Softening Luther's hard words: the same right for explaining Calvin, Beza, and the rest
But there is this comfort: beside express Scripture in so many places and examples, the phrases of our Theologians can be set beside Luther's — in On the Bondage of the Will, in his work on the Epistle to the Romans, and elsewhere — or beside Philip Melanchthon's in the Common Places and on Romans, and so on.
If Lutheran brethren charge an invidious reading of those phrases, and then soften Luther's own words — as Sebastian Schmid of Strasbourg did, for example, in his Notes on the Bondage of the Will in 1664 — why should the right they claim for themselves not be allowed to us as well, when we render the phrases and explain the mind of Zwingli, Calvin, Martyr, Beza, and the rest?
That work has been done, besides Masson's German Anatomy, Parts I and II, by Pareus in the Irenicum, page 249; by Wendelin in the Theological Exercises, Exercise XXVI and following; by Hottinger in the Church History, Volume VIII, from page 640 onward; and so on. Even among the Lutherans themselves the recent Rinteln Theologians — already mentioned above — do it in their Apologetic Letter to the Wittenberg Doctors. There they excuse Calvin, because Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, by their own harsh words on Romans chapter 8, equally made God the author of sin, and so on.
Latin
Sed benè est, praeter Scripturam expressam, tot locis & exemplis, conferri posse phrases nostratium Theologorum, cum illis Lutheri, in Libro de Servo Arbitrio, & in Epistolam ad Romanos, atque alibi; aut cum illis Phil. Melanchthonis in Locis Commun. & in Epistolam ad Romanos, &c. Quarum si accusant fratres Lutherani invidiosam interpretationem, addita emollitione Verborum Lutheri, ut ex. gr. factum a Sebastiano Schmidio, Argentinensi Theol. Notis in Librum de Servo Arbitrio, A. 1664. quidni quod juris sibi statuunt, idem nobis permittunt, in reddendis phrasibus & explicanda mente Zwinglii, Calvini, Martyris, Bezae, &c.? Quod fecere, praeter Massonium, Anatomiae Germanicae Parte I. & II. Pareum in Irenico, p. 249. Wendelinum in Exercitat. Theologicis, Exercit. XXVI. & sequent. Hottingerum, Hist. Eccles. T. VIII. a p. 640. &c. sic in ipsis Lutheranis, Rintelenses nuper Theologi, de quibus suprâ, in Epist. Apologetica ad Doctores Wittenberg. Ubi Calvinum excusant, quòd aeque Deum auctorem peccati fecerint, duris suis verbis, Martinus Lutherus & Philippus Melanchthon, in C. VIII. Ep. ad Romanos, &c.