Luther, Calvin and Zwingli comments on baptism! interesting info.

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Read this. It is interesting stuff.

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The Reformers on Baptism
from Forward, Jan-Mar '97

Dr. Martin Luther
>From Luthers Small Catechism (1529)
Explaining the significance of water baptism and citing Mark 16:16 and Titus 3:5-7:
"It works  forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives everlasting
salvation to all who believe, as the Word and the promise of God declare ... It is not water 
indeed that does it, but the Word of God which is with and in the ward, and faith which trusts 
in the Word of God in the water"

The Ausburg Confession (1530) says that original sin brings "eternal death now also upon all 
not born by baptism and the Holy Spirit ... Of baptism they [the churches] teach that it is 
necessary to salvation, and that by baptism the grace of God is offered."

In the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), Luther described some people in his day who 
insisted on using "the words, 'I baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ." He defended the 
validity of their baptism since "it is certainly that the apostles used this formula in baptizing
, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles." 


John Calvin:
"At whatever time we are baptized, we are washed and purified once for the whole of life 
[Forgiveness] at our first regeneration we receive by baptism alone ... In baptism, the Lord 
promises forgiveness of sins: receive it, and be secure. I have no intention to detreact from 
the power of baptism."
John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion" Erdmans 514, 521


Zwingli:

The disciples baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. No where do we read that the disciples 
baptized in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Therefore it is evident that the words of 
Matthew 28 were not instituted as a form and the theologians have made the biggest mistake of 
their lives in thir exposition of this text. Not that I forbid baptism in that form ... I am 
simply pointing out that according to their true and natural sense these words of God do not 
impose a srict baptismal form. If they did, the disciples would not have used a different form 
when they baptized".
>From "Of Baptism, Zwiningli and Bullinger G.W. Bromily, in Vol 24 of the Library of Christian 
Classics

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