gustin Confession of Faith, drawn up by Melancthon at the Diet of 1530, and which may be considered as the creed of the German Reformers, especially of the more temperate among them. The ninth article of this Confession says:
"They [the Lutheran churches] teach concerning baptism, that it is necessary to salvation; and that the grace of God is offered through baptism; and that infants ought to be baptised, who, being offered to God through baptism, are received into God's grace.
"They condemn the Anabaptists, who disapprove of infant baptism, and affirm that they are saved without baptism."
And Melancthon in his Apology, which is another of the Lutheran symbolical books, remarks upon this article:
"The ninth article is approved, in which we confess that baptism is necessary to salvation."—"And as we condemn most other errors of the Anabaptists, so this also, that they contend that the baptism of infants is useless. For it is most certain that the promise of salvation pertains even to infants. But it does not pertain to those who are without the church of Christ, where there is neither the Word nor the sacraments, because the kingdom of Christ exists only with the Word and sacraments. Therefore it is necessary to baptise infants, that the promise of salvation may be applied to them."
In the Epitome of Articles about which controversies have arisen among the Luthernan Theologians, there are passages still stronger. Among the "Ana-
