PHILIP, born at Bretten in the Palatinate in 1495, was one of the wisest and most able men of his age among the reformers, though of a mild temper, and disposed to accommodate rather than to inflame disputes. In his youth he made an admirable progress in learning, and was made Greek professor 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. Melanchthon reduced the sciences to systems; and acquired such reputation, that he had sometimes 2,500 auditors. He soon entered into an intimate friendship with Luther, who taught divinity in the same university; and in 1519 they went together to Leipzig, to dispute with Ecchus. The following years he was continually engaged in various employments; he composed several books; he taught divinity; took several journeys, in order to found colleges and visit churches; and in 1530 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 was convinced that he was not, like Luther, backward to accommodate the differences between the various sects of Christians. He hated religious disputes, and was drawn into them only through the necessity of the part he was called to act in the world; and therefore would have sacrificed many things to have produced an union among the Protestants. For this reason, Francis I. the French king, 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 though Luther endeavoured to persuade the elector of Saxony to consent to that journey, and though Melanchthon himself desired it, that prince, whether he distrusted Melanchthon's moderation, or was afraid of quarrelling with the emperor Charles V. would never grant his permission. The king of England also in vain desired to see him. Melanchthon, in 1529, assisted at the conferences of Spires. In 1541, he was at the famous conferences at Ratibon. 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; and 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 diffusions raised by Flaccus Illyricus. His last conference with those of the Roman communion was at Worms, in 1557. He died at Wittenberg in 1563, and was interred near Luther. Some days before he died, he wrote upon a piece of paper the reasons which made him look upon death as a happiness; and the chief of them was, that it "delivered him from theological persecutions." Nature had given Melanchthon a peaceable temper, which was but ill suited to the time he was to live in. His moderation served only to be his cross. He was like a lamb in the midst of wolves. Nobody liked his mildness; it looked as if he was lukewarm; and even Luther himself was sometimes angry at it.

Melanchthon was a man in whom many good as well as great qualities were wonderfully united. He had great parts, great learning, great sweetness of temper, moderation, contentedness, and the like, which would have made him very happy in any other times but those in which he lived. He never affected dignities, or honours, or riches, but was rather negligent of all these things; too much so in the opinion of some, considering he had a family; and his son-in-law Sabinus, who was of a more ambitious temper, was actually at variance with him upon this very account. Learning was infinitely obliged to him on many accounts; on none more than this, that, as already observed, he reduced almost all the sciences which had been taught before in a vague irregular manner into systems. Considering the directions of his life, and the infinity of disputes and tumults in which he was engaged, it is astonishing how he could find leisure to write so many books. Their number is prodigious, insomuch 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 says), was postponing his own glory to the advantage of others." His constitution was very weak, and required great tenderness and management; which made Luther, as hot and zealous as he was, blame him for labouring too earnestly in the vineyard.