From: Pilgrimpub@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 9:01 AM
To: Mentonebay@aol.com
Subject: TESTIMONY OF BORN-AGAIN PEDOBAPTIST [07/27/04]
TESTIMONY OF FORMER PEDOBAPTIST WHO WAS "REGENERATED"
AS AN INFANT IN 1929 BUT WAS BORN AGAIN IN 1952 [04/27/04]


NOTE:
We hope and believe that in the case of many Pedobaptists their "hearts are sounder than their heads," as was once said about Martin Luther. We do believe there is a great distinction between theoretical (mental) error and the actual state of the heart. Mistakes of the head do not necessarily mean that the heart is in as bad a shape as the head might imply. Thus, we have confidence that many, many Pedobaptists are truly saved, even though they mistakenly think that one is "regenerated" somehow in infancy.

There is not much difference between the Pedobaptist communions -- whether Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, or Presbyterian -- in regard to the alleged regeneration of infant children; they differ only in regard to their theoretical concepts about exactly how this supposed regeneration is enacted. By the grace of God, however, many of them are evidently later brought into an experiential knowledge of Christ and the Gospel and pass from death to life, even if they never completely recover from the mental error about infant regeneration.

The following is the testimony of an aging brother who has gone thru the experience of allegedly being "regenerated" in infancy, and then was actually born again later on.

>>
Brother:

What strange things constitute religion as devised by men. The heresy of infant "baptism" has far-reaching effects, both here and in eternity. You would think that common sense, illustrated by experience, (to say nothing of Scripture!), would be sufficient to teach men the perniciousness of such error.

I was reared in a godless home, never knowing my parents or siblings to attend church. HOWEVER, when I was two weeks old my parents, along with "god parents" carried me into an Episcopal Church in Cincinnati (our home town), where a "priest' administered "baptism" to me!  Strange, for I do not remember it at all!  My "baptismal"  record indicates that  I became a child of God, was regenerated, had my  sins remitted, and received the Holy Ghost!  All  with a few drops of water!

Needless to say, none of it "took," for I quickly confirmed the Scripture,  "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies"(Ps 58:3)  It was not until 23 years later that God took over, and all that supposedly happened in 1929 DID HAPPEN in 1952, THANK GOD!  And all that without benefit of a "priest," for the great High Priest from heaven elected and called me with a "holy calling" which cannot be revoked!  Think of that!

However sad and tragic as all this is, it serves to further demonstrate the blindness which possesses the unregenerate man, for, indeed unless one is born "from above" he cannot "see" or enter the kingdom of heaven.

Sola gratia,

A. J. A. (Ohio)

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