# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 10 28_S34
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

34

of the divine Word, and has to wage the right battle against devil, world and flesh within her and without her.

On the 16th of September, then, our friends set out by railway for their and our chief destination, Neudettelsau near Nuremberg, to our Pastor Löhe, so highly honored and heartily beloved by us all.

May the God of grace and of peace bless there their service of love, and give them mouth and wisdom, that we may regain the full unity of the Spirit with this dear brother and his friends, and therein grow ever stronger toward a common confession, a common struggle, a common victory. Amen!

(Submitted.)

Of the Faith of Young Children.

By Joh. Brenz.

"We have taught that people become Christians through faith. But since it may appear, from outward looking, as if young children could not have faith, there soon follows this question: How it stands, then, with young children, whether they also could be Christians? Here it is to be observed that we are not speaking of the young children of the godless and of the nations cast off by God, of the Jews and of the Turks. For what have we to do with those that are without, that we should judge them? But we are speaking of the little children of those who are in the Christian Church of God. For although the sonship comes according to election, not from fleshly birth, yet these little children can in a peculiar manner have faith, and truly become Christians. For the young little children of the Christian Church are surely also a part of it, and belong to it. For just as the children of the Old Testament, born of Abraham and his descendants, were counted and reckoned among the congregation or people of God, according to this promise given to Abraham, Gen. 17: 'I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed after thee,' wherefore the little children of the descendants of Abraham, even before the eighth day, before they were circumcised, were reckoned among God's people: so also in the New Testament the children of the people who know and receive Christ are reckoned in the number of the congregation of God. For God has taken the Gentiles with their children to be His people, as Isaiah, chap. 49, testifies: 'They shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.' And Joel, chap. 2: 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh (namely, not only upon the Jews, but also upon the Gentiles); and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,' etc. But God reckons no one in the number of His people unless he believe on His Son, for 'without faith it is impossible to please God.' Therefore it follows that the young little children can have faith, which God gives them out of grace, and by which they become Christians.

In the second place, Christ took the young little children in His arms, pressed them to His breast and blessed them, as Mark writes. This is not a bodily but a spiritual blessing, namely that God is gracious to them, that they are accounted righteous before God and obtain eternal blessedness. But no one can enjoy the spiritual blessing without faith, and God is gracious to no one so as to account him righteous and give him eternal life without faith. Therefore it follows, if the little children are saved, that they must have faith.

Lastly, the little children have sin by nature. For they are conceived and born in sins, and nevertheless they receive heaven. Of such, says Christ, is the kingdom of heaven. But no one can obtain the kingdom of heaven without forgiveness of sins, and no one receives forgiveness of sins save through faith alone. From this it surely follows that children certainly have faith.

Against this someone might now say: How can young children have faith, when they as yet have no understanding, neither of divine nor of worldly things? Answer: They do not understand even their bodily life, and nevertheless they have a true bodily life. They do not understand either that they are heirs in the goods which their parents have left them, nevertheless they are none the less the rightful natural heirs of those goods. What, then, should hinder that they could not have faith, although they do not yet understand faith, since God pours out His gifts without any respect of persons and without regard to human wisdom or power! For one must not think that the little children, received to grace by God, have such an open faith as those who are now grown up and have come to understanding. That I may explain this the better, I will here relate what is written, Hosea, chap. 2: 'In that day, saith the Lord, I will hear, I will hear the heavens, and the heavens shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Israel.' And Paul says, Rom. 8: 'We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.' From these sayings of the Holy Scripture we find that there is a twofold sighing of the creatures. The one sighing is hidden, which God alone sees and hears in the creatures, as is the sighing of the creatures that have no life. The other sighing is open, which sighing those who sigh feel and understand. This is the sighing of the godly, of which Paul speaks when he says: 'And not only they (the creatures long), but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.' So there is also a twofold faith. For although faith in Christ is not in itself divided, for there is One Faith, says Paul, yet it is not in the little children in the same manner as in those of understanding. Therefore we call the one faith the hidden faith, with which God, according to His great goodness, endows the young children of His Church, which He alone also knows and sees. For if the young ravens, as the 147th Psalm says, call upon God, not out of faith unto eternal life, but according to their opportunity, given them of God, for bodily sustenance, how much more the young little children, who are created after God's image and likeness, and also by God out of grace, for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, who also was a young little child, are received to grace and born again, call upon God, not like the young ravens, without faith and only for bodily welfare, but out of faith, as those who are chosen of God and born again, to obtain the kingdom of heaven and eternal blessedness. And if the fish, Jonah, chap. 2, which is yet an unreasoning creature, hears God's command and obeys it, for thus says the Scripture: 'the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land,' why should not a young child, which is yet a man created after God's image, and chosen to possess the kingdom of heaven, be able to hear the Word of the Lord, whereby faith is given to it according to its opportunity and manner.

The other faith is the open faith, which not only God sees in the man, but also the man himself who has the faith, perceives and understands that he believes. Such a faith have those who have now come to understanding. And this faith is given through the outward preaching of the divine Word, as Paul says: 'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.'

This doctrine of the faith of young little children is to be diligently noted, that we may know that the children of the Christian Church have not only the bodily life, as we see before our eyes, but that they also receive from God the spiritual life, and are adorned with the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Therefore parents also ought rightly to be admonished that, as soon as the children grow up and come to understanding, so that they can grasp the outward doctrine, they apply themselves that they be instructed most diligently in the right true doctrine and brought up in discipline and decency, in order that they may not lose again, through their godless sinful life, that which they received in their youth through faith and Baptism from God."