d forgiving power of the ministry is
to the spirituality of the Church and to the doctrine of justification
by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ, is clearly evident." "John
20, 23: 'Whosesoever sins ...' either refers to a miraculous power
bestowed on the apostles to discern the condition of the heart, and to
announce pardon of God to truly penitent individuals; or it confers on
the ministry, in all ages, the power to announce, in general, the
conditions on which God will pardon sinners; but it contains no
authority for applying these promises to individuals, as is done in
private absolution." (26.) On baptismal regeneration: "If Baptism is not
a converting ordinance in adults, it cannot be in infants. ... Of
regeneration, in the proper sense of the term, infants are incapable;
for it consists in a radical change in our religious views of the divine
character, law, etc.; a change in our religious feelings, and in our
religious purposes and habits of action; of none of which are children
capable." Regeneration "must consist mainly in a change of that
_increased_ predisposition to sin arising from action, of that
preponderance of sinful habits formed by voluntary indulgence of our
natural depravity, after we have reached years of moral agency. But
infants have no such _increased_ predisposition, no _habits_ of sin
prior to moral agency, consequently there can be no change of them, no
regeneration in this meaning of the term." "Baptismal regeneration,
either in infants or adults, is therefore a doctrine not taught in the
Word of God, and fraught with much injury to the souls of men, although
inculcated in the former Symbolical Books." (30f.) On the hypostatic
union: "The chief error on this subject is the supposition that the
human and divine natures of Christ, to a certain extent, interchange
attributes. This, in common with all other Protestant churches, we
regard as contrary to the Holy Volume." "The supposition that humanity
in any case acquired some attributes of divinity tends to give
plausibility to the apotheosis of heroes and the pagan worship of the
Virgin Mary." The Platform emphatically condemns the doctrine of Article
8 of the Form of Concord: "Hence we believe, teach, and confess that the
Virgin Mary did not conceive and bring forth simply a mere man, but
_the true Son of God_; for which reason she is also rightly called, and
_she is truly, the mother of God_. ... He consequently now, not only as
God,