RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Baptism
of baptism in order to establish the fact that baptism possesses validity for the whole life, validity as a real offer of grace. He seeks in baptism nothing but grace. Throughout the whole life that is realized which God in baptism makes known to us as his will through the signum, the act performed by means of water. Luther's idea of baptism was identical with his idea of the sacraments in general — that they make plain and confirm the " Word." Like the Word, baptism can only be efficacious if it finds faith or establishes faith by its power. But in faith one can always look back on it, in order to know that he possesses God's grace.
As in regard to Luther's view of the sacraments in general, three periods may be distinguished in his exposition of baptism, which, however, are characterized by their mode of expression rather than by a development of thought. From the first period originated the " Sermon on the Sacrament of Baptism" (1519; " Works," Erlangen ed., xxi, 229-244). Here he distinguishes especially between the " sign " and that which it " signifies," to establish the fact that it is faith which appropriates to man what the sign signifies. Immersion in water in the name of God denotes death to sin and resurrection to grace. The second period begins in 1520 and is characterized especially by the work De captivitate Babylonica (" Works," Erlangen ed., Opera varii argumenti, v, 55 sqq.). Here he puts all the emphasis upon the " promise " which the order of baptism contains. In reality, the Word is everything in the sacrament, immersion in the water is only the seal which confirms the Word and makes it fully certain. In the third period also, that of his controversy with the fanatics, Luther emphatically proclaimed that the Word is the principal thing in the sacrament. He maintained, at times almost in the spirit of the law, that baptism is based upon a " command " of Christ. On the other hand, he enthusiastically pointed to the fact that through the Word the water becomes a " divine, heavenly, sacred " element. This must be understood in the same way as his attribution of a divine character to parents and authorities. In the last analysis he only wishes to establish firmly and show plainly the unconditional authority of baptism as a representation of the divine will over us. His words are not to be understood in the sense of a theosophical speculation. To the last period belongs the Larger Catechism, the treatise Von der Wiedertaufe, an zwei Pjarrherrn (1528; " Works," Erlangen ed., xxvi, 254 sqq.), and a number of sermons on baptism, especially that of 1535 (" Works," 2d Erlangen ed., xix).
Melanchthon's doctrine is identical with Luther's. He says that God inscribes " by means of the water his promise " in a certain sense " upon our bodies." The Reformers were convinced that children must be baptized in order to be saved ; for on account of original sin they also need pardoning and renovating grace. But if baptism must awaken faith in order to save the children, it was a great problem, at least for Luther, whether that could really be said to take place. He believed that it might, in consideration of the almightiness of the Word of God. which could even change the heart of the
impious, and a fortiori could bring a child to faith. The different representatives of Lutheranism differed in the form of their teachings concerning baptism, especially the baptism of children, but in the matter itself they agreed (cf. H. Heppe, Dogmatik des deutschen Protestantismus im 16. Jahrhundert, iii, Gotha, 1857). In the orthodox period of Lutheranism baptism was always understood as a kind of representation of the Word iverbum visibile), in accordance with the statement of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (vii) that the sacraments have no other content and therefore no other effect than the Word. But the doctrine was no longer sustained by the vivid intuition of Luther. When he spoke of the Word, he always had before his eyes the living personality of Christ as the incarnate Word of God; he " saw " in the Spirit how God graciously inclines to man. For the theologians of the orthodox period, on the other hand, the Word of God was simply the Bible, and the sacrament a constituent part of the Word because it represents a scriptural institution. They were sure that it was an especially powerful " word "; but they were no longer able to explain in what its power consisted and how it produced its effects. Quenstedt made regeneration and renovation, including that of children, dependent upon baptism. Regeneration was for him transposition into the state of adoption which is brought about by God's bestowing in baptism the power of faith (vires credendi). Since the baptized person, in virtue of this power, turns to God, he is also enabled to assume the vires operandi and to enter thereby on the process of moral " renovation," which continues throughout the whole life.
Zwingli and Calvin also devoted much of their thought to the question of baptism. Zwingli, who became interested in it especially through the Anabaptists, wrote several special treatises on it. According to him, it is not the function of baptism to mediate grace, since that could be 2. Reformed, accomplished only internally and immediately through the Spirit of God; but baptism has its value as a means of setting children apart for God, and as a sign for them that they belong to the congregation of Christ and are bound to his service. Calvin was influenced more than any other Reformer by Augustine's distinction of sacramentum and res sacramenti, because, like Augustine, he always has predestination in mind, especially in connection with the baptism of children. In regard to the elect he believes, with Luther, in a real " bestowal " or " sealing " of grace through baptism. The sacrament signifies for them the beginning of the development of the " new life " in the Church. It is a peculiarity of Calvin that he rejects private baptism. The other Reformers hardly touched this subject; its position was established from ancient times. But Calvin thought that baptism, like all ecclesiastical functions, was a matter of the ministerium ecclesiasticum. A child, numbered among the elect, who dies without baptism, suffers no harm in God's sight. It is evident that Calvin counts baptism only among the normal means of grace which bind the elect to the Church, as they undergo their development
Baptism