# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 08 19_S203
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

203

Here I cannot err: for GOD's command cannot deceive. But He has said, commanded or enjoined nothing to anyone concerning my faith.

78. It is true that one should believe in coming to baptism: but one should not let oneself be baptized upon faith. It is quite another thing to have faith, and to rely upon faith, and so to let oneself be baptized upon it. He who lets himself be baptized upon faith is not only uncertain, but also an idolatrous, denied Christian: for he trusts and builds upon what is his own, namely upon a gift which GOD has given him, and not upon GOD's Word alone; just as another builds and trusts upon his strength, riches, power, wisdom, holiness, which also are gifts given him by GOD.

79. But whoever is baptized upon GOD's Word and command, even if there were no faith, the baptism would nevertheless be right and sure: for it takes place as GOD has commanded. Profitable it is indeed not to the unbelieving baptized person, by reason of his unbelief; but for that reason it is not wrong, uncertain, or nothing. If everything were to be wrong or nothing that profits not the unbelieving, then nothing would remain right or good. For the Gospel also is commanded to be preached to all the world: the unbeliever hears it and it profits him nothing; should it therefore also not be a Gospel, or a false Gospel? GOD Himself is of no profit to the godless; should He therefore not be GOD?

80. Now if a grown man were to be baptized, and say: Sir, I will have myself baptized. Then you ask: Believest thou also? as Philip the eunuch, Acts 8:37, and as we daily ask those to be baptized; he will not come forward so and say to me: Yea, I will indeed remove mountains by my faith; but thus: Yea, Sir, I believe, but upon such faith I do not build, it might be too weak or uncertain for me: I will be baptized upon GOD's command, who will have it of me, upon such command I venture it; in time my faith may become what it can. If I am baptized upon His command, then I know that I am baptized. If I were baptized upon my faith, I might well be found unbaptized tomorrow, if faith failed me, or I were assailed, as though yesterday I had not rightly believed. Not so with me! Let him assail GOD and His command, upon which I am baptized, that is sure enough for me. My faith and I stand at hazard. If I believe, baptism is profitable to me; if I believe not, it is not profitable to me. But baptism is for that reason not wrong or uncertain, nor does it stand upon euenturo, that is, upon hazard, but upon the sure Word and command of GOD.

81. So he will also say of his infant baptism: I thank GOD and am glad that I was baptized as a child; for there I did what GOD commanded: I have now believed or not, I am nevertheless baptized upon GOD's command. Baptism is right and sure, whether, GOD grant, my faith be today certain or uncertain; I may think that I still believe and shall become certain. Nothing is lacking in baptism; in faith something is ever lacking, for we have enough to learn in faith all our life long, and it can fall, so that one says: Behold, there was faith, and it is no longer there. But of baptism one cannot say: Behold, there was baptism, and it is now no longer baptism. Nay, it stands still: for GOD's command stands still; and what is done according to His command stands also and shall also remain.

82. Thus far we have, in my opinion, proved strongly enough that the Anabaptists do wrong in making void the first baptism, even if they were certain that the children were baptized without faith; of which they also cannot be certain. Again, that children believe, this we also cannot prove with any saying that declares so plainly and clearly in such or like words: You shall baptize the children, for they also believe. Whoever presses us to prove it by such letters, to him we must yield and give up the case, we find them nowhere written. But pious, reasonable Christians do not demand such a thing; the contentious, stiff-necked factions do it, that they may be seen to be clever. Again, they also will bring no letter that says: You shall baptize adult persons, and no child. Yet that the baptizing of children is right, and that they also believe, we persuade ourselves from many strong reasons.

83. First, since such infant baptism comes from the apostles, and has continued since the apostles' times, we cannot forbid it, and must let it remain so, since no one hitherto has been able to prove that the children in baptism do not believe, or that such baptizing is wrong. For even if I were uncertain whether they believed, I should yet for my conscience' sake have to let them be baptized; seeing that it is much better that baptism pass over the children than that I should abolish it. For if baptism were right and profitable, and saved the children (as we believe), and I abolished it, I should be guilty of all the children who without baptism would be lost: that would be dreadful and terrible. But if it were wrong, that is, unprofitable, and helped the children nothing, then nothing else would thereby be sinned, except that GOD's Word would be spoken in vain, and His sign given in vain; but I should thereby be guilty of no lost souls, but of the vain use of GOD's Word and sign.

84. But such a thing GOD would easily forgive me, since I did it in ignorance, and moreover had to do it out of fear, as one who did not invent it, but it came upon me thus from the beginning, and who could not prove by any Scripture that it is wrong, and who would do it unwillingly, if I were convinced of it: and it would indeed be almost the same as if I were to preach GOD's Word, which I must preach by His command, in vain among the unbelieving; or, as He says, Matt. 7:6, "cast pearls before swine, and give that which is holy unto the dogs"; what could I do about it? Here also I would rather sin on this side, that I preached in vain, than on that, that I would preach nothing at all: for with vain preaching I become guilty of no souls; but by not preaching I might become guilty of many souls; yea, it would be too much with one.

85. This I say, even if it were so that the faith of children were uncertain, that one may not give up the sure baptism for the sake of an uncertain faith, since we did not invent it, but have received it thus from the apostles' time: for one ought to overturn or change nothing which one cannot overturn or change with clear Scripture. GOD is wonderful in His works; what He will not have, of that He testifies sufficiently in Holy Scripture. What He there testifies not, that let one let go as His work. We are excused: He will not mislead us. That would indeed be an evil business, if we knew or believed that the baptism of children were unfit, and yet baptized them, as the Waldenses do: for thereby one would mock GOD and His Word.

(Conclusion follows.)

(Contributed by A. Sch.)
Something about the Two Hymns: "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" etc. and: "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern" etc.

The author of these two incomparable hymns, whose jubilant tone fills the heart again and again with holy enthusiasm, however often one may read or hear them sung, is Dr. Phil. Nicolai, born on the 10th of August 1556 at Mengeringhausen in the County of Waldeck. He was at first pastor at Unna in the Mark, and died as pastor at St. Catharine's in Hamburg. The two hymns together with their melodies are found as an appendix to a book published by him in the year 1599, which bears the title: "Freudenspiegel des ewigen Lebens." Even if we knew nothing more exact about the origin of these hymns, the wonderful power of them would already have to lead us to the conclusion that they must have been written under quite special influences of divine grace and of the living comfort of God, from quite special prompting of the Holy Ghost. And so it is indeed. They are hymns of joy, and yet were composed in the time of the very greatest misery and sorrow, under the heaviest visitations of God. In a time when everything wept, the pious singer took his harp and struck up the joyful notes of eternal life, in order to lift his own and other hearts above the grief of the earth into heavenly joy. For in the year 1598 the plague raged at Unna, where at that time Nicolai