Before
commending the Lord’s Supper to communicants, Luther admonishes his
readers regarding holy baptism (AE, 38:97-99)
It
seems to me to be the result of God’s special counsel and
providence that we baptize infants in all of Christendom
throughout the world and do not wait until they grow up and
reach the age of discretion.
If we were now to baptize them as grownups and older
persons, I am certain that a tenth of them would not let
themselves be baptized, Indeed, if it were up to us, we would
surely long, long ago have become nothing but Turks.
For those who were not baptized would not go to church
and would despise all its doctrine and practice because the
church seeks to make them holy, godly people.
In fact, this is what they are doing now, although they
have been baptized and claim to be Christians.
If such an unbaptized multitude would gain the upper
hand, what could the result be but a Turkish kingdom or
heathenism? Even
though there would be a few among them who would go to church,
they would nevertheless postpone baptism until the hour of
death, as is done now with respect to repentance and amendment
of life.
Indeed,
I am willing to make a substantial wager that the devil through
the activity of the factious spirits and the Anabaptists has all
this in mind so that he might put an end to infant baptism. And
would want only adults to be baptized.
His ideas are surely these:
If I could do away with infant baptism, then I could
probably deal with the adults in such a way that they would
delay and postpone baptism until they had had their fling or
until the hour of death. In
addition to (encouraging) such postponement I would discreetly
keep them from going to church so that they would neither learn
about Christ and baptism nor value them in any way.
So I would hold up before the great masses in the world
powerful examples like the Turks, Persians, Tartars, Jews, and
heathens so that finally people would become indifferent and
say: Why bother with
baptism? Why become
Christians?
I,
too, want to belong to the majority.
Do you think that God will condemn the entire world for
the sake of three of four Christians?
Why should I live among those few despised beggars and
miserable persons?
St.
Augustine
writes concerning himself that his mother and other good friends
delayed his baptism and did not want him to be baptized in his
youth so that he might not thereafter fall into sin; they wanted
to wait until he had left his youthful years behind and might
adhere to his baptism more securely.
The result of this good intention was that the longer
St. Augustine
waited the
further away from baptism and the gospel he came to be, until he
fell prey to the Manichaean heresy and made a mockery of both
Christ and his baptism up to his thirtieth year.
It was only with extreme difficulty that he returned from
heresy to Christ. His
mother shed many a bitter tear over this matter and in this way
had to atone for the good intention and devotion by which she
had aided in delaying her son’s baptism.
The
devil indeed observes that even without such a delay people are
so coarse and godless that a tenth of them do not inquire about
the meaning of baptism; they simply never think about it nor
thank God that they have been baptized.
Much less do they care about their baptism and live
according to it by their worthy conduct.
What would happen if they would not be baptized at all
and would not go to church?
As it is, it is difficult to be and remain a Christian
even thought we daily teach, pray, and practice baptism.
However,
such baptism and teaching constitute a great advantage and a
strong admonition which ultimately ought to cause some to
exercise greater foresight than an unbaptized heathen.
Anyone can readily observe and understand all of
this when he sees how people now regard the holy sacrament of
the body and blood of our Lord so lightly and assume an attitude
toward it as if there were nothing on earth which they needed
less than just this sacrament; and yet they want to be called
Christians. They
imagine, because they have now become free from papal coercion,
that they are no longer obligated to use this sacrament but may
well do without it and freely despise it without sinning at all.
And if this sacrament were never used or were lost, it
would not matter to them. In
this way they indicate and acknowledge by their deeds with what
great devotion and love they previously partook of this
sacrament when they were compelled to do so by the pope and what
fine Christians they had been.
We also learn from this in what a refined way people can
be forced to become Christians and pious folk.
This is what the pope presumed to do with his laws; as a
result only false hypocrites, unwilling and coerced Christians
were produced. A
person, compelled to be a Christian, however, is a very joyous,
acceptable guest in the kingdom of heaven.
God is especially pleased with him and will certainly
place him at the head of the angels in the deepest part of hell!
I
am uneasy and am convinced that a large part of all this is the
fault of those of us who are preachers, clergymen, bishops, and
spiritual advisers. For
we have allowed the people to go their own merry way without
amending and changing their lives.
We do not admonish, do not urge, no not preserver, even
as our office demands. Rather,
we snore and sleep as securely as they do, and do not reflect on
the matter any more than this: whoever comes to the Lord’s
Table will come; whoever does not come, let him stay away.
Thus we deal with both kinds of Christians, although
better things should be expected of us.
We know that the abominable Satan and prince of this
world does not take a vacation but roams about day and night
with his angels and assails both us and the people, detains,
hinders, and makes us lazy and sluggish for every kind of
worship. Where he is
unable to suppress them completely, he tries at least to weaken
baptism, the sacrament, the gospel, and all divine order.
Since we are familiar with these tactics we should
remember that we are the angels and watchmen of our Lord Christ
who should daily guard the people against such angels of the
devil.
By
means of unceasing activity, teaching, admonitions, inducements,
and enticements, as
St. Paul
commands his
dear Timothy [1Tim.
4:13
; 2Tim. 4:2],
let us fight boldly so that the devil cannot exercise his
mischief so securely and without resistance among Christians.
