The Father receives the baptized person into favor; the Son bestows his righteousness upon him, and the Holy Spirit _regenerates_ and _renews him_,--produces faith, _regeneration_ and renovation, and seals the covenant of grace in the hearts of the baptized." [Note 10] Again, "Baptism is the first gateway of grace, the sacrament of initiation: the Lord's Supper is the sacrament of confirmation; by baptism we are _regenerated_, by the Holy Supper we are nourished and strengthened to eternal life.

As in nature so in grace, we are first born and then fed, first generated and then we increase, (ix.

67.) _Dr.
Buddeus_, one of the most distinguished theologians of the School of Halle, in his "Theologia Dogmatica, [sic on punctuation] p.
1127, says, "The design of the baptism of infants is their _regeneration;_ in the case of adults, the confirmation and sealing of that faith, which they should have before (the reception of the rite.") Since therefore we have seen that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration was taught not only by the symbolical books, but also by Luther and Melancthon in their other writings, as well as by the leading divines of the first two centuries after the Reformation, who all received the symbolical books, and understood their import, we may regard the charge of the Platform as established beyond contradiction, that this tenet was a part of Symbolic Lutheranism.
_Influence of this Doctrine on the Pulpit_.
Now the influence of this doctrine on the ministrations of the pulpit, is of the most deleterious nature.

The word of God represents all mankind as by nature dead in trespasses and sins.

Paul tells us that "there is none righteous, no not one, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God:" and affirms that the carnal mind is enmity against God.