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

explicit, but if the words were not compared with other expressions of
Luther, it might be argued, that he and our symbols went to the opposite
extreme from that charged upon them, and, instead of teaching that
immersion is necessary, denied its validity. So far, then, is the charge from
being verified, that we are authorized to make directly the opposite
statement. Luther and our Confessions repudiate utterly the Baptist
doctrine of the necessity of immersion.
In the original of the Smaller Catechism there is not a word about
immersion in a passage sometimes referred to. It is simply, "What signifies
this Water-Baptism?" (Wasser Tauffen.) "Immersion" is but a translation
of a translation. The same is the case with the Smalcald Articles. The
original reads: "Baptism is none other thing than God's Word in the water
(im Wasser)." There is not a word about immersion. We do not rule these
translations out because they at all sustain the allegation built on them.
Fairly interpreted, they do not; but we acknowledge the obvious rule
accepted in such cases--that the originals of documents, and not
translations of them, are the proper subjects of appeal. A translation can
carry no authority, except as it correctly exhibits the sense of the original.
Even the general endorsement of a translation as correct, by the author of
the original, is not decisive on a minute point which he may have
overlooked, or have thought a matter of very little importance. A
clergyman of our country translates the commentary of an eminent
German theologian, and receives from him a warm letter of thanks,
strongly endorsing the accuracy of the translation. Yet, not only in a
possible deviation of the translation from the original, but in any matter of
doubt, however slight, the original alone would be the source of appeal. As
the Lutheran Church accepts Luther's version of the Bible, subject to
correction by the original, so does she accept any translation of her
symbols, however excellent, subject to correction by the original.
But, even if the principle were not otherwise clear, the facts
connected with the translation of the different parts of the Symbolical
Books would be decisive on this point. The translation of the Smalcald
Articles, made in 1541, by Generanus, a