Note 689 — Chapter VI

Amsdorfius Luthero scripsit, viperam eum in sinu alere, me significans, omitto alia multa. Epist. Melanchthon, p. 450 (edit. 1647). Luther’s temper seems to have grown more impracticable as he advanced in life. Melanchthon threatened to leave him. Amsdorf and that class of men flattered his pride. See the following letters. In one, written about 1549, he says: Tuli etiam antea servitutem pæne deformem, cum sæpe Lutherus magis suæ naturæ, in qua φιλονεικια erat haud exigua, quam vel personæ suæ, vel utilitati communi serviret, p. 21. This letter is too apologetical and temporising. Nec movi has controversias quæ distraxerunt rempublicam; sed incidi in motas, quæ cum et multæ essent et inexplicatæ, quodam simplici studio quaerendæ veritatis, præsertim cum multi docti et sapientes initio applauderent, considerare eas cœpi. Et quamquam materias quasdam horridiores autor initio miscuerat, tamen alia vera et necessaria non putavi rejicienda esse. Hæc cum excerpta amplecterer, paulatim aliquas absurdas opiniones vel sustuli vel lenii. Melanchthon should have remembered, that no one had laid down these opinions with more unreserve, or in a more horrid way of disputation than himself in the first edition of his Loci Communes. In these and other passages, he endeavours to strike at Luther for faults which were equally his own, though doubtless not so long persisted in.