the prosecution of these controversies was frequently marred, but
the un-Lutheran spirit and the false principles and doctrines manifested
and defended by the opponents. In so far as divine truth was defended
and error opposed, these controversies were truly wars to end war, and
to establish real peace and true unity within our Church. A cowardly
surrender to the indifferentistic spirit, the unionistic policy, the
false principles, and the erroneous doctrines of the Interimists would
have been tantamount to a complete transformation of our Church and a
total annihilation of genuine Lutheranism.

The manner in which these controversies were conducted, it is true, was
frequently such as to obstruct, rather than further, mutual
understanding and peace. As a rule, it is assumed that only the genuine
Lutherans indulged in unseemly polemical invective, and spoke and wrote
in a bitter and spiteful tone. But the Melanchthonians were to say the
least, equally guilty. And when censuring this spirit of combativeness,
one must not overlook that the ultimate cause of the most violent of
these controversies was the betrayal of the Lutheran Church by the
Interimists; and that the severity of the polemics of the loyal
Lutherans did not, at least not as a rule, emanate from any personal
malice toward Melanchthon, but rather from a burning zeal to maintain
sound Lutheranism, and from the fear that by the scheming and the
indifference of the Philippists the fruits of Luther's blessed work
might be altogether lost to the coming generations. The "peace-loving"
Melanchthon started a conflagration within his own church in order to
obtain a temporal and temporary peace with the Romanists; while the
loyal Lutherans, inasmuch as they fought for the preservation of genuine
Lutheranism, stood for, and promoted, a truly honorable, godly, and
lasting peace on the basis of eternal truth. And while the latter fought
honestly and in the open, the Philippists have never fully cleared
themselves from the charges of duplicity, dishonesty, and dissimulation.

133. Melanchthon Prime Mover of Conflicts.

The Leipzig Interim was the signal for a general and prolonged warfare
within the Lutheran Church. It contained the germs of various doctrinal
errors, and produced a spirit of general distrust and suspicion, which
tended to exaggerate and multiply the real differences. Schmauk says:
"The seeds of the subsequent controversies are all to be found in the
Lei