When Melanchthon published his “_Loci communes rerum theologicarum_,” in December, 1521, in this work, which was the technical exposition of Lutheranism at that time, he gave clear expression to the denial of free-will. “All that happens,” he says there, “happens of necessity (‘_necessario eveniunt_’) in accordance with the Divine predestination; there is no such thing as freedom of the will.”[669] Luther praised this work as an “_invictus libellus_,” worthy, not only of immortality, but of taking its place in the canon of the Bible.[670] It was only later that Melanchthon came to a more correct view, making no secret of his rejection of Luther’s determinism. * * * * * It is of interest to note how Luther, in his practical writings and exhortations, passes over his denial of free-will in utter silence. Such a denial would, needless to say, have been out of place in works intended for the furtherance of the Christian life. In admonishing people to keep the commandments of God, to cultivate virtue and practise charity, we must necessarily take free-will for granted. On such occasions, therefore, Luther’s language is the very reverse of that which we have just heard and furnishes a practical proof of the falseness of his theory. Although he had commenced his attacks on free-will in 1516, yet in the practical writings which appeared in 1517 and 1518, in his exposition of the Penitential Psalms, the Our Father and the Ten Commandments, he speaks as though the Christian were free, with the help of grace, to hearken to his exhortations and follow the path of salvation. In his sermons on the Decalogue he even calls the opinion “godless,” that any man is forced by necessity to sin and not rather led to commit it by his own inclination. All that God has made is good and thus all natural inclination is to what is good.[671] And yet, in 1516, he had taught that man of necessity, though not with reluctance, follows his predominating inclination to evil.[672]