At the time when the Confession was printed it had already long been clear to him that the principal exponent of the doctrine of grace in the ancient Church, viz. St. Augustine, was against the Protestant conception of justification.
On this subject he expressed himself openly at the end of May, 1531, in a confidential letter to Brenz. Here he speaks of the doctrine of Augustine as “a fancy from which we must turn aside our mind (‘animus revocandus ab Augustini imaginatione’)”; his ideas disagreed with St. Paul’s doctrine; whoever followed Augustine must teach like him, “that we are regarded as just by God, through fulfilling the commandments under the action of the Holy Ghost, and not through faith alone.”[1093]
In spite of this, Melanchthon, in the “Confessio Augustana,” had the courage to appeal publicly to Augustine as the most prominent and clearest witness to the Lutheran view of faith and justification, and this he did almost at the very time when penning the above letter, viz. in April or May, 1531, when the first draft of the “Confessio” was sent to the press.[1094] According to the authentic version, Melanchthon’s words were: “That, concerning the doctrine of faith, no new interpretation had been introduced, could be proved from Augustine, who treats diligently of this matter and teaches that we obtain grace and are justified before God by faith in Christ and not by works, as his whole book ‘De Spiritu et littera’ proves.”[1095]
The writer of these words felt it necessary to explain to Brenz why he had ventured to claim this Father as being in “entire agreement.” He had done so because this was “the general opinion concerning him (‘propter publicam de eo persuasionem’),[1096] though, as a matter of fact, he did not sufficiently expound the justificatory potency of faith.” The “general opinion” was, however, merely a groundless view invented by Luther and his theologians and accepted by a certain number of those who blindly followed him. In the Apology of the Confession, he continues, “I expounded more fully the doctrine [of faith alone], but was not able to speak there as I do now to you, although, on the whole, I say the same thing; it was not to be thought of on account of the calumnies of our opponents.” Thus in the Apology also, even when it was a question of the cardinal point of the new teaching, Melanchthon was of set purpose having recourse to dissimulation. If he had only to fear the calumnies of opponents, surely his best plan would have been to silence them by telling them in all frankness what the Lutheran position really was; otherwise he had no right to stigmatise their attack on weak points of Luther’s doctrine as mere calumnies. Yet, even in the “Apologia,” he appeals repeatedly to Augustine in order to shelter the main Lutheran contentions concerning faith, grace, and good works under the ægis of his name.[1097]
Melanchthon’s endeavour to secure for Protestantism a place within the older Church and to check the threatened repressive measures, led him to write letters to the Bishop of Augsburg, to Campeggio, the Papal Legate, and to his secretary, in which he declares stoutly, that the restoration of ecclesiastical harmony simply depended on two points, viz. the sanction of communion under both kinds and the marriage of the clergy, as though forsooth the two sides agreed in belief and as though his whole party acknowledged the Pope and the Roman Church.
In the letter to Cardinal Campeggio he even assures him: “We reverence the authority of the Pope of Rome and the whole hierarchy, and only beg he may not cast us off.... For no other reason are we hated as we are in Germany than because we defend and uphold the dogmas of the Roman Church with so much persistence. And this loyalty to Christ and to the Roman Church we shall preserve to our last breath, even should the Church refuse to receive us back into favour.” The words “Roman Church” were not here taken in the ordinary sense, however much the connection might seem to warrant this; Melanchthon really means his pet phantom of the ancient Roman Church, though he saw fit to speak of fidelity to this phantom in the very words in which people were wont to protest their fidelity to the existing Roman Church. He further asked of the Cardinal toleration for the Protestant peculiarities, on the ground that they were “insignificant matters which might be allowed or passed over in silence”; at any rate “some pretext might easily be found for tolerating them, at least until a Council should be summoned.”[1098]
Campeggio and his advisers refused to be led astray by such assurances.
On the other hand, some representatives of the Curia, theologians or dignitaries of the German Church, allowed themselves to be cajoled by Melanchthon’s promises to the extent of entering into negotiations with him in the hope of bringing him back to the Church.[1099] Such was, for instance, in 1537, the position of Cardinal Sadolet.
To Sadolet, Johann Fabri sent the following warning: “Only the man who is clever enough to cure an incurable malady, will succeed in leading Philip—a real Vertumnus and Proteus—back to the right path.”[1100]