ef, defy every moral statute,
--only do not forget to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. His grace is
intended, not for hesitating, craven sinners, but for audacious,
spirited, high-minded criminals.

This, we are asked to believe, is the sentiment of the same Luther who
in his correspondence with Weller declares that he could not if he would
commit a brave sin to spite the devil. Can the reader induce himself to
believe that Luther advised Melanchthon to do what he himself knew was a
moral impossibility to himself because of his relation to God? And again
we put the question which we put in connection with the Weller letters:
What brave sin did Melanchthon actually commit upon being thus advised
by Luther?

One glance at the context, a calm reflection upon the tenor of this
entire passage in the letter to Melanchthon, suffices to convince every
unbiased reader that Luther is concerned about Melanchthon as he was
about Weller: he fears his young colleague is becoming a prey to morbid
self-incrimination. It is again a case of "Puppensuenden" being expanded
till they seem ethical monstrosities. But, as the opening words of the
paragraph show, Luther had another purpose in writing to Melanchthon as
he did. Melanchthon was a public preacher and expounder of the doctrine
of evangelical grace. He must not preach that doctrine mincingly,
haltingly. Is that possible? Indeed, it is. Just as there are preachers
afraid to preach the divine Law and to tell men that they are under the
curse of God and merit damnation, so there are preachers afraid,
actually afraid, to preach the full Gospel, without any limiting clauses
and provisos. Just as there are teachers of Christianity who promptly
put on the soft pedal when they reach the critical point in their public
deliverances where they must reprove sin, and who hate intensive
preaching of the Ten Commandments, so there are evangelical teachers who
dole out Gospel grace in dribbles and homeopathic doses, as if it were
the most virulent poison, of which the sinner must not be given too
much. Luther tells Melanchthon: If you are afraid to draw every stop in
the organ when you play the tune of Love Divine, All Love Excelling, you
had better quit the organ. There are some sinners in this world that
will not understand your faint evangelical whispers; they need to have
the truth that Christ forgives their sins, all their sins,--their worst
sins, blown into them with all the trumpets that ma