Melanchthon descended from South Germany, Luther from North Germany; the one from
the well-to-do middle classes of citizens and artisans, the other from the rough but sturdy peasantry.
Melanchthon had a quiet, literary preparation for his work: Luther experienced much hardship and
severe moral conflicts. The former passed to his Protestant conviction through the door of classical
studies, the latter through the door of monastic asceticism; the one was fore-ordained to a professor’s
chair, the other to the leadership of an army of conquest.
Luther best understood and expressed the difference of temper and character; and it is one
of his noble traits, that he did not allow it to interfere with the esteem and admiration for his younger
friend and colleague. "I prefer the books of Master Philippus to my own," he wrote in 1529.^224 "I
am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike. I am born to fight against innumerable
monsters and devils. I must remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles and thorns, and clear the
wild forests; but Master Philippus comes along softly and gently, sowing and watering with joy,
according to the gifts which God has abundantly bestowed upon him."
Luther was incomparably the stronger man of the two, and differed from Melanchthon as
the wild mountain torrent differs from the quiet stream of the meadow, or as the rushing tempest
from the gentle breeze, or, to use a scriptural illustration, as the fiery Paul from the contemplative
John. Luther was a man of war, Melanchthon a man of peace. Luther’s writings smell of powder;
his words are battles; he overwhelms his opponents with a roaring cannonade of argument, eloquence,
passion, and abuse. Melanchthon excels in moderation and amiability, and often exercised a happy
restraint upon the unmeasured violence of his colleague. Once when Luther in his wrath burst out
like a thunderstorm, Melanchthon quieted him by the line, —
"Vince animos iramque tuam qui caetera vincis."
Luther was a creative genius, and pioneer of new paths; Melanchthon, a profound scholar
of untiring industry. The one was emphatically the man for the people, abounding in strong and
clear sense, popular eloquence, natural wit, genial humor, intrepid courage, and straightforward
honesty. The other was a quiet, considerate, systematic thinker; a man of order, method, and taste,
and gained the literary circles for the cause of the Reformation. He is the principal founder of a
Protestant theology, and the author of the Augsburg Confession, the chief symbol of the Lutheran
Church. He very properly represented the evangelical cause in all the theological conferences with
the Roman-Catholic party at Augsburg, Speier, Worms, Frankfort, Ratisbon, where Luther’s presence
would only have increased the heat of controversy, and widened the breach. Luther was unyielding
and uncompromising against Romanism and Zwinglianism: Melanchthon was always ready for
compromise and peace, as far as his honest convictions would allow, and sincerely labored to restore
the broken unity of the Church. He was even willing, as his qualified subscription to the Articles
of Smalcald shows, to admit a certain supremacy of the Pope (jure humano), provided he would
tolerate the free preaching of the gospel. But Popery and evangelical freedom will never agree.
Luther was the boldest, the most heroic and commanding; Melanchthon, the most gentle,
pious, and conscientious, of the Reformers. Melanchthon had a sensitive and irritable temperament,
though under good control, and lacked courage; he felt, more keenly and painfully than any other,
the tremendous responsibility of the great religious movement in which he was engaged. He would
have made any personal sacrifice if he could have removed the confusion and divisions attendant
(^224) In his preface to Melanchthon’s Commentary on Colossians.