He thus became the author of the earliest Protestant Body of Divinity. In its first form it was published at Wittenberg in 1521. If I must say what I think was Melanchthon's greatest service to the great cause to which he had given himself, I know none which is better entitled to this designation than his System of Theology, published less than four years after the nailing of the theses. In the lecture-room the Loci Communes must be subjected to criticism, and the points at which it seems to us to depart from the teaching of Holy Scripture must be indicated. But to-day it is our high privilege to commemorate without criticism the greatness of the work he did, who thus lifted the Reformation above the level of a negative protest, and gave to it the dignity and the strength which belong to every movement supported by a great and positive system of truth, based on the word of God and the Fathers. "The continuity of Christian thought thus testified to is," as President Warfield has well said, "one of the most important services of Melanchthon's life, and it was this which gave the Reformation its hold upon the educated and thoughtful men of Germany." 99 1 Of course, we must agree with the statement, so often made, that Luther's was the great creative mind. But for the impulse given by Luther, the Loci Communes would never have been written. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that while, "in reference to some single doctrines," and these the most important, as the rule of faith and justification by faith, "Luther had great insight, acuteness, and logical strength," he had not the constructive and systematizing gift. As Dr. Shedd well says, "His power as a theologian did not lie in systematizing, but rather in penetrating and deep views of particular truths. He was inferior to Melanchthon and to Calvin in the ability to combine doctrines into a scientific whole." We have a right, therefore, in estimating the value of the Loci Communes, to add to its absolute necessity at the juncture at which it appeared the fact that it was a work for which Luther was unfitted. It required a larger culture, a severer discipline, and a calmer temperament than he possessed. 1 Presbyterian and Reformed Review, January, 1897. It is to be remembered, too, to its praise, that it was the first systematic construction of Christian doctrine for centuries, that rested on, as it sprang directly out of, careful exegetical study. Dr. Farrar goes so far as to say that it is the development of his exegetical lectures on the Epistle to the Romans. It is easy for those who have not examined them to make light of the great Summæ Theologiæ of the mediæval schoolmen; but I do not believe that any candid man can study the greatest of them, that of Thomas Aquinas, without admiration for his logical and constructive genius. That the system which they embody is capable of being synthesized in loftiest literary forms, the Divine Comedy is the abundant demonstration. It is when we test them by Holy Scripture, when we note their crudities in exegesis, when we mark the employment of any one of the fourfold senses which the Bible is made to bear, that we sympathize with Erasmus in his attacks upon their hæccitates and quidditates, and understand how great a boon to the church of God was this first of the scriptural systems of theology produced by the Reformation. As Melanchthon was the author of the Reformation's first body of divinity, so he wrote the first of its great creeds. The Augsburg Confession does not express the faith of united Protestantism. It was composed and presented to the Imperial Diet after the sacramentarian controversy had divided the forces opposed to Rome. But, with the exception of the articles in which it is polemic against the Reformed doctrine of the Lord's supper, it has been signed by Farel and Beza and Calvin. Luther could not be present at the Imperial Diet. The ban which had been put upon him ten years before had not been removed. Upon Melanchthon, therefore, was devolved the duty of formulating the Confession and the Apology of the Protestant Princes. In the performance of this great and critical duty he rose above himself. Its emphasis of what is positive, its restraint in what is negative and polemical, the dignity of its style, the careful marshalling of the scriptural proofs, and the deep religious feeling which underlies and informs the document, give to this earliest Reformation symbol the first place, on the whole, among the creeds of an era more fruitful in creed-statements than any other in the church's history. No doubt the substance of the Confession can be found in earlier documents, of which Luther was the chief author; but, as Dr. Schaff has well said, "Melanchthon's scholarly and methodical mind freely reproduced and elaborated it into its final shape and form, and his gentle, peaceful spirit breathed into it a moderate, conservative tone." And these, when the circumstances of its promulgation are considered, are qualities of the highest value. The Reformation had gained tremendously since the Diet of Worms; but after the first Diet of Spires, in 1526, when the principle of cujus regio ejus religio was announced, the forces in the empire opposed to Protestantism began to organize against the Reformation. A year before the Augsburg Diet, it had been ordered that the Lutheran forward movement cease, and that the status quo be maintained. The protest of the Lutherans had been offered, and now, in the face of a Diet overwhelmingly Roman, the Protestants were summoned to define their faith. It needed a calm temper, a discriminating mind, and a fine and firm hand, to compose a document which would be true to truth, on the one hand, and would give no occasion to frenzy, on the other. And it was the composition of just such a document that Melanchthon achieved in the Augsburg Confession. "The Romanists," says d'Aubignè, "expected nothing like it. Instead of a hateful controversy, they heard a striking confession of Jesus Christ." It united the German Protestants, and it divided the forces of Rome. We need not wonder that a document with such a passage in its history should be deeply venerated by the great communion out of which it sprang, and that the cry, "Back to the unchanged Augsburg Confession!" should rally so many of its ablest theologians. The relation of Melanchthon to the translation of the Scriptures into German was intimate and important. He was Luther's closest and most highly valued coadjutor. He was Luther's preceptor in both Hebrew and Greek. To Luther is due the great literary merit of the translation, especially the qualities which make it the book of the German people. To him German scholars, doubtless with justice, attribute the high service of giving firmness and consistency to their tongue through this priceless version. But though, in all this work, Melanchthon is in the background, the support and the encouragement which he gave to Luther at its inception, and through all the work until its completion, entitle him to be remembered, next to Luther himself, as the man who gave to Germany in her own tongue the Holy Scriptures. I cannot speak of Melanchthon's Commentaries except at second hand. It must be said that modern commentators do not quote him with the frequency or mention him with the respect with which, for example, they quote or mention Chrysostom among the Fathers, or John Calvin among the Reformers. Dean Farrar, in his History of Interpretation, devotes to him only two or three lines. Perhaps, as Dean Farrar thinks, his dogmatic views too thoroughly dominated him as an interpreter. Perhaps his labors were too various to enable him to give sufficient reflection to the work. Haste and haste to Melanchthon was a necessity-must greatly mar the work of the exegete. Close study, where so many things must be considered and compared, is not more needed than prolonged reflection. Perhaps, with all his other gifts, he lacked the peculiar genius of the exegete. Perhaps he began to publish too early, at a time, when, though his powers of acquisition were exceptional, his judgment was not matured. But whatever is thought of his Commentaries to-day, Luther valued them most highly; and they did a great work for the Reformation. Melanchthon's Romans Luther recommended as a textbook for all students. But the greatest of the special services Melanchthon rendered to the Reformation I take to have been his daily lectures in the University. His great learning, his various culture, his engaging personality, his lucid speech, his deep religious life, his fine simplicity of character, made him through all his life the most popular of teachers. He lectured often to fifteen hundred or two thousand educated men, and on the highest themes. He was the most learned German of his day, he employed his learning to advance the cause of the evangelical faith. His works are published in twenty-eight quarto volumes; and the works of no man are more thoroughly unified by a single purpose, or more thoroughly pervaded by the same abiding spirit. When I think of 1 Corpus Reformatorum. 1 him, day after day for more than forty years, directing, inspiring, informing, edifying these educated minds, from the principalities of Germany, from the Cantons of Switzerland, from France and from Great Britain; when I add to these daily lectures the thousands of letters, in which he cheered and informed and consoled the minds of those whom he had taught, I do not wonder that he gained the high title of Preceptor of Germany. I only wonder whether we have the right to say that even Luther's influence was greater than was his. Even if I had the time to do so, I am in no mood to-day to dwell upon his weaknesses and mistakes. There were times when he came, to say the least, perilously near to yielding truth in the interest of a merely external unity. Certainly I could not defend the Leipzig Interim. But even his failings leaned to virtue's side. Greatly as it is to be deplored, in his case at least, it must be said that the tendency to compromise sprang, not from lack of belief in the value of the truth, but from love of the whole body of Christ. Those who were more profoundly The Christianity His trust in his But the man was greater than his activities. brought into personal contact with him were impressed by his goodness than by his learning. he taught he lived; and in its faith he died. Redeemer never faltered through the painful and prolonged sickness by which he was brought to the grave. It is interesting to learn that the words which during his illness he repeated oftenest were the words: "Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Just before he died he gave expression to his confidence that, through the merits of his Lord, he would be admitted to heaven. How often, on occasions like the one by which we are assembled, have been repeated the eloquent words of Pericles, in the great funeral oration at Athens: "The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men. Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men." Never were they more appropriately repeated than now. Graven deep in the hearts of men, |