# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1898_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

12 Proceedings of the seventeenth convention

again, but there we baptize and know: we are baptizing someone unbaptized. So much depends on its being demonstrable as a fact that someone is baptized, and indeed rightly baptized; therefore witnesses must be present at the baptism in some manner. The pastor is a witness when he baptizes, and if besides there is one other person present who has the necessary understanding to know what a baptism is, and indeed a right baptism, then that is enough; then there are two witnesses. But if the midwife had, as she thinks, baptized a child in mortal need, the mother in her anguish and weakness could not have paid attention to what the person actually said and did, and besides, as the nurse herself says, no one else had been present, we would recognize from the outset: the child can make nothing of that baptism in the world, even if it was right; it rests on the statement of one person, and perhaps not the most reliable; and therefore this child is baptized, so that it may know in the future too, if it should ever need this comfort, that it is baptized. So it is for this reason that witnesses are to be present at baptism; God wants it so, as surely as he wants baptism to be a seal of his grace and promise of grace.

It may not be superfluous to insert here some further testimonies on this point from the old Lutheran church.

The Hessian Church Order of 1566 says: "First, the godparents are sureties, who pledge their faith, as regards religion, in place of the baptized. . . . Now in temporal matters one takes no one as surety except trustworthy people, in whom one trusts that they can and will keep faith. . . . What the godparents vow, they promise not to one or two persons but to the whole church, in whose presence baptism is given to the child. . . .

"Next it is required of them that they confess their faith before the church. But to confess the faith rightly belongs to no one else than to those who are well informed in the Christian doctrine and bring forth good fruit of faith. As he who goes unworthily to the Lord's table eats and drinks judgment to himself and becomes guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, so too he who presents himself unfit for holy baptism stands in no lesser danger; for in both places the memorial of Christ's death is transacted, and through the blood of Christ the forgiveness of sins is offered and imparted. . . . So the faith and the prayer of those who bring the children to the church and to holy baptism are not to be denied. . . .

"The godparents also earnestly promise that they will see to it that the baptized children, when they come to their years, are well instructed in the doctrine and faith of the Christian religion, and are no less careful for their salvation than their natural parents. . . . Hence also