MELANCTHON (ScιιwAκτzERn),PHiLn ’,bornat Bretten in the Palatinate, in 1495, was one of the wisest and most able men amongst the reformers, though of a mild temper, and disposed to accommodate rather than to inflame disputes. In his youth he made great progress in learning, and was appointed professor of Greek at Wittenberg in 1509∙ Here his lectures upon Homer and the Greek text of St. Paul’s epistle to Titus, drew to him a great number of auditors, and entirely effaced the contempt to which his low stature and mean appearance had exposed him. Melancthon reduced the sciences to system, and acquired such reputation, that he had sometimes between two and three thousand auditors. He soon formed an intimate friendship with Luther, who taught divinity in the same university; and in 1519 they went together to Leipzig, to dispute with Eccius. The following years he was continually engaged in various employments; he composed several books; he taught divinity; he performed several journeys, in order to found colleges and visit churches; and in 1530 he drew up a confession of faith, which goes by the name of the Confession of Augsburg, because it was presented to the emperor at the diet held in that city. All Europe felt convinced that he was not, like Luther, backward to accommodate the differences between the various sects of Christians. He hated religious disputes, into which he was drawn only from necessity by the part which he was called to act in the world; and he would therefore have sacrificed many things to produce an union amongst the Protestants. For this reason, Francis I. wrote to desire him to come and confer with the doctors of the Sorbonne, in order to agree with them about putting an end to all controversies; but although Luínér endeavoured to persuade the Elector of Saxony to consent to that journey, and though Melancthon himself desired it, that prince, whether distrusting Melancthon’s moderation, or afraid of quarrelling with the Emperor Charles V., refused to grant his permission. The king of England, Henry VIII., also desired to see him, but in vain. In 1529 Melancthon assisted at the conferences of Spires; and in 1541 he was present at the famous conferences at Ratisbon. In 1543 he went to meet the archbishop of Cologne, to assist him in introducing the reformation into his diocese; but that project came to nothing. In 1548 he assisted at seven conferences on the subject of the Interim of Charles V., and wrote a censure on that Interim, and all the writings presented at these conferences. He was extremely affected at the dissensions excited by Flaccus Illyricus. His last conference with those of the Roman Catholic communion tookplace at Worms, in 1557. He died at Wittenberg in the year 1560, and was interred near Luther. Some days before his death, he wrote upon a piece of paper the reasons which induced him to look upon death as a happiness; the chief of which was, that it would deliver him from theological persecutions. Nature had given Melancthon a peaceable and moderate temper, which was but ill suited to the time in which he lived. His moderation served only to increase his troubles. He was like a lamb in the midst of wolves. Nobody liked his mildness; it appeared as if he was lukewarm; and even Luther himself was sometimes exasperated against him. Melancthon was a man in whom many good as well as great qualities were united. He had parts and learning, sweetness of temper, moderation, contentedness, and other virtues, which would have made him happy in any times but those in which he lived. He never affected dignities, or honours, or riches, but was rather negligent of all these things, indeed, too much so in the opinion of some, considering he had a family; and his son-in-law Sabinus, who possessed a more ambitious temper, was actually at variance with him upon this very account. Learning was on many accounts infinitely obliged to him; but on none more than this, that, as already observed, he reduced almost all the sciences which had been previously taught in a vague irregular manner into system. Considering the distractions of his life, and the infinity of disputes and tumults in which he was engaged, it is astonishing how he found leisure to write so many books. Their number was so great, that it was thought necessary to publish a chronological catalogue of them in the year 1582. His works indeed are not correct, and he himself owned it; but as he found them useful, he chose rather to print a great number, than to finish only a few, “which, however,” as Bayle observes, “was postponing his own glory to the advantage of others.” His constitution was very weak, and required great tenderness and management; a circumstance which made Luther, fiery and zealous as he was, blame him for labouring too earnestly in the vineyard.