, in hac enim causa libentius
versor, quantum favet tempus et otium._" (E. v. a. 7, 367. 137; St. L.
18, 1967; Pieper, _Dogm._ 2, 543.) And so the Synergists, who renewed
the doctrine of Erasmus, also flew at the throat of Christianity.
Genuine Lutheranism would have been strangled if synergism had emerged
victorious from this great controversy of grace versus free will.

154. The Father of Synergism.

During the first period of his activity in Wittenberg, Melanchthon was
in perfect agreement with Luther also on the question of man's inability
in spiritual matters and the sole activity, or monergism, of grace in
the work of his salvation. As late as 1530 he incorporated these views
in the _Augsburg Confession,_ as appears, in particular, from Articles
II, V, XVIII, and XIX. His later doctrine concerning the three
concurring causes of conversion (the Holy Spirit, the Word, and the
consenting will of man), as well as his theory explaining
synergistically, from an alleged dissimilar action in man, the
difference why some are saved while others are lost, is not so much as
hinted at in the Confession. But even at this early date (1530) or soon
after, Melanchthon also does not seem any longer to have agreed
whole-heartedly with Luther in the doctrine of grace and free will. And
in the course of time his theology drifted farther and farther from its
original monergistic moorings. Nor was Luther wholly unaware of the
secret trend of his colleague and friend toward--Erasmus. In 1536, when
the deviations of Melanchthon and Cruciger, dealt with in our previous
chapter, were brought to his notice, Luther exclaimed: "_Haec est
ipsissima theologia Erasmi._ This is the identical theology of Erasmus,
nor can there be anything more opposed to our doctrine." (Kolde,
_Analecta,_ 266.)

That Melanchthon's theology was verging toward Erasmus appears from his
letter of June 22, 1537, to Veit Dietrich, in which he said that he
desired a more thorough exposition also of the doctrines of
predestination and of the _consent of the will._ (_C. R._ 3, 383.)
Before this, in his _Commentary on Romans_ of 1532, he had written that
there is some cause of election also in man; _viz._, in as far as he
does not repudiate the grace offered--"_tamen eatenus aliquam causam in
accipiente esse quatenus promissionem oblatam non repudiat_." (Seeberg 4,
442.) In an addition to his _Loci_ of 1533 he also spoke of a cause of
justification and election residing i