Reuss.

In order to preserve peace with the Romanists at Augsburg in 1530, he
did not hesitate to sacrifice Lutheran truths and to receive into the
bargain a number of what he considered minor papal errors. In his
subsequent overtures to the Reformed he was more than willing to make
similar concessions. The spirit of Melanchthon was the spirit of
religious indifference and of unionism, which, though thoroughly
eliminated by the Formula of Concord, was from time to time revived
within the Lutheran Church by such men as Calixtus, Spener, Zinzendorf,
Neander, and, in our own country, by S. S. Schmucker.

The unionistic tendencies and doctrinal corruptions which Melanchthon
injected into Lutheranism were all the more dangerous to our Church
because they derived special weight and prestige from the fact that
Luther had unstintingly praised his gifts, his books, and the services
he had rendered the Church (St. L. 18, 1671; 23, 1152), that he was now
generally regarded as Luther's successor with regard to theological
leadership of the Church; and that he was gratefully admired as the
Praeceptor Germaniae by a host of loyal pupils, who made it a point also
to cultivate just those theological peculiarities of Master Philip, as
they called him, in which he differed from Luther.

135. Melanchthon's "Shameful Servitude."

That Melanchthon failed our Church in the Interim emergency as well as
in the subsequent controversies is generally ascribed to the fact that
he lacked the bracing influence and assistance of Luther. No doubt,
there is a good deal of truth in this assumption. But the true reason
why he did not measure up to the demands of the times and the
expectations of our Church were not mere moral weaknesses, but rather
the errors and false principles to which he was wedded. How could
Melanchthon have approved himself a leader of the Lutherans when he was
out of sympathy with them, doubted some of their most cherished
doctrines, and long ago had struck out on a path deviating from that
mapped out by Luther? True, the bracing which he received from Luther in
the past had repeatedly kept him from publicly sacrificing the truth,
but even in these instances he did not always yield because he was
really convinced, but because he feared the uncompromising spirit of
Luther.

That fear of an open conflict with Luther which, he felt, would result
in a crushing defeat for himself, bulked large among the motives which
prompted hi