“…Lutherans die well” (Part 2 of 3)

      This continues from Part 1. —  Walther now shows exactly where the Catholic paper promoted fiction. Walther and his associates showed an amazing capacity to keep up with what other religious papers were putting out to their people.  And when he witnessed the lies of a Roman Catholic publication, he sprung into action.
      Melanchthon is perhaps known among orthodox Lutherans for his doctrinal weakening against the Roman party after Luther's death.  But in this history, Walther relates a most comforting episode from his life.  Lutherans can be strengthened in their faith when hearing that the author of much of the early portions of the Lutheran Confession was strong in faith with his dying mother.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Roman Catholics live well, but Lutherans die well.

[Part 2; By C.F.W. Walther – Der Lutheraner v. 24, no. 18 (May 1868), p. 139]

The opposite of this narrative is the truth about Melanchthon’s mother, who remarried twice after the early death of Melanchthon's father, did not become Lutheran, but remained in the Catholic Church for the sake of her strictly Catholic husbands until shortly before her death. She had even let one of her daughters from her second marriage become a nun in Neuenburg.

But when at the beginning of March of 1529 Melanchthon traveled to the fashionable Diet of Speyer [Speier, Spires] with the Elector of Saxony and finding that it was delayed, he had to spend his free time with his old mother and his eager Lutheran brother George Schwarzerd, in Bretten, who was the mayor there. He found his elderly mother was near death. However, she asked her son what to believe among the scholars’ quarrels in order to be able to die peacefully. What did Melanchthon do?  He asked her, while near death, what she prayed for and what she believed.  

Now when she confessed that she was relying on nothing but the precious merit and blood of her dear Lord Jesus ​​Christ and addressed her prayers to him alone, Melanchthon strengthened her in her faith and assured her that she would die peacefully in these beliefs.

This is exactly the striking proof that, although Roman Catholics live well, Lutherans die well. For in her life she had relied on her miserable works, and, instead of Christ alone, called on Mary and other saints and sought their help. But in her death, as did once the dying Duke George of Saxony, she threw this all away, and in a good Lutheran way would become justified and blessed before God alone by believing in Jesus ​​Christ. –

= = = = = = = = =  concluded in Part 3  = = = = = = = = =

      Just as the Florida martyrs were not actually Lutherans but Calvinists (Huguenots), so Melanchthon’s mother was not Lutheran, but remained Roman Catholic during her life.  Ah, but she would die well, and so died a Lutheran.  So died all the Lutheran Martyrs.
      Walther interjects a bit of church history that is omitted almost everywhere else in the histories of the Reformation.  It is the strikingly similar situation of the notorious Duke George (or George the Bearded), who relentlessly persecuted the Lutherans during his lifetime as a Roman Catholic.  But in death, he turned “Lutheran”.  This is related elsewhere by Franz Pieper in his Christian Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 255: "Duke George of Saxony died confessing the doctrine of justification by faith which throughout his life he had denied over against Luther."
      A member of the LC-MS contacted me privately some time ago thanking me for my blog. Their past family history included Lutherans, Roman Catholics and then there were Southern Baptists, but now this person turned Lutheran. May this series be a comfort to them as a Lutheran.
      In the concluding Part 3, Walther shows that he is not yet done with his "fable busting" of Roman Catholics.