# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Oktober 1904_S470
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

4⁷⁰ arirchlich⸗Zeitgeschichtliches.

hat man die wahre und gottgewollte Einigkeit nicht etwa gefördert, sondern zerstört.
Gefördert wird die wahre Einigkeit nur dadurch, daß man ernstlich bemüht ist, nicht
synkretistisch die Gegensätze zu überkleistern und zu ignoriren, sondern alle Luthera⸗
ner dahin zu bringen, daß sie alle, alle Lehren des der Schrift entnommenen luthe⸗
rischen Bekenntnisses ex animo und in ein und demselben Verstande annehmen.
Und der kleinste Fortschritt in dieser Richtung ist ein wahrer Gewinn für die Kirche
und ihre Einigkeit und ein Triumph der Wahrheit. Alles äußerliche Zusammen⸗
schließen auf Kosten der Wahrheit, wie es der Observer befürwortet, dagegen be⸗
deutet Tod und Verderben für die Kirche, ihre Einigkeit und Wahrheit, dagegen
Sieg und Triumph für die Lüge und das Reich der Lüge. F. B.

Ist die Taufe ein Bad der Wiedergeburt? Der Lurheran Observer vom
26. August schreibt: „Baptism effects not only a change of status: it includes
provision for a change of nature. It establishes its subject in a relation
which, if the covenant is not broken on the human side, insures inward re-
newal. It is under the operation of the means of grace, and these will bring
forth their fruits in their seasons. Within the Covenant and Church of God,
under the nurture and admonition of the Lord, the unfolding rational powers
of the child are greeted with the vision of saving truth as it is able to bear
it; personal faith takes the place of the parental faith that brought it to bap-
tism, and, by the Holy Spirit through this faith, it is spiritually qnickened
and made capable of new and holy living to God. Hence the custom of
speaking of Baptism as the sacrament of regeneration or renewal.““ The
objection to the phrase Baptismal Regeneration' is that to popular thought
it Conveys the idea of an internal change wrought by the act of baptism itself
—the eæ opere operato doctrine of the Roman theology- This doctrine is
emphatically repudiated by the Lutheran church. Such a change must be
either in the way of magic or through an infusion of grace, and both are in
irreconcilable antagonism to fundamental Lutheran and Protestant principles.
That such a change is wrought by the act of baptism is nowhere taught in
the Scriptures, and is psychologically impossible when we remember that
the ends which grace seeks with human nature are spiritual and ethical, and
hence must address itself to man's rational powers. In the covenant rela-
tion established by baptism full and adequate provision is made for this.
With its justification sealed to it in this holy ordinance, the developing life
of the child is brought, under the nurture and admonition of the Lord, into
such contact with saving knowlege and truth that its expanding powers are
greeted by the divine grace which, if the covenant is unbroken on the human
side, inevitably insures the washing of regeneration and renewing of the
Holy Ghost' which baptism preflgures and for which it provides the needed
forces and potencies.““ „Nothing could be farther from the point than to
olaim that rejection of baptismal regeneration' vacates baptism of its char-
acter as a real means of grace. On the contrary, the grace of justiflcation is
immediately secured, and the pardon and acceptauce of the baptized child
are at once complete. And this sacrament which applies justifying grace,
also, and at the same time, establishes à vital relation which holds, in its
provisions and forces, the potencies and promise of the regenerated life of
grace, — always assuming that the covenant is kept on the human side.““
Ferner in der Nummer vom 9. September: „There is no exigency, therefore,
that calls for the intrusion into theology of this figment of infant falth, or of
immediate regeneration unto faith through sacramental action — the Romish
eꝶ Oere operato, and Lutheran theology has done well to exclude it.“ Was