ART.  II. — Augsburg Confession

“Our churches teach that this innate disease and original sin, is truly sin, and condemneth all those under the eternal wrath of God, who are not born again by Baptism and the Holy Spirit.”

Apology to Augsburg Confession, p. 226.

“Our opponents also agree to the ninth article, in which we confess that Baptism is necessary to salvation, and that the baptism of infants is not fruitless, but necessary and salutary.

Luther’s Smaller Catechism.

“What does Baptism confer or benefit?

“Ans.—­It effects the forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and confers everlasting salvation upon all who believe it, (not believe in Christ,) as the words and promise of God declare.”

“How can water effect such great things?

“Ans.—­Indeed it is not the water that has such effect, but the Word of God that is with and in the water, and the faith trusting such Word of God in the water.  For without the Word of God the water is mere water, hence no baptism; but with the Word of God it constitutes a baptism, that is, a gracious water of life, and a washing of regeneration, in the Holy Ghost.”—­Symb.  B., p. 421.

Luther’s Larger Catechism.

“Every Christian, therefore, has enough to learn and practice in baptism during his life; for he must ever exert himself to maintain a firm faith in what it promises and brings him, namely, triumph over the devil and death, the remission of sins, the grace of God, Christ with all his works, and the Holy Ghost with all his gifts.  In short, the blessings of baptism are so great, that if feeble nature could but comprehend them we might justly doubt their reality.  For, imagine to yourself a physician, who possessed an art preventing persons from dying; or, even if they died, immediately restoring them to life so as to live eternally afterwards, how the world would rush and flock around him with money, while the poor, prevented by the rich, could not approach him!  And yet, here in baptism, every one has such a treasure, and medicine gratuitously brought to his door-a medicine which abolishes death, and preserves all men to eternal life_.”—­P. 525.

Luther’s Larger Catechism.

“It (baptism) is, therefore, very appropriately called food for the soul, which flourishes and strengthens the new man; for through baptism we are born anew; but beside this, the old vicious nature in the flesh and blood nevertheless adheres to man, in which there are so many impediments and obstacles, with which we are opposed as well by the devil as by the world, so that we often become weary and faint, and sometimes stumble.”—­Symb.  B., p. 533.

In the Visitation Articles, published fourteen years after the other symbolical books for the purpose of explaining their true import, and then made symbolic in Saxony: