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