The result at which he arrives
is thus expressed: "Therefore, he (this omnipotent name or power of
God,) must also in baptism, make pure and holy, heavenly and divine
persons, as we shall hereafter further see." (Darum musz er auch in der
Taufe reine und heilige und eitel himmlishe, goettliche Menschen machen,
wie wir hernach sehen werden.") [Note 2]
In his sermon on Baptism, Luther thus describes the influence of this
ordinance:--"The import of baptism is a blessed dying unto sin, and
resurrection in the grace of God, that the old man that was conceived
in sin, may arise and go forth _a new man_ born of grace. Thus St. Paul
in, Tit. iii. 5, terms baptism a bath of _the new birth_, that in this
bath men may be _born again_ and renewed. Thus also Christ, in John iii.
3, says: Unless ye are born again of water and the Spirit (of grace), ye
cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven. For just as a child is born of
its mother, and by this bodily birth is a sinful being and a _child of
wrath;_ thus also is man taken and _born spiritually_ from the baptism,
and by _this birth he is a child of grace and a justified person_. Thus
are sins drowned in baptism, and thus does righteousness arise in the
place of sin." [Note 3]
2. _Melancthon_, whilst he by no means indulges in the extravagant and
unscriptural views of a change in the water employed in baptism, by the
Deity's pervading it, &c.
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