e can have
absolute certainty that faith is present. Or if one should have
doubts as to the validity of his baptism in infancy, because he
has no evidence that he then believed, and, for this reason,
should ask to be baptised in adult years, then if Satan should
again trouble him as to whether, even when baptised the second
time, he really had faith, he would have to be baptised a third,
and a fourth time, and so on _ad infinitum_, as long as such
doubts recurred.[13] "For it often happens that one who thinks
that he has faith, has none whatever, and that one who thinks
that he has no faith but only doubts, actually believes. We are
not told: 'He who knows that he believes,' or 'If you know that
you believe,' but: 'He that believeth shall be saved.' [14] In
other words, it is not faith in our faith that is asked, but
faith in the Word and institution of God. Again: "Tell me: Which
is the greater, the Word of God or faith? Is not the Word of God
the greater? For the Word does not depend upon faith, but it is
faith that is dependent on God's Word. Faith wavers and changes;
but the Word of God abides forever."[15] "The man who bases his
baptism on his faith, is not only uncertain, but he is a godless
and hypocritical Christian; for he puts his trust in what is not
his own, viz., in a gift which God has given him, and not alone
in the Word of God; just as another builds upon his strength,
wisdom, power, holiness, which, nevertheless, are gifts which God
has given us." [16] Even though at the time of baptism there be
no faith, the baptism, nevertheless, is valid. For if at the time
of marriage, a maiden be without love to the man whom she
marries, when, two years later, she has learned to love her
husband, there is no need of a new betrothal and a new marriage;
the covenant previously made is sufficient.[17]

In harmony with the stress laid in this treatise upon the fact
that baptism is a treasury of consolation offered to the faith of
every individual baptised, is the great emphasis which Luther, in
other places, was constrained to lay upon personal as
distinguished from vicarious faith. Neither the faith of the
sponsors, nor that of the Church, for which, according to
Augustine, the sponsors speak, avails more than simply to bring
the child to baptism, where it becomes an independent agent, with
whom God now deals directly. Thus the Large Catechism declares:
"We bring the child in the purpose and hope that it may believ