# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 54 —

Letter to Pastor W. Hattstädt.

The Eighth Committee, charged with answering Pastor W. Hattstädt's
question whether he might undertake baptisms, weddings, and funeral
sermons when approached to do so by former members who have since
withdrawn from his congregation, presented the synod with its opinion on
the matter, which was adopted by the synod with approval.

As to the baptism of such people's children, the question must first be
answered "yes," since here only the command of the Lord Christ, that the
children should be baptized, and the children's great need are to be
considered. An important testimony on this may be found in what
Hartmann says on the subject in his Pastorale Evangelicum, Book 3,
Chapter 26, § 13: "Thus a minister of the Word may also baptize the
children of heretics, provided the latter do not declare that, by their
paternal authority (which they retain), they will raise their children in
their heresy, and do not demand that any alteration (correctio) be made in
the act of baptism itself. A distinction must, however, be made as to
whether the heresy concerns the essential elements of baptism or only the
non-essential ones. Baptism is to be administered not to the children of
the former heretics, but to the children of the latter, because the children
of those heretics who retain the essential elements of baptism are born
within the church; for where true baptism is, there is also the true
church, and every child that is within the church should be baptized.
Hence the children of an apostate who still lives within the parish are
likewise to be baptized, since the refusal of baptism is no fitting means of
bringing a person back and converting him, nor should the son bear the
father's wrongdoing (Ezek. 18:20). Indeed, even the children of the
excommunicated are to be admitted to baptism, although some of the
stricter Reformed mock this."

Further, the following passage from the old Saxon Church Order is found
in an opinion of the Wittenberg theological faculty from the year 1619:
"No pastor or minister shall, on account of the parents' sin and
impenitence, delay (that is, put off) the holy baptism of the little children,
or else let them lie unbaptized altogether and die."

Although Pastor Hattstädt makes no mention of baptismal sponsors in his
question, the committee nonetheless considers it fitting to present, on this
occasion, a further testimony on that subject from the work cited above,
Book 3, Chapter 27. There it says: "As to what baptismal witnesses
[sponsors] are to be chosen and admitted, this too should now be treated:
namely, with regard to age, not children (infantes) or persons too young
(juvenculi), but such as understand the mystery of this sacrament and the
reasons why they are taken on as sponsors, and can duly fulfill their duty;
and with regard to conduct, not persons manifestly vicious (1 Cor. 5:11;
2 Thess. 3:6), but upright persons who will take care for the instruction
and upbringing of the children. But if, through the parents' lack of
understanding or some other cause, the opposite should occur, the
sponsors are not to be turned away at the act itself; rather, if it can be
done, the sponsor should first be admonished to well consider both the
importance of the task he is to carry out and the gravity of the sin into
which he would fall (should he persist in impenitence and still wish to be a
sponsor) — although, should such an ungodly person actually have been
admitted, this would nonetheless...