The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

to the salvation of a child. (2) He directs that those who are present should
hold firmly to Christ's words, "unless a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God," and shall kneel down and pray that our Lord God
may make this child partaker in His sufferings and death, and shall then
not doubt that He knows full well how, in his divine grace and pity, to fulfil
that prayer. Wherefore, since that little child has, by our earnest prayer,
been brought to Christ, and the prayer has been uttered in faith, what we
beg is established with God, and heard of Him, and he gladly receiveth it,
as He Himself says (Mark x. 14): "Suffer the little children to come unto
me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God." Then should
we hold that the little child, though it has not obtained Baptism, is not, on
that account, lost? "Dan das Kindlein, ob es wohl die rechte Taufe nicht
erlanget, davon nicht verloren ist."
Bugenhagen.
This "Bedenken" of Luther was accompanied by an exposition of
the 27th Psalm, by Bugenhagen, which Luther endorsed. The main object
of Bugenhagen in this treatise is to give consolation in regard to
unbaptized children, over against what he calls the shameful error, drawn
not from God's Word, but front man's dreams, that such children are lost.
Bugenhagen, after teaching parents to commit to God in prayer their child
which cannot be baptized, adds: "Then shall we assuredly believe that God
accepts the child, and we should not commit it to the secret judgment of
God. To commit it to the secret judgment of God, is to throw to the wind,
and despise the promises of God in regard to little children," (pp. 400-
422). Both Luther and Bugenhagen discuss at large the argument for, and
objections against, the doctrine of the salvation of unbaptized little
children, and demonstrate that it is no part of the faith of our Church, that
Baptism is absolutely necessary: that is, that there are no exceptions or
limitations to the proposition that, unless a man is born again of the-Water
of Baptism, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Luther and Bugenhagen condemn those who refuse to unbaptized
children the rites of Christian burial, and who