During Luther's absence at the Wartburg, the care of the Reformation rested mainly upon Melancthon, "With great abOity he defended Luther against the the- ologians of Paris, but found himself unable to withstand the storm of fanaticism which arose among some of his former friends. He was even for a time greatly in doubt as to whether the pretensions of Carlstadt and the Zwickau prophets might not be true, and received from Luther a reproof because he dealt with them with so much mildness, Witliout anv reserve, he insisted on
his own inability to meet the crisis, and urged the re- turn of Luther as the only solution of the difficulty.
After Luther's return, he was diligently occupied in revisuig the translation of the Bible — a work in wiiich his philological attainments were at several periods of invaluable service to the Church. In 1522 Luther Mrote - to Spalatine, asking that Melancthon might be relieved of teaching the classics, in order to devote his entire time to theology, but the latter objected, and preferred even to cease his theological instructions. In 1526, however, he was formally appointed professor of theol- ogy. During the two succeeding years he was the prin- cipal member of the commission to visit the churches and church-schools of Thuringia. The A riicles of Vis- itation, prepared in connection with this commission, to give the ministers some directions concerning their preaching and teaching, are sometimes regarded as the earliest confession of the Lutheran Church, The im- portance which they attach to the preaching of the law, in order to guard against the abuse of the doctrine of justification by faith, excited the opposition of Agricola and others, and led to a conference at Torgau (q. v.), November, 1527, in which the position of Melancthon was approved. In February, 1529, he accompanied his prince to the Diet of Spires, and assisted in the prepara- tion of the Protest, presented April 19th, from which the friends of the Reformation obtained the name Protes- tants. A few months later, October 1-3, he participated, together with Luther, Brentius, and others, in the Collo- quy at Marburg (q. v.) with Zwingle and his adherents. In 1530 he accompanied the evangelical princes to the Diet of Augsburg, and there, on the basis of the seven- teen articles prepared by Luther at Schwabach, elabo- rated the A uysburff Confession, which was presented to the emperor June 25. During its preparation the work was repeatedh' revised by Luther, then at Coburg, in al- most daily correspondence with Melancthon. " Melanc- thon, then, was by pre-eminence the composer of the Confession, not as a private individual, but as chief of a body of advisers, without whose concurrence nothing was fixed; Luther, by pre-eminence, as the divinely- called representative of the Church, its author." For a thorough examination of the relation which Melancthon sustained to the Augsburg Confession, the reader is re- ferred to Krauth's Conservative Reformation, p. 201-267. The hypothesis of the rationalist RUckert, that Me- lancthon intended by it to effect a compromise with Rome, and that, for this purpose, a conspiracy was formed to keep Luther in ignorance of the plan, is there completely overthrown. Jlelancthon's excessive love of peace, and his desire to bring together into an or- ganic union all the Protestant churches, caused him in after years to forget that the Augsburg Confession was the work of the Church, and not his own ; for he felt himself at liberty to publish numerous revised editions, in which he made frequent changes. These changes, originating the distinction between the Variata and In- vaiiata, almost caused a rupture with Luther, and idti- mately resulted in controversies which imperilled the life of the Lutheran churches. Notwithstanding these changes, it cannot be proved that his personal convic- tions were at anj- succeeding period actually different from the teaching of the unaltered Confession. He re- peatedly declared, until the close of his life, that his faith was unchanged. His object in the alterations was sim- ply to generalize those statements which were so spe- cific in their declaration of the Lutheran faith as to pre- vent the endorsement of the. adherents of Calvin and others. He was constantly seeking for a generic form of agreement in which the specific differences might be lost sight of. He remained at Augsburg until late in September, employed in fruitless negotiations with the Romish theologians. The confutation of the Augsburg Confession, presented August 3, led him in reply to pre- pare the Apology — a masterpiece which the Lutheran Church has prized so highly as to number it among her symbols.
MELANCTHOJ^
56
MELANGISTS
His Catechism (Catechesis Puerilis} appeared in 1532. In 1535 and 1536 he was actively engaged in negotia- tions with Bucer to secure a union of tlie Protestant churches on the doctrine ol' the Lord's Supper. As the result of these efforts, the Wittenberg Concord was signed May '2S, 1536. In February, 1537, he was a mem- ber of tlie convention at Smalcald, and signed the A r- ticles, with the proviso that he would acknowledge the supreme authority of the pope, Jwre kuniano, if the lat- ter would permit the preaching of the pure (jospel. In the negotiations with the papists at Worms (1540), and at Katisbon (1541), he was the principal theologian of the Protestants. At the latter conference his compro- mising spirit acceded to articles clothed in such ambig- uous language as to admit the interpretation either of an affirmation or a denial of the doctrine of justification by faith; but the object of the conference failed, because of an irreconcilable difference concerning tlie externals of religion, in which Jlelancthon displayed more than his ordinary firmness. In 1542 and 1543 he was em- ployed by the archbishop and elector of Cologne to su- perintend the introduction of the Reformation into his territories. Tlie book of instruction ])repared in con- nection with this work excited the indignation of Lu- ther against Jlelancthon, until the latter assured him that Hucer was alone responsible for the article on the Lord's Supper. Early in 1545, at the request of the elector, he ])rcpared a pamphlet on The Reformation of Wittenberg, which was sent to the Council of Trent as a summary of the doctrines of the Lutheran Reformers. After the death of Luther, in 1546, he was the acknowl- edged head of the Reformation, but unfortunately be- came again involved in negotiations with the papists, to whom he made the most remarkable concessions. His connection with the Leipsic Interim (1548) was the most unfortunate act of his life. Under the form of an apparent compromise, he yielded to the papists many of the most essential points of difference between them and the Protestants. " He was willing to tolerate both a popedom and a hierarchy, stripped, however, of divine rights, and deprived of all power in matters of faith. The relation of faith to works, and the doctrine of the sacraments, might, in his estimation, be veiled in a judi- cious obscurity of phrase." In every part of the evan- gelical Church the Interim was most violently resisted, and liis connection with it strongly condemned. In addition to private rebukes from Calvin and Brentius, Agricola, Flacius, and others publicly attacked him. In 1550 he publislied his Explanation of the Nicene Creed, and in the succeeding year the Confessio Saxonica, in which he had gained courage to entirely repudiate the concessions of the Interim, In 1552 he was engaged in a controversy with Osiander, who had confounded justi- fication with sanctificatioii ; in 1553 he publislied brief treatises against Schwenckfeldt and Stancar, and in 1554 his Examen Ordinandorum, a brief outline of doctrinal, ethical, and polemical theology, for the use of candi- dates for the ministry. His efforts during his last years to unite the followers of Calvin with those of Luther, and his attendance at another religious conference at Worms (1557) with the papists, were equally unsuc- cessful.