold these things lightly, and testified: Though he well knew that the growth of the university was ascribed to Melanchthon's learning and renown, yet he would rather do without him than let the truth suffer injury, even should the university go under on that account." To this Seckendorf adds among other things the excellent remark: "The heroic spirit of the Elector deserves also to be considered and praised in this, that he preferred the truth and purity of the doctrine to all applause of men and to every vain attempt at a deceitful union."

It was Melanchthon who, soon after Luther's death, by command of the Elector of Saxony, drew up a theological opinion on the question whether one should forestall the Emperor with armed resistance or await the attack, wherein he declared himself for the former. The other Wittenberg theologians agreed with him in this, and appealed herein, as in similar declarations, to Luther's writings; Ratzeberger, however, the Elector's physician, proved to them in a writing containing twenty-one folio pages the contrary, and showed how on this point of self-defense "Luther's doctrine and writings had been forsaken, denied, rejected and falsified by Melanchthon and the other theologians." Thus the departure from Luther's doctrine became a contributing cause of the unhappy Schmalkaldic War.

It was Melanchthon who, as the head of his party, from the year 1548 on, in the alteration of the Interim forced upon them by the Emperor, showed himself far too yielding, in that he declared various things in papistic doctrines and usages to be indifferent, which the few orthodox theologians had to abhor as a falsification of the Gospel. What a lamentable lukewarmness had taken possession of him therein, is testified by the following letter-utterance to a confidential friend of rank: "Since the Prince (Duke Maurice) has once resolved upon the introduction of the Interim, I will, although I cannot approve of much, yet do nothing with resistance, but keep silent and yield or suffer what comes." At that time, writes Weller, one saw that almost all the older theologians, who had been held for the brightest lights of the Church, partly wavered, partly fell away altogether from the confession of the truth, and only a few younger theologians (such as Gallus, Flacius and others) persevered steadfastly in the confession of the truth, and let themselves be frightened from it by no threats and dangers. Out of the controversies over that formula of compromise others arose, namely over that which, in holding fast the doctrine, is in itself indifferent, and that which is not (Adiaphora), which were carried on for some twenty years with great vehemence and later gave occasion for the 10th Article of the Formula of Concord.

It was Melanchthon who also gave the first occasion for the so-called Majoristic controversy, which was not completely ended until about the year 1570. For he had, even in Luther's lifetime, made use of the expression: "Good works are necessary to salvation," which Major then especially vehemently defended; when in the year 1548, on account of the Interim, in which this chief principle of the papacy was likewise expressed in clear words, Melanchthon and other theologians held a conference, they all assented to this false doctrine, yes, they declared it to be an "established proposition." The exposition of the points of controversy on which the whole doctrine of justification stands and falls, as also the right judgment upon them, is likewise found in the Formula of Concord, in the 4th Article.

It was Melanchthon, finally, who also brought on the synergistic controversies, which likewise for nearly twenty years increased the already so great unrest of the time in the Church. Melanchthon, namely, had in several of his writings added to the two sole causes of conversion (God's Word and the Holy Ghost) a third (the man's own will). Also in this point, accordingly, Melanchthon departed from Luther's doctrine and led many of his pupils astray in it; yes, already in the year 1525 Melanchthon, in the controversy of Luther with Erasmus concerning the will of man, inclined to the side of the latter. How, however, through this doctrine of the cooperation of the human will the greatness of human corruption and the sole glory of divine grace are denied, the 2nd Article of the Formula of Concord shows.

So lamentable was the state of things then in the Lutheran Church, so much guilt rested upon Melanchthon, who with his pupils helped to destroy so much of what his teacher Luther and he had earlier built with him, and again set up anew much that he had formerly destroyed with Luther. We will not forget all the good that God gave to Luther and the Lutheran Church in Melanchthon: for many years he was Luther's most faithful bosom friend and, as it were, his right hand; he was a brightly shining light and a glorious pillar of the orthodox Church; he truly deserved all the praises which Luther and others bestowed on him. But the more must we lament that this so highly gifted man afterward fell so deep, passed from one error into another, and drew so many after him; we recognize in him, with heartfelt compassion, the holy judgments of God, and we would cover his fall with eternal silence, if we had sure marks of his sincere repentance, and if our Reformed and Union adversaries did not today still misuse Melanchthon's renowned name for the glossing over of their doctrine and for the casting of suspicion upon Luther and his doctrine, and did not ever anew extol with praise the bridge of union devised by Melanchthon.

Letter to a Congregational Elder.

(Conclusion.)

II. Of the False Church-Fellowship between Lutherans and Reformed.

If church-fellowship consisted in nothing else than in the omitting or observing of certain outward ceremonies, we might well unite with all sorts of people in one congregation. But God's Word teaches us that the communion of saints is founded upon the word of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone, Eph. 2:20, that it is to continue in one most holy faith, Jude 20; Col. 2:7, in one doctrine and confession, 1 Cor. 1:10. God's Word