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Leonhard Hutter gives a similar listing of the serious errors occurring in Melanchthon's writings in his Concordia Concors, although he too had taken part of the answers from Melanchthon's writings in his Compendium. There he writes:
“As far as the Altered (Augsburg) Confession is concerned, truth-loving readers should note that it confirms Synergism, mixes the Gospel with the Law, perverts the legitimate use of the indifferent things, opens the gates wide to Calvinism, and finally flatters the Roman Pontiff in a servile manner. As for the Loci, … as they are incorporated into the Corpus doctrinae, they are full of the grossest errors. We must judge the same of the Examen ordinandorum, of the Confessio to be delivered to the Tridentine Synod, and of the Responsio ad articulos Bavaricos; and this we prove as follows.
I. In the Locis and in the ‘Examen’ it is asserted: ‘That the Son of God was born of the Father by thinking of Himself’.
II. The Corpus doctrinae asserts: ‘That a real communication of properties is no other than the physical one’ and that it is to be defined <page 101> according to the rule of Theodoret: ‘Union makes names common’. As if only a verbal and not a real sharing of attributes had taken place in the personal union, and as if it could not be a real one if it were not defined by a physical outpouring!
III. He does not place the election only in God's will and mercy, but partly in man's will. For he expressly says: ‘In man there is and must be a cause why some are chosen to salvation, others rejected and condemned’. And again: ‘Since the promise is general and in God there are not contradictory wills, there must necessarily be a cause of difference in us, why a Saul is rejected, a David accepted, that is, in these two there must be an unequal doing.’ In the Locus of free will.
IV. These emblems are diametrically opposed to the orthodox doctrine of free will:
1. ‘That there is a cause in us why some consent to the promise of grace and others do not.’
2. ‘If we comfort ourselves with the promise or with the Gospel and raise ourselves up by faith, the Holy Spirit is given to us at the same time.’ Art. 5. of the Altered [Augsburg] Confession.
3. ‘Spiritual righteousness is worked in us when we are supported by the Holy Spirit.’ Further: ‘We receive the Holy Spirit when we agree with the word of God.' Art. 18. of the Altered [Augsburg] Conf.
4: ‘Free will and reason alone can do nothing in the spiritual.’ Art. 18 of the Altered German [Augsburg] Conf.
5. 'Free will is the ability to send oneself to grace, that is, it hears the promise and strives (conatur) to assent and casts away the sin against conscience from itself.’ Locus on the free will.
6. In conversion, these causes compete: the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, which the Father and the Son send to inflame our hearts, and our consenting will, which is not opposed to the Word of God? Again,
7. In the same Locus, certain sayings of the ancients are cited in defense of free will: ‘Just will, and God will come before you’. Further: ‘God draws, but the willing.’ Further: ‘Grace precedes, the will accompanies’. But this suffices regarding free will.
V. Of the Law of God, the right doctrine of the Word of God is not preserved intact in Philip's Corpus doctrinae, in that sometimes what is the proper office of the Law is ascribed to the Gospel, and these two doctrinal genres are mixed with each other.
VI. The Gospel is sometimes defined in this Corpus as being ‘a preaching of repentance,’ even in so far as it is contrasted with the Law. In the Altered [Augsburg] Conf., in the Locis, in the Definitions, etc.
VII. The same Corpus doctrinae states ‘that faith is partly a work of the Holy Spirit, partly our work,’ as is evident from the above-mentioned phrases of Philip on free will.
VIII. 1. In the whole Corpus doctrinae there is no complete and sufficient definition of the ‘righteousness of faith’.
2. the righteousness <page 102> of the Gospel is imperfectly and ambiguously defined as ‘a light in the heart, which by faith and the knowledge of Christ kindles the mind to the true invocation of God and other godly movements according to the Law, and begins eternal life’.
3. In the definition of the righteousness of faith, no mention is made of the righteousness or obedience of Christ imputed through faith; whereas this imputation alone constitutes the essential (formalis) cause of our justification.
4. Nor is a clear distinction made between imputed righteousness and the new nature begun.
5. In the Locis, Philip does not deal orthodoxly and Lutheranly with the true use of the exclusive particles in the article of justification. For so he writes under the heading: ‘Of the word Grace’: ‘It is to be observed most diligently that the exclusive particle in vain, which is often repeated by Paul, is contained in the definition of grace. But by these exclusives it is indicated that there is a reconciliation for the sake of the Son of God, the Mediator, not for our worthiness, not for our merits, virtues, or actions. But this particle does not exclude the virtues themselves, but excludes the condition of worthiness or merit, and makes the cause of reconciliation the Son of God alone.’
6. The necessity of works for salvation is asserted in the Locus of justification in these words: ‘We say that in those who are to be saved there must be repentance, faith, beginning obedience, or charity.’
7. That works are necessary for the preservation of faith is explained by Philip in the Locus of good works.
IX. Of the sacraments in general he teaches that they are only a sealing of regeneration, not the means by which regeneration takes place.
X. The Corpus doctrinae of Philip does not sufficiently give and explain the doctrine of the Lord's Supper in thesi:
1. Nowhere does he say with Luther that the blessed bread in the use of the sacrament is Christ's true body. Nowhere does he say that Christ's true body is truly enjoyed with the mouth of the body by the partakers. Indeed, he passes over the question about the essence and the essential parts of the Eucharist with profound silence.
2. He completely omits the antithesis against the Sacramentarians; indeed, in the altered tenth article of the Augsburg Confession he has completely obliterated it.
3. In the doctrine of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, he makes use of ambiguous and ambivalent expressions, so that he must be quite obtuse who does not see that here both Lutheranism and Calvinism have a very safe hiding place.
4. After abolishing the definition of the Lord's Supper given by the same Luther, he replaces it with a completely new and almost mysterious one in the ‘Examen’, which neither declares what the same is, nor even reaches the nature of the <page 103> sacraments in any way, but fits the Sacramentarians as well as us like a stage shoe.
XI. Concerning the proper use of indifferent things [adiaphora], Philip has erred gravely and dangerously both in theory and practice.” (Concordia concors p. 344 sqq.)
Thus a Chemnitz and a Hutter report of the great, celebrated teacher within our Church, of Melanchthon, who stood by Luther so faithfully for so many years and was so highly placed by him, indeed, who had been the blessed instrument for the conception of our fundamental Confession and for the adoption of the Apology of the same, to whom now, after Luther's death, not only malicious enemies of the truth but also many excellent men referred. What would have happened to our church, therefore, if this appeal had not been put to an end forever by our church through a solemn declaration? Our church in its visible form would have perished 300 years ago. But, praise God! Our dear Formula of Concord has put an end for all times to all appeal not only to a Melanchthon, but at the same time to the private writings of all, even the most excellent teachers of our church, regarding the Word of God and the Confessions, as well as all allegedly authentic interpretations of the latter on the basis of those writings of our church.
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