This reply must necessarily hasten the arrival of Charles; and it was urgent they should be prepared to receive him. To explain what they believe, and then be silent, was the whole plan of the Protestant campaign. A confession was therefore necessary. One man, of small stature, frail, timid, and in great alarm, was commissioned to prepare this instrument of war. Philip Melancthon worked at it night and day: he weighed every expression, softened it down, changed it, and then frequently returned to his first idea. He was wasting away his strength; his friends trembled lest he should die over his task; and Luther enjoined him, as early as the 12th of May, under pain of anathema, to take measures for the preservation of "his little body," and not "to commit suicide for the love of God."[380] "God is as usefully served by repose," added he, "and indeed man never serves him better than by keeping himself tranquil. It is for this reason God willed that the Sabbath should be so strictly observed."[381]
PREPARATION OF THE CONFESSION.
Notwithstanding these solicitations, Melancthon's application augmented, and he set about an exposition of the christian faith, at once mild, moderate, and as little removed as possible from the doctrine of the Latin Church. At Coburg he had already put his hand to the task, and traced out in the first part the doctrines of the faith, according to the articles of Schwabach; and in the second, the abuses of the Church, according to the articles of Torgau, making altogether quite a new work. At Augsburg he gave a more correct and elegant form to this confession.[382]
The Apology, as it was then called, was completed on the 11th May; and the Elector sent it to Luther, begging him to mark what ought to be changed. "I have said what I thought most useful," added Melancthon, who feared that his friend would find the confession too weak; "for Eck ceases not to circulate against us the most diabolical calumnies, and I have endeavoured to oppose an antidote to his poisons."[383]
Luther replied to the Elector on the 15th May: "I have read Magister Philip's Apology; I like it well enough, I have no corrections to make. Besides, that would hardly suit me, for I cannot walk so meekly and so silently. May Christ our Lord grant that this work may produce much and great fruit."
Each day, however, the Elector's councillors and theologians, in concert with Melancthon, improved the confession, and endeavoured to render it such that the charmed diet should, in its own despite, hear it to the very end.[384]
LUTHER'S SINAI.
While the struggle was thus preparing at Augsburg, Luther at Coburg, on the summit of the hill, "on his Sinai," as he called it, raised his hands like Moses towards heaven.[385] He was the real general of the spiritual war that was then waging; his letters ceased not to bear to the combatants the directions which they needed, and numerous pamphlets issuing from his stronghold, like discharges of musketry, spread confusion in the enemy's camp.
The place where he had been left was, by its solitude, favourable to study and to meditation.[386] "I shall make a Zion of this Sinai," said he on the 22d April, "and I shall build here three tabernacles; one to the Psalms, one to the Prophets, and one——to Esop!" This last word is a startling one. The association belongs neither to the language nor the spirit of the Apostles. It is true that Esop was not to be his principal study: the fables were soon laid aside, and truth alone engaged Luther. "I shall weep, I shall pray, I shall never be silent," wrote he, "until I know that my cry has been heard in heaven."[387]
Besides, by way of relaxation, he had something better than Esop; he had those domestic joys whose precious treasures the Reformation had opened to the ministers of the Word. It was at this time he wrote that charming letter to his infant son, in which he describes a delightful garden where children dressed in gold are sporting about, picking up apples, pears, cherries, and plums; they sing, dance, and enjoy themselves, and ride pretty little horses, with golden bridles and silver saddles.[388]