In the directions he therein gave for the examination of pastors and preachers he modified to such an extent the asperities of the Lutheran principles that he was accused of reacting in the direction of Catholicism, particularly by the stress he laid on the motive of fear of God’s punishments, on greater earnestness in penance and on the keeping of the “law.” Luther’s preaching of the glad Evangel had dazzled people and made them forgetful of the “law” and Commandments. According to Melanchthon this was in great part the fault of the Lutheran preachers. “In their addresses to the people,” he complains in 1526, “they barely mention the fear of God. Yet this, and not faith alone, is what they ought to teach.... On the other hand, they are all the more zealous in belabouring the Pope.” Besides this they are given to fighting with each other in the pulpit; the authorities ought to see that only the “more reasonable are allowed to preach and that the others hold their tongues, according to Paul’s injunction.”[1065] “They blame our opponents,” he writes of these same preachers in 1528, “for merely serving their bellies by their preaching, but they themselves appear only to work for their own glory, so greatly do they allow themselves to be carried away by anger.”[1066] “The depravity of the country population” he declares in a letter of the same year to be intolerable; it must necessarily call down the heavy hand of God’s chastisement. “The deepest hatred of the Gospel” was, however, to be found “in those who play the part of our patrons and protectors.” Here he is referring to certain powerful ones; he also laments “the great indifference of the Court.” All this shows the end to be approaching: “Believe me, the Day of Judgment is not far distant.” “When I contemplate the conditions of our age, I am troubled beyond belief.”[1067] Regarding his recommendation of penance and confession during the Visitations, a conversation which he relates to Camerarius as having taken place at the table of a highly placed patron of the innovations, is very characteristic. A distinguished guest having complained of this recommendation, the patron chimed in with the remark, that the people must “hold tight to the freedom they had secured, otherwise they would again be reduced to servitude by the theologians”; the latter were little by little re-introducing the old traditions. Thus you see, Melanchthon adds, “how, not only our enemies, but even those who are supposed to be favourably bent, judge of us.”[1068] Yet Melanchthon had merely required a general sort of confession as a voluntary preparation for Holy Communion. Melanchthon was also openly in favour of the penalty of excommunication; in order to keep a watch on the preachers he introduced the system of Superintendents.