The writer of these words felt it necessary to explain to Brenz why he had ventured to claim this Father as being in “entire agreement.” He had done so because this was “the general opinion concerning him (‘_propter publicam de eo persuasionem_’),[1096] though, as a matter of fact, he did not sufficiently expound the justificatory potency of faith.” The “general opinion” was, however, merely a groundless view invented by Luther and his theologians and accepted by a certain number of those who blindly followed him. In the Apology of the Confession, he continues, “I expounded more fully the doctrine [of faith alone], but was not able to speak there as I do now to you, although, on the whole, I say the same thing; it was not to be thought of on account of the calumnies of our opponents.” Thus in the Apology also, even when it was a question of the cardinal point of the new teaching, Melanchthon was of set purpose having recourse to dissimulation. If he had only to fear the calumnies of opponents, surely his best plan would have been to silence them by telling them in all frankness what the Lutheran position really was; otherwise he had no right to stigmatise their attack on weak points of Luther’s doctrine as mere calumnies. Yet, even in the “_Apologia_,” he appeals repeatedly to Augustine in order to shelter the main Lutheran contentions concerning faith, grace, and good works under the ægis of his name.[1097] Melanchthon’s endeavour to secure for Protestantism a place within the older Church and to check the threatened repressive measures, led him to write letters to the Bishop of Augsburg, to Campeggio, the Papal Legate, and to his secretary, in which he declares stoutly, that the restoration of ecclesiastical harmony simply depended on two points, viz. the sanction of communion under both kinds and the marriage of the clergy, as though forsooth the two sides agreed in belief and as though his whole party acknowledged the Pope and the Roman Church.