# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1856_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

12                    All Manner of Weight and Measure Is Alike an Abomination to the Lord!

or at least to avoid the suspicion of this abomination. I am thinking of the forms which are prescribed in the Agenda to be used in administering Holy Baptism. You know them. Oh, how great must our sluggishness be, that we have not long since urgently petitioned the high church government, at the very least for permission to use the forms of the old agendas in their variety, their lovely sincerity of faith, and their pure faithfulness to the faith. But it is not of that I wish to speak, but of the suspicion of the manifold weight and measure found therein.

The first form, after an introductory address, opens the rite with the question: "Dost thou renounce the devil," etc., and thus has the abrenunciatio, which the remaining six forms lack. But should not, however great the variety of the introductory address may be, the rite itself, with its questions concerning the renunciation and the profession of the one being baptized, be exempt from all variation? Certainly it should be. Why then the variations? Is it only for the sake of delectation, or is it not also at the same time to make election possible, in case one has godparents to deal with to whom "Dost thou renounce the devil" is an abomination? Is it then preferable to give the Lord an abomination of manifold weight and measure, rather than give it to people who have no desire for the truth? It ought not, dear brothers, to be so!

That the thought of this manifold weight-abomination is, however, not one deliberately produced but one forced upon us, is evident from the fact that earnestly Christian parents or godparents expressly request the first form from the baptizer. For it has scarcely any other advantage over the remaining forms than the abrenunciatio. And baptizers are accustomed to comply with such a request for the first form. But how now, when the godparents come to the baptizer before the baptismal rite to ask that the first form be waived, and indeed ask that it be waived for the sake of the abrenunciatio? *) Is it then not plainly lamentable that the Church in our fatherland is regarded by not a few of her members as dealing with two kinds of weight and measure? And whereas in every other case one would declare manifold weight and measure to be wrong, here of all places it seems to be found quite in order that consideration be given to the enlightenment of the urbani, for instance, while the limitedness of the pagani is granted the indulgence of renouncing the devil.

But how now? Is the baptizer to comply and, not as a servant of Christ but as the servant of men, within one and the same half hour, use the question concerning the abrenunciatio upon request and on another request omit that very same question? Has it come to this with us?

I am well aware that it is a valid baptism even without the explicit abrenunciation. For the "Dost thou renounce the devil?" already lies within the question, "Dost thou believe in God?" Whoever lives on in faith toward the triune God cannot do so otherwise than with a cursing of the devil. One

*) This case occurred recently in the ephoral town [seat of the superintendency] of D.