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

expressly adds: "NOT THAT I THINK IT (immersion) NECESSARY." 337
But this claim of necessity, and this only, is the very heart of the Baptist
doctrine. The strongest expressions in favor of immersion occur in Luther's
earliest works, and his maturer preference, as expressed in later works,
seem to have been no less decided for pouring as an appropriate mode.
Thus in his Commentary on Genesis, one of his latest and ripest works, he
says: "The water which is poured (quae funditur) in Baptism is not the
water given by God as the Creator, but given by God the Saviour." 338
The Liturgies of Luther and of the Lutheran Church.
We will now look at the testimony furnished on the point in question
by the Liturgies of Luther and the Lutheran Church.
1. The Taufbüchlein of Luther, 1523, is not a Lutheran Ritual, but
avowedly only a translation of a Romish service. He declares, in the
Preface to it, that there was much in it which he would have desired to
remove, but which he allowed to remain on account of the consciences of
the weak, who might have imagined that he wished to introduce a new
Baptism, and might regard their own Baptism as insufficient. That in this
Ritual, therefore, the direction given to dip the child (tauchen) only proves
that the particular Romish Ritual followed by Luther had that Rubric.
2. Bat after this Translation, later in this same year, 1523, Luther
issued his own directions for Baptism: Wie man recht und verständlich
einen Menschen zum Christenglauben taufen soll. 339 This document, in
the older editions of Luther's works, has been erroneously placed under
1521. The Erlangen edition, the latest and most critical ever issued, gives it
its true place, under 1523. In this direction, how RIGHTLY (recht) and
INTELLIGENTLY (verständlich) to baptize, Luther says: "The person
baptizing POURS THE WATER (geusst wasser auff), and says, Ego
Baptizo te," that is, in German, Ich tauf dich (I baptize thee). POURING,
and pouring alone, is described as Baptism,
337 De Captiv. Babylon. Eccles. Jena Edit., II. 273. "Non quod necessarium arbitrer."
338 On ch. xxviii. Vol. iii. 91.
339 Leipz. xxii. 227. Walch, x. 2,622. Erlangen xxii. 168.