CHAPTER XVIII

. LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON

_pages_ 319-378

1. MELANCHTHON IN THE SERVICE OF LUTHERANISM, 1518-30.

What Luther owed to his friend. Their earlier relations; Luther’s unstinted praise; Melanchthon’s apprehensions; his work during the Visitation in 1527; is horrified by Luther’s language to Duke George and saddened by the “Protest” of the dissidents at Spires. Melanchthon at the Diet of Augsburg, 1530. The “Augsburg Confession” and its “Apology” characteristic of the writer; his admission regarding the use he had made of the name of St. Augustine; his letter to Cardinal Campeggio; some contemporaries on Melanchthon’s “duplicity”; the Gospel proviso; Melanchthon judged by modern historians; Luther consoles his friend. The “Erasmian” intermediary _pages_ 319-346

2. DISAGREEMENTS AND ACCORD BETWEEN LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON.

Melanchthon first accepts the whole of Luther’s doctrine, but afterwards deviates from it even in essentials; his antipathy to the denial of freedom and to absolute predestination to hell, to faith alone and to the denial of the value of works. Penance and the motive of fear. Differs from Luther on the question of the Supper and gradually approaches the Zwinglian standpoint. Points of accord with Luther; he shares Luther’s superstition and belief in the Papal Antichrist; has unjustly been accused of being more tolerant than his master; his ideal a pedagogic one _pages_ 346-360

3. MELANCHTHON AT THE ZENITH OF HIS CAREER. HIS MENTAL SUFFERINGS.

His interest in the promotion of studies; his correspondence; his intimacy with Luther; his disappointment; what he disliked in Luther; he meets with little sympathy in Luther’s circle, though Luther’s personal esteem never fails him; the rumour that he was disposed to return to the Catholic fold; his willingness to find congenial employment away from Wittenberg; his tendency to leave religious affairs in the hands of the State _pages_ 360-378

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