# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 16_S84
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

84

obedience according to God's own prescription, 1 Tim. 5, 17, Tit. 2, 15, Heb. 13, 17, etc. 2. That they are to be disposed toward them with childlike love and sincere good-will, since they hear that they are not forced under the yoke of a civil bondage, but are called to the fellowship of a spiritual liberty by those who desire not to rule over them despotically, much less tyrannically, but to be disposed toward them paternally, with fatherly good-will, and to deal with them; hence it comes that the Apostles here and there call their hearers children, and themselves their fathers. 1 Cor. 4, 14, 2 Cor. 6, 13, 1 John 2, 1. 18. — 1 Cor. 4, 15. Gal. 4, 19."

[Loc. theol. de min. eccl. § 7.]

The Effects and the Necessity of Holy Baptism.

(Conclusion.)

The other insinuation of the Methodist "Apologist" was this, that the Lutheran Church teaches that no one can be born again who has not received baptism; our Church therefore binds not only men but God Himself to this means of grace. Against this aspersion the following testimonies of purely Lutheran teachers may serve.

So writes first the great Württemberg theologian Johannes Brentius in his Latin exposition of the Acts of the Apostles on the words: "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" (Acts 10, 47): "Peter rightly judges that the Gentiles are to be received by baptism into the fellowship of the Gospel or of the Messiah, although they were not yet circumcised. For baptism is, by virtue of the institution of Christ, as Paul declares, a washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost and of cleansing from sins, whereby God saves those who believe. For thus says Christ: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. But that these Gentiles had already before baptism been born again through faith and renewed by the Holy Ghost, this the gift of the Holy Ghost, which fell upon them in a wondrous manner, clearly proves. Therefore they could with no right be excluded from baptism. For whoever already possesses the greater and more excellent part of the sacrament, why should he be excluded from participation in the lesser part? For a sacrament has two parts, the one is a visible creature, the other an invisible grace or a spiritual gift, which by the Word and by the institution of the divine goodness is attached to the visible part. So baptism also has first visible water. But the mere water is not a baptism or a sacrament, but it is only the one part of baptism or of the sacrament. Secondly it has an invisible gift, namely the cleansing from sins, the regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. And this part is the chief and most excellent, for the sake of which also the visible creature is ordained by God as an instrument. Whoever, therefore, out of divine goodness before the receiving of the water is endowed with regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, as befell these uncircumcised Gentiles, who may forbid that he also be sprinkled with the water? Peter therefore commanded them to be baptized in the name of the LORD. For although these Gentiles now had no need to be baptized in order that they might be born again and renewed by the Holy Ghost, yet it was needful to obey the order of God, who had commanded the Apostles to baptize all Gentiles, and who had subjected all believers to baptism, saying: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. To this it comes, that baptism is not only an instrument by which at the first those who believe are born again and renewed, but also a symbol by which the believers are publicly declared to be the people of God and whereby those tried with manifold temptations are confirmed in the faith of regeneration. It is therefore not something idle and superfluous that these Gentiles are baptized after regeneration." (In acta hom. 51.)

So writes further Johann Gerhard: "The Calvinists object: 'Sometimes such are baptized as have already before been born again through the Word and the Holy Ghost, as appears from the example of the eunuch, Acts 8, 38, and of those upon whom the Holy Ghost had already come before, Acts 10, 49; since now baptism was not a means of regeneration to those, one cannot say that it has this purpose in the others.' I answer to this: 1. Although these and several others were truly born again before the use of baptism, yet this takes nothing from the efficacy of baptism, that it should not therefore be and be called a washing of regeneration. 2. This can be explained by the example of the divine Word, which is heard by many who have already before been born again; nevertheless the Word is that wholesome means by which we are born again as by the incorruptible seed, 1 Pet. 1, 23, Jas. 1, 18. 3. As therefore faith and the gifts of the Holy Ghost are increased in the regenerate by the hearing and considering of the Word, so the same takes place also by baptism; yea, baptism seals also the gift of regeneration in them powerfully. 4. In the question about the use and employment of baptism a distinction is therefore to be made between children and adults. To children baptism is chiefly the ordinary means of regeneration and cleansing from sins, etc., and consequently also a seal of righteousness and confirmation of faith; to adult believers baptism serves chiefly for sealing and for attesting the grace of God, the sonship and the eternal life, but in a subordinate way it increases the renewing and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The children obtain through baptism the firstfruits of the Spirit and of faith; the adults, who through the Word have received the firstfruits of faith and of the Spirit, obtain through baptism the growth of the same."

[Loc. theol. de S. Bapt. § 123.]

The same: "We will see by what reasons Bellarmine excludes all the unbaptized from the Church. 'It is certain,' says he, 'that the catechumens (unbaptized believers who are preparing for baptism) are not really and properly in the Church, but only in the possibility of belonging to it, as a conceived but not yet formed and born man is called a man only by virtue of the possibility lying in him of becoming one, [potentia]. For we read Acts 2: They that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.' I answer to this: 1. The believing catechumens are either really in the Church — or they are not saved; a third there is not; because outside the Church there is no engrafting into Christ, the Head of the Church, no bestowal of the Holy Ghost and of eternal blessedness. If therefore Bellarmine grants that the believing catechumens are saved, then he must also grant that they are actually in the Church, and not only in possibility. 2. The believing catechumens are born of God through the Word of truth and through faith in Christ, they are therefore wrongly compared to an embryo not yet formed and not yet born. The first proposition is evident from this, that not only the sacrament of baptism is called a washing of regeneration, Tit. 3, 5, but also the Word is that incorruptible seed from which those who believe are born again, 1 Pet. 1, 23, Jas. 1, 18, and that those who receive Christ in true faith are born of God, John 1, 12. 13. We therefore reverse the comparison: as a formed and born child is actually a man, so the believing catechumens are actually born of God and therefore also actually in the Church. 4. Those who gather to the Church are of twofold difference. For some receive at one and the same time both the Word with true faith and the sacrament of baptism; others, however, after they have received the Word in faith, do not let themselves be baptized, either from necessity, as the thief on the cross, the martyrs violently torn away to death before receiving baptism, etc., or from free choice, as the catechumens whose baptism in the early Church was put off until the Easter feast, as Ambrose, who, while he was not yet baptized, was called by the Milanese people to the bishop's office. Those of whom Luke, Acts 2, 41, says that they were added to the Jerusalem Church belong to the first class, for expressly it is said of them that they