08 January 2010

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

In the infant there is wrought by God, through the Holy Ghost, by means of water and the Word, that receptivity of condition which it has not by nature. The Holy Ghost offers grace, and so changes the moral nature of the child that this nature becomes receptive of the grace offered. This divinely wrought condition we call receptive faith, and though its phenomena are suspended, it is really faith, as really involves what is essential to justification, as does the faith of the adult. The hand of the infant may as really grasp a diamond as if the infant knew the value of the treasure it held, and if the natural hand can be the minister of acts whose force it comprehends not, how much more may the supernatural hand? -- C. P. Krauth, *Conservative Reformation* p. 580

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