# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 02_S76
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

76

treaty demanded of Emperor Charles V and King Ferdinand, declaring that even the sealing of the alliance by mutual oaths by no means made the matter valid, and that he hereby, by papal plenitude of power, acquitted and released all who had sworn the oath. Remarkable, finally, in this connection is this also, that the Emperor, after he had seen himself compelled to sign the instrument of the peace, thereupon in full ill-humor and vexation stamped to pieces the pen with which he had done it. God showed thereby that the man, otherwise so unbending, had been obliged to do even against his will what God the LORD found good for His Church, sighing so long already under terrible pressure. Compare Gen. 31, 24., Prov. 16, 7., Luke 2, 1.

The Effects and the Necessity of Holy Baptism.

The "Apologete,"

which we have for a considerable time left unnoticed, unfortunately still continues in its well-known manner to contend against the Lutheran Church. In one of the recent numbers of this Methodist paper an error is again charged upon our Church, which she, as Mr. Nast, the editor, knows well or at least as such ought to know, has always decidedly rejected and condemned. In the number of the 9th of November Mr. Nast namely writes: "That baptism and regeneration are inseparably bound together has always been a fundamental article and chief pillar in the Roman Catholic Church. But unfortunately this doctrine has also, as a dangerous leaven, crept into the Protestant state churches, especially into the Lutheran and into the Episcopal High Church, and was in the most recent time set up by the so-called Old or Strict Lutheran party in Germany and by the Puseyites in England, as the most essential and necessary doctrine of faith for salvation, as the real kernel and core of the Gospel, and whoever contradicts it is condemned by these disguised papists as a profane sectarian and heretic." Further below it says then further: "It is asserted that the change of heart which is called regeneration takes place infallibly in and through baptism. If, therefore, this assertion is true, the change of heart must take place without exception in every adult at the moment of the act of baptism, that is: at the moment in which the hand of the priest touches the body with the baptismal water, his understanding must be enlightened, his will changed and his inclinations sanctified. Until this moment he lies in the sleep of sin and transgression, like unto death, but at this moment he awakes from spiritual death, in that Christ gives him life; he is now in Christ and therefore a new creature." — Against this alleged error of the Lutheran Church Mr. Nast now takes the field merrily and victoriously with the help of an English writing; he shows, for example, that many baptized adults prove by their walk that that divine change is still lacking in them; further, that according to this doctrine every unbaptized person must be lost, etc. —

Such attacks serve us Lutherans for great comfort. They show that, when one wishes to attack us with hope of victory, one sees oneself compelled partly to impute to us errors which we ourselves abhor, partly to distort the truths which we truly confess and hold fast.

For it is not true that a "strict" Lutheran, that is, a Lutheran who bears this name in truth, believes that baptism "infallibly" works regeneration in "every adult" and that no one can be regenerate who has not been baptized. The Lutheran Church teaches rather 1., that only he receives baptism for his salvation who receives it in true faith, and that a man is as little regenerated by the mere having himself baptized, as little as the mere hearing of the Word of God, which beside the water is the chief part also of the Sacrament of holy Baptism, regenerates and makes blessed. The Lutheran Church teaches also rather 2., that an adult may already before his baptism be regenerate, enlightened, graced, a child of God, a new creature, yea, that he ought to be this, and that baptism is only to confirm, seal and strengthen him in this grace.

That this is the doctrine of our Church Mr. Nast, as a former, though unhappily apostate, Lutheran, should fairly know already from Luther's Small Catechism. For therein it says in clear words: "Water doth not do it, indeed; but the Word of God, which is with and in the water, and faith, which trusts such Word of God in the water."

But lest Mr. Nast suppose that this pure doctrine of Luther was afterwards given up by our dogmaticians, and the shameful doctrine of the papists, that the mere opus operatum (the mere work performed) justifies and regenerates everyone like a charm, a few testimonies of our most renowned teachers on those points may here follow.

Thus writes Johann Gerhard: "The Sacraments are the visible Word, and therefore what is ascribed to the Word may not indeed be denied to the Sacraments. The Word of God is a power to save all who believe in it, Rom. 1, 16., it is the effectual means and instrument by which God works faith to salvation in the hearts, Rom. 10, 17. 1 Tim. 4, 16.; so also baptism is not a mere sign, but an instrument and means by which grace and salvation are offered to us. By no means, however, do we cherish the delusion of the opus operatum (that is, that the mere doing of the work helps in any way), but we do require faith for a salutary use of baptism and confess in express words that baptism profits no one without faith. This faith and the regeneration bound up with it the Holy Ghost works precisely through baptism in the hearts of children, as we have shown above; as therefore the Word does not profit if it be not mixed with faith, Heb. 4, 2., and none the less is and remains the salutary means by which faith is kindled in the hearts of men, Rom. 10, 7., so also the Sacrament of baptism profits not without faith, and is none the less the salutary means by which the Holy Ghost, in those who do not resist and strive against his working, will kindle faith (in the children), increase and confirm it (in the adults). Our meaning is therefore as wide as heaven from the delusion of the opus operatum. For it is one thing to treat of the efficacy of the (means of grace) of themselves on the part of the offering God in and for itself; it is another thing to say what those means profit without a receiving means (faith) on the part of men; it is therefore a perverse thing that, as often as the efficacy of the divine ordinances and of the means of salvation instituted by God is spoken of, one immediately fetches out of it the delusion of the opus operatum. So we also ascribe to the water of baptism no hidden power lying in it, but ascribe those divine effects, to regenerate, to cleanse, to make blessed, to the Holy Spirit alone, as the original cause; meanwhile we hold, following the Scripture, nevertheless that those benefits are dispensed through the water of baptism, hallowed, endowed and comprehended with God's Word. We add, however, on this point concerning the efficacy of baptism, that one must make a distinction between children and adults. Children do not resist the Holy Spirit and his working, and therefore faith and salvation are undoubtedly imparted to them through baptism; adults, on the contrary, can hinder the salutary working of the Holy Spirit by actual impenitence and stubborn resistance, in which case the mere work done of baptism brings them no profit whatever, but rather turns to them for judgment and draws upon them a greater condemnation. This is perfectly true, that the grace of regeneration is not so bound to baptism that God could not in case of necessity regenerate children without the Sacrament of baptism; yet it can nevertheless not be objected from this that baptism is not the ordinary means of regeneration, to the use of which we are bound. This may be explained by a like example. It has pleased God to convert men through the Word, Rom.