But let this be as it may, we ask finally: Can those who cultivate church fellowship with notorious false teachers, if they profess themselves in the main to the teaching of our church, rightly refer to the fact that Luther too carried a Melanchthon? — We answer: Impossible! It is true, if one goes a little deeper into the history of Melanchthon's behavior during the last ten years of Luther's life, such a bleak picture of Melanchthon presents itself to the eye that one must ask oneself with astonishment how it was possible that there was no decisive break between the two men. And we confess that it cost us no small effort, and that it was only our duty not to let our Luther be defiled without contradiction while still in his grave, and to prevent soul-destroying abuse of his name, that prompted us to collect and add one train after another to the drafting of that picture.
How much would we have preferred to be able to help that only the memory of Melanchthon should be kept alive from the time of his faithfulness and blessed efficacy, but that the memory of him from the time of his softening and falling should be wiped out and buried forever! May those who, instead of seeking consolation for their syncretism in the Melanchthon who once faithfully stood by his teacher Luther, seek consolation in the Melanchthon who secretly machinates against Luther but publicly professes his faith in him and his teaching, take responsibility for forcing faithful disciples of Luther to draw to the light what they would so gladly see covered up. Luther “carried” Melanchthon with a love that turned everything for the best and hoped for everything, as it is rarely found among Christians. [But Walther had this same love, also Pieper!] But to say that Luther carried Melanchthon as a false teacher who had been revealed before him is contrary to all historical, actual truth and a cruel blasphemy of Luther, the faithful confessor of the pure truth and unbending fighter of any falsification of it until his death.
Of a man like Melanchthon, who continuously did everything to make Luther believe that he agreed with him in doctrine,
of a man whom, as often as his deviations became apparent to him, Luther seriously reproached,
of a man who, as often as he was reproached, gave way,
of a man who himself lamented, time and again at that time, that he must go forth next to Luther as if under a threatening thunderstorm gathering over his head (page 373), who always feared that he had betrayed himself, to be called to account by Luther and, when Luther polemicized from lectern and pulpit, to be the target,
finally, of a man who, even after Luther's death, told Carlowitz what an unbearable “almost shameful servitude” he had endured under Luther —
to say of such a man, that Luther had carried him as a false teacher who had become obvious, to make him an example for us “from the fundamental time of the Reformation”, would be downright ridiculous, if it were not so sad. But it is to be ascribed to Luther, the Reformer awakened and sealed by God, that he boldly condemned all others who harbored Melanchthon's errors as false prophets and therefore as ravening wolves. But that he “carried” and overlooked these same errors in Melanchthon out of special friendship, from which God graciously preserves every Lutheran — to him who does such, God grant sincere repentance. W. [C. F. W. Walther]
"without addressing the historical problem involved in Luther's toleration of such [confusing] expressions".
.jpg "Georg Major")
![do away with some points in his [Melanchthon's] Locis](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh02prXv322jPiFeblZ79CWNRk-enbOCfe-6yAdOmxewQwEwhEhQ4nMlnUrQxVhXWLJCfWBgSf66LLN8NM2lIt37QH9eJPF1gRzEbJ7FGlOazFJq_7qWXGFdfWSlWU-zmaVrUGEarPlD4oWFfyg1E0uIYRguI61k-mhfCE6s15oVQ8KUIDFcjniqCk/s135/do%20away%20with%20some%20points%20in%20his%20Locis.jpg "do away with some points in his [Melanchthon's] Locis")
