A Protestant Discovers Mary

I use caps usually to accent something important to me. It’s not REALLY shouting, it’s my way of writing or speaking. Blessings, Mary

Amen, Theo.

THX BIG. I think you do a much better job than I do. Much appreciated, too.

Whoa there, FRiend - "Done differently" is not necessarily the same as "much better". I will take "differently." Efficacy is in the eye of our Lord. Thx for the kudos, but they do not belong to me. :D

[...] I think Fatima was a relatively . . . abbreviated--as prolonged and elaborate as it was . . . compared to what's coming . . . it was a fairly abbreviated charade.

Agreed... As are a host of similar trial runs. Reading what folks in the mission fields in Africa and South America are up against (daily) cause one to be very observant here as well, IF one is willing to SEE.

It is our unfortunate circumstance to be trained in a world of sophistry, where many things are sanitized and explained away: But that does not suggest that such things are not happening world-wide, including right in front of our stuck-up noses.

[...] I've ranted about this hereon for more than a decade and many folks are still UTTERLY CLUELESS about what's ahead.

... AND what has already past, perhaps, as well. But it is written that most folks will NOT see, nor will they hear.

Imagine, if you will, a publicly naked and starving Ezekiel, lying on one side and then another, as described in Ez 4...

Imagine him performing such a thing in the sight of men today... He would be labeled an heretic, loosed from his mind; at best, a dirty and unprofitable "street preacher"... How many of this blind and wretched generation would notice him, and pay him mind?

Yet therein lies the instruction of God - not in the flash-bang bells and whistles of the Fatima event.

We have, currently, the following context, circumstances building . . .

Agreed, all in all. Yet the disbelieving will not see - there is nothing but the sign of Jonah for them.

THANKS for your kind words.

I did my best to go by OTHER inputs. I think I succeeded.

LUBBRO

Dear Precious Betty . . .

SOME of us pointing out hard to hear things do not subscribe to that blackwash either.

However, that also does NOT mean that the Vatican warrants a whitewash either.

And, I STILL prefer to think of you as above such recent prickliniess.

Satan uses the bad in all of us as well as the bad in ALL human organizations--including the Vatican/Roman Catholic et al edifice and ALL its sub-units, schools, universities, congregations.

As well as all AoG, Baptist, Lutheran, etc. congregations and organizations as I've persistently asserted hereon for more than 10 years.

The Vatican/Roman Catholic et al junk gets a lot of press and flack hereon for a number of reasons.

1. Some of the Roman Catholic et al rabid clique hereon are relentlessly determined to try and turn this into a sub-unit of the Vatican.

2. Some of them are seemingly addicted to posting baiting threads and other outrageous stuff that more or less REQUIRES a forceful Protty response.

3. Some of them are extremely hostile, narrow, rigid, haughty, self-righteous, vengeful, authoritarian, !!!!DEMANDING!!!! of Protty kowtowing to their dictionaries, their sensibilities, their goals and expectations. And they wail and whine outrageously--AS WELL AS engage in harsh personal personhood attacks (e.g. as on sanity, IQ, education etc.)--when they cannot get their way or have to put up with a forceful Protty response. Tough tacos.

4. Normally, you are quite brilliant and Biblical as well as gracious and Christ-like in a list of ways. However, it seems that recently, on a number of issues and points I'd have liked to have interacted with the depth and breadth of your mind and spiritual insights on, virtually all I get in response is the seemingly quite narrow prickliness as well as wholesale avoidance of the points and issues I'd like to dialogue about. Certainly that's your right and perogative. However, it's a bit shocking to me . . . and disappointing.

5. Facts are facts regardless of what label the are discovered under, occur under, are presented and discussed under. Honorable Christ-like people are not afraid of facts regardless of where they come from or what they are about. And, usually, they can discuss them without undue narrowness or undue brittleness.

6. Recently, you noted rather admirably and courageously that--essentially--you couldn't imagine that anyone in their right mind would pretend to believe that Mary did NOT have other blood children than Jesus. I was delighted to see your excellent reality testing and authentic Biblical understanding in that regard.

7. I believe that The Lord is working hard on and with a lot of us getting us as ready as possible for looming festivities.

8. I believe He is confronting stuff within us and around us and in our thinking and sensibilities as well as about our personhood, beliefs and actions which He would like to become more focused on and more submitted TO HIM. I don't believe He is leaving you out of that broad mission.

9. He is doing this with believers who claim Him as Lord REGARDLESS OF THE RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION THEY ARE IN OR NOT IN. NO ONE CALLED BY HIS NAME WILL ESCAPE THIS FIERY FURNACE, SANDING, POLISHING, SHAPING, REMOLDING process.

10. The stakes are too high in the coming battles for any of us to enter those battles less prepared than we might have been.

11. EVERYTHING HAS TO GO ON THE ALTAR.

12. EVERYTHING. I don't know this for a fact . . . however, my impression is that Alamo-Girl had to go through some very serious fiery furnaces to be changed from a mean-spirited gritch to the rather saintly character we all see and love hereon so much. I can't imagine that she did so without putting EVERYTHING ON THE ALTAR.

13. EVERYTHING MEANS EVERYTHING--INCLUDING RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS, CONGREGATIONS, RITUALS, FAVORITE PAST-TIMES, FAVORITE PEOPLE, FAVORITE BELIEFS, FAVORITE WHATEVER'S.

14. And then we receive back FOR HIS USE--WHATEVER AND ONLY WHATEVER HE decides is FITTING for HIS USE in and through us.

15. And, for some of the slow-learner types on some of that stuff like me, we can go through such EVERYTHING OFFERING UP fiery furnaces and altar scenes several times.

16. In my experience and observation, brittleness, affrontedness, flesh that has not gone sufficiently to The Cross and The Altar--rears it's head from whatever provocation. And that provocation is a GIFT FROM GOD regardless of whether satan himself is involved, or not.

17. Being conformed to THE IMAGE OF HIS SON means that . . . like Him, when pierced and crushed . . . sweet wine comes out instead of vinegar.

18. My natural inclination along the lines of my sensibilities and preferences as well as my insecurities would likely be to be super sweet and gracious with you . . . treat you with kid gloves wrapped in rabbit fur and tiptoe on by such times, exchanges, issues, brittleness.

19. However, that wouldn't be CALVARY LOVE in Amy Carmichael's terms . . . as described so penetratingly in her marvelous book: IF.

20. And, I wouldn't be acting faithfully to you as my Sister in Christ nor to my Lord.

21. I can't guess what all The Lord might be trying to put HIS finger on toward realignment, adjustment, overhaul or whatever. I just know that once the Hound Of Heaven is on a project, the only way is THROUGH. Running away just never works. Pretending otherwise never works. Slipping and sliding around on the issues never works.

22. In that post, I used the word "some" very deliberately. I did NOT MEAN all. And "some" is quite accurate on that issue. Denial of that doesn't change the facts.

23. I enjoy being gracious with you as you are typically a gracious person. However, when The Lord presses me with His big boot in my behind to be firm, I must comply.

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.
BLESSED BE THE WORD OF THE LORD.
BLESSED BE THE WAYS OF THE LORD.

Thanks for your kind and humbling words.

I still think you share such better than I do! LOL.

Your writing is cleaner and briefer. LOL.

And, I STILL prefer to think of you as above such recent prickliniess.

And you call it — "prickliness?" How very dismissive of you, of my extreme distress occasioned by this most recent astounding folly.

I readily forgive an insult directed to me personally. For me, it's as easy as rolling off a log, then to quickly forget. But an insult directed to the Body of Christ is not mine to forgive. That judgment must occur far above my pay grade.

All historical documents state that Ambrose was raised in a Christian family and was Christian not pagan. If you read “he was baptised as an adult” and assume that that means he was a pagan until an adult, that is flawed, personal interpretation, sola scriptura, sola interpretura. Just like the flawed personal interpretation of the bible

Rigid dogma is only declared when there are cries calling out for the veracity of two opposing view. Example, all the councils were called to handle opposing viewpoints that were breaking up The Church. Now, the concept of IC is part of the Eastern ORthodox's tradition and has been since Ireneus at least. This was not new but dates back to the Early Christians.

CINOs may oppose the Church on disciplinary isses -- if they oppose it on dogmatic issues, they are truly CINOs -- Catholics in name only.

A friend’s insight. I wish I had something more to say about it, but to do so I would have to have a better knowledge of the “intellectual history” of Mariology.

So, the question to wmfights is -- if you assume that even though the fACTs say that Ambrose was born into a Christian family and was known as a Christian, despite this, he was baptised as an adult was a pagan until baptised, do you beleive that Baptists (as inferred by your statement) are pagans until baptised?

Lutherans,Orthodox, Catholics, practice infant baptism because they believe that God mandates it. In the special section on infant baptism in his Large Catechism Luther argues that infant baptism is God-pleasing because persons so baptized were reborn and sanctified by the Holy Spirit -- and he was correct on that

Ireneus speaks not only of children but even of infants being "born again to God", The Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (died 235), describes how to perform the ceremony of baptism; it states that children were baptised first, and if any of them could not answer for themselves, their parents or someone else from their family was to answer for them

From at least the third century onward Christians baptized infants as standard practice, although some preferred to postpone baptism until late in life, so as to ensure forgiveness for all their preceding sins -- and this was the common reason until the days of St. Augustine and St.Ambrose

From New Advent's encyclopedia

The bishops of the province, dreading the inevitable tumults of a popular election, begged the Emperor Valentinian to appoint a successor by imperial edict; he, however, decided that the election must take place in the usual way. It devolved upon Ambrose, therefore, to maintain order in the city at this perilous juncture. Proceeding to the basilica in which the disunited clergy and people were assembled, he began a conciliatory discourse in the interest of peace and moderation, but was interrupted by a voice (according to Paulinus, the voice of an infant) crying, "Ambrose, Bishop". The cry was instantly repeated by the entire assembly, and Ambrose, to his surprise and dismay, was unanimously pronounced elected. Quite apart from any supernatural intervention, he was the only logical candidate, known to the Catholics as a firm believer in the Nicene Creed, unobnoxious to the Arians, as one who had kept aloof from all theological controversies. The only difficulty was that of forcing the bewildered consular to accept an office for which his previous training nowise fitted him. Strange to say, like so many other believers of that age, from a misguided reverence for the sanctity of baptism, he was still only a catechumen, and by a wise provision of the canons ineligible to the episcopate. That he was sincere in his repugnance to accepting the responsibilities of the sacred office, those only have doubted who have judged a great man by the standard of their own pettiness. Were Ambrose the worldly-minded, ambitious, and scheming individual they choose to paint him, he would have surely sought advancement in the career that lay wide open before him as a man of acknowledged ability and noble blood. It is difficult to believe that he resorted to the questionable expedients mentioned by his biographer as practised by him with a view to undermining his reputation with the populace. At any rate his efforts were unsuccessful. Valentinian, who was proud that his favourable opinion of Ambrose had been so fully ratified by the voice of clergy and people, confirmed the election and pronounced severe penalties against all who should abet him in his attempt to conceal himself. The Saint finally acquiesced, received baptism at the hands of a Catholic bishop, and eight day later, 7 December 374, the day on which East and West annually honour his memory, after the necessary preliminary degrees was consecrated bishop.

Now, if you have complete information, you can understand the facts. However, if you use flawed, incomplete individual sola interpretura information, then you come up with the flawed assumption that wmfights made which was "Ambrose was a pagan before he got baptised".

No.

Not dismissive nor insulting AT ALL.

That was being tender hearted, caring, compassionate and gentle.

There’s been NO insult to the Body of Christ from my fingers.

The only insult has been to satan and his efforts against individuals, groups etc. who make up The Body of Christ and who purport to make up the Body of Christ.

I’m saddened that you seem to perceive things otherwise.

All historical documents state that Ambrose was raised in a Christian family

There is reason to doubt the 'Christianity' if there is no proof. Isn't that a Catholic outlook on a faith without works? Why no baptism if in a practicing Christian household? I think the assumption of non-believer is substantiated barring some other plausible reason for not being baptized.

Just like the flawed personal interpretation of the bible

You aren't equating the written history of St Ambrose's life to reading the Bible, are you. And if the Holy Spirit is guiding ones reading, it it really a 'personal' interpretation any longer?

Strange to say, like so many other believers of that age, from a misguided reverence for the sanctity of baptism, he was still only a catechumen, and by a wise provision of the canons ineligible to the episcopate.

Before we start on why that was done and why baptism is NOT just symbolism and why we baptise infants, I'll quote this from Tim Staples book Surprised by Truth

I toook Jimmy Swaggart's challenge: 'We would like to challenge the Catholic Church to demonstrate that the saints and martyrs of the first three hundred years accepted the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church as it exists today' I acquired a copy of J.B. Lightfoot's The Apostolic Fathers and devoured it. I went to the library on campus and began to study the ives and works of other Fathers of The CHurch, reading their writings in the original Greek and checking their theological arguments against what the Greek text of Scripture said. I researched all of the early councils of The CHurch. To my dismay, all I found was Catholic truth. I could not believe Brother Jimmy couldd have read what I read and issued his 'challenge'. The writings of the Church Fathers clearly show that the early Church ws Catholic long before the time of the Emperor Constantine"

The 'symbolic view' of Baptism originates as a doctrin of the Anabaptists movement which broke away from MArtin Luther's reform efforts

Both Catholicism and Orthodoxy hold to the sacramental and efficacious nature of baptism.

And yet those outside the Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Churches ask: are we saved by faith or by baptism? Are we saved by beleiving or by the Spirit? These are false dichtomies.

If youwant to receive salvation, justification, new birth and eternal life, what does scripture say?
By believeing in Christ (Jm 3:16, Acts 16:31)
By repentance Acts 2:38, 2 Pet3:9
By baptism Jm 3:5, 1 Pet 3:21, Titus 3:5
By the work of the Spirit Jm 3:5, 2 Cor 3:6
By declaring wit our mouths Lk 12:8, Rom 10:9
By coming to a knowledge of the truth 1 Tim 2:4, Heb 10:26
By works Rom 2:6, Jame 2:24
By grace Acts 15:11, Eph 2:8
By His blood Rom 5:9, Heb 9:22
By His righteousness Rom 5:17, 2 Pet 1:1
By His Cross Eph 2:16, Col 2:14

We can't take out any ONE of these and proclaim it ALONE as themeans of salvation. The Bible is a book in it's entirety -- no one part contradicts the other. To restrict this to faith alone or works alone is false -- salvation, justification is more than that, Can we be saved without faith? No. Can we besaved without repenteance? No. Withotu God's face? No. Without Baptism? No. Without the Holy Spirit? No

These are all involved and necessary, you cannot dismiss one as the means of obtaining eternal life, neither can ONE be emphasized to the exclusion of another. They are all involved in salvation and entry into The CHurch. The CHurch does not divide these various elements of salvation up, overemphasizing some while ignoring others: rather, she holds them all in their fullness

To understand the reverence for Baptism and how it was not merely symbolism in the ancient Church, there are many instances, but the one I like best is from Justin Martyr (100-165)

And we who have approached God through Him (Christ) have received not carnal, but spiritual circumsion, which Enoch and those like him observed. And we have recieved it through baptism, since we were sinners, by God's mercy; and all men may equally obtain it

I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated outselves ot God when we had been made new hrough Christ.. As many are peruaded and beleive that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are isntructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. then they are brought by us where there is water and are regenerated int eh same manner in which we were outselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father... and of our Savior Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water/ For Christ also said. "Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven' An for this rite we have learned from the apostles in order that we may not remain the children of necessiry and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge and may obtain int he water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who choose to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father

And this food is called among us the Eucharists, of which no one is allowed to partake but the ma who believes tha the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed int he washing that is for the remission of sins and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined

As you can see Baptism was held as far more than a symbol in the early Church and it was held in high reverence and those who entered it believed it remitted one's sins. HEnce the tendency to want to undergo baptism later in life, even just before dying so that the sins would be forgiven and the catechumen would not sin anymore. This was based on the solemnity of the sacrament and the reason Luther argues that infant baptism is God-pleasing because persons so baptized were reborn and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

As says Clement of Alexandria

For thus He wishes us to be converted and to be as children acknowledging him who is truly out father, regenerated by water and this is a different beginning than creation. BEing baptised, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; beign made perfect, we are made immortal.

Or Tertullian

Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life

And from Origen (c 185 to 254)

The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed teh secrets of divine mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit

Or Cyprian of Carthage (martyred 258)

In respect to the case of infants, which you say ought not to be baptised within the second or third day after birth, and that hte law of ncient circumcision be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptised and sanctified within the eighth day,we all thought very differently in our council. For in this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man.. we ought to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh accrding to Adam, he has ontracted teh contagion of the ancient death as its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins -- that to him are remitted, not his own sincs, but the sins of another (Adam)

Ambrose himself said "Now, even the catechumen believes in the cross of the Lord Jesus, wherewith he too is signed; but unless he be baptised int he Name of th FAther, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive remission of sins and not gain the gift of spiritual grace

Or St. Augustine, so revered by the reformers says in Epistle 28

Who is so impious as to wish to exclude infants from the kindgom of heaven by forbidding them to be baptised and born again in Christ? This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perserveringly guards even to the end

Whoever says that even infants are vivified in Christ when they depart this life without the participation of His Sacrament (Baptism), both opposes the Apostolic preaching and condemns the whole Church which hastens to baptize infants, because it unhesitatingly believes that otherwise they can not possibly be vivified in Christ,"

Do not accept false dichtomies. Do not has an either/or mentality with regards to scripture and tradition. It is not either baptism or The Spirit. IS it not obvious that Jesus Christ himself did not think this way? He simplyu said "Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kindgom of heaven"

Baptism is held to be necessary both necessitate medii and præcepti. This doctrine is rounded on the words of Christ. In John 3, He declares: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he can not enter into the kingdom of God." Christ makes no exception to this law and it is therefore general in its application, embracing both adults and infants. It is consequently not merely a necessity of precept but also a necessity of means.

The Catholic Church maintains absolutely that the law of Christ applies as well to infants as to adults. When the Redeemer declares (John 3) that it is necessary to be born again of water and the Holy Ghost in order to enter the Kingdom of God, His words may be justly understood to mean that He includes all who are capable of having a right to this kingdom. Now, He has asserted such a right even for those who are not adults, when He says (Matthew 19:14): "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." It has been objected that this latter text does not refer to infants, inasmuch as Christ says "to come to me". In the parallel passage in St. Luke (18:15), however, the text reads: "And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them"; and then follow the words cited from St. Matthew. In the Greek text, the words brephe and prosepheron refer to infants in arms.

Moreover, St. Paul (Colossians 2) says that baptism in the New Law has taken the place of circumcision in the Old. It was especially to infants that the rite of circumcision was applied by Divine precept. If it be said that there is no example of the baptism of infants to be found in the Bible, we may answer that infants are included in such phrases as: "She was baptized and her household" (Acts 16:15); "Himself was baptized, and all his house immediately" (Acts 16:33); "I baptized the household of Stephanus" (1 Corinthians 1:16).

To the objection that baptism requires faith, theologians reply that adults must have faith, but infants receive habitual faith, which is infused into them in the sacrament of regeneration. As to actual faith, they believe on the faith of another; as St. Augustine (De Verb. Apost., xiv, xviii) beautifully says: "He believes by another, who has sinned by another."

It is for the same reason that the perpetually insane, who have never had the use of reason, are in the same category as infants in what relates to the conferring of baptism, and consequently the sacrament is valid if administered.

So, the question to wmfights is -- if you assume that even though the fACTs say that Ambrose was born into a Christian family and was known as a Christian, despite this, he was baptised as an adult was a pagan until baptised, do you beleive that Baptists (as inferred by your statement) are pagans until baptised?

I believe that Baptism is a means of grace, that it saves, but it isn't a 'work' of man but that it is God's gift and that the commandment to preach the Gospel and baptize means children too. As a Baptist wmfights would probably disagree with me and as a Baptist he should.

I neither stated or 'implied' that Baptist children are pagan until they get baptized. Neither did I for Ambrose. However in Ambrose's case as he was old enough to be a Bishop the question of why he wasn't baptized from a Christian family is relevant. Not that he was a bad guy as he rests in heaven but in light of Catholics speaking hereon it is reasonable. Just as I would question a Baptist about his kid who upon reaching 34 years of age hadn't been baptized.

We can't take out any ONE of these and proclaim it ALONE as themeans of salvation. The Bible is a book in it's entirety -- no one part contradicts the other. To restrict this to faith alone or works alone is false -- salvation, justification is more than that, Can we be saved without faith? No. Can we besaved without repenteance? No. Withotu God's face? No. Without Baptism? No. Without the Holy Spirit? No

In Lent, the thief on the cross. Justification is by faith apart from the works of the Law. Rom. 3:28.

The answer to that is given in the post following that

I'm not equating, but, as I said, this is an analogy describing the flaws of personal interpretation -- whether it be personal interpretation of history or personal interpretation of scripture. Wmfights did not mean to lie about Ambrose, but he erred due to fault, incompletely understood, personal interpretation. To call HIM a liar would be a false, statement, to say that he made an incorrect interpretation based on incomplete text rings true.

The Holy Spirit guides the community that is The CHurch as a whole. It does not and did not guide John SMith or the Reverend Moon or Charles Taze Russell - individuals who claimed to be led by it. Individual interpretation is necessarily flawed as we are flawed beings, we only understand God through community -- the community of saints stretching back 2000 years.

Those sola interpretura folks reading the bible alone do not, cannot read it with an unbiased purity of mind, free from influence by certain doctrinal presuppositions. Luther said of the Church "We concede -- as we must -- that so much of what they (the Church) say is true: that the papacy has God's word and the office of the apostles. and that we ahve received Holy Scriptures, Baptism, the Sacrament and the pulpit from them. what woudl we know of these if ti were not for them?: from this "Sermons on the Gospel of John", chaps 14-16.

that is why the reformers: CAlvin, Luther, etc. wanted to have synods as they found the preponderence of sects, each many with his own interpretation foul.

To quote Luther from HEinrich Denifle, Luther and Lutherdom

The world by this teaching becomes only the worse, the longer it exists... the people are more avaricious, less merciful... and worse than before under the Papacy

And another great one from Luther said (as cited in Bible quizzes to a Street Preacher by Leslie Rumble

There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads, this one will not admit Baptis; that one rejects the Sacrament of the altar; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgement; some teach that Jesus Christ is not god. There is not an individual, however clowneish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Ghost and who does nto put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams

If you check Luther's Epistle to Zwingli, in a letter to Heinrich Zwingli, Martin Luther conceded that the reformers woudl again have to take refuge in the Church councils in order to preserve the unity of the faith on account of the many interpretations that were given to scritpure

It dawned on me recently that the confusion inherant with the phrase “Mother of God” being identified with Mary is one which actually conflicts with Catholic doctrine.

Specifically, when on studies the doctrines of the Trinity, the Hypostatic Union, and of Kenosis, it is clear that our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, had both a human nature and a divine nature, such that no attribute of His Divine nature was changed, for He is immutable. There was no suppression of His divine essence.

Likewise, in His hypostatic union, the attributes of the human and divine natures are united without transfer of their attributes. His divine nature was not changed nor diminished by His human nature nor by his voluntary restriction.

His divine attributes did not bleed over into his human attributes nor his human attributes into His Diety. In another way of expression, to rob God of any of His divine attributes is to deny His deity and to rob any of His human attributes robs Him of His humanity.

He established a spiritual life in His human nature. He did not bleed Divinity to form His human spirit, but relied instead upon the Plan of God the Father and in what He provided by God the Holy Spirit in His spirituality.

If one were to confuse the divine nature of Jesus Christ as having been born from Mary, then one would misidentify the doctrine of the Trinity.

If one confuses the humanity of Jesus Christ with His divine nature, then one denies the value of the Cross to redeem all mankind to the Father.

Mary did not provide the divine nature to Jesus Christ for it existed before all of Creation.

"I neither stated or 'implied' that Baptist children are pagan until they get baptized. Neither did I for Ambrose." --> And no one said YOU did -- you jumped onto a discussion point between me and wmfights. And, for the record, I do NOT believe that wmfights believes that either -- it's just that if he came to the conclusion "Ambrose not baptised until adult, hence was a pagan before baptism", then the question arises too about his logic for his own denomination (of Baptists)

That is the fault with personal, flawed interpretation -- you or I can err (very easily in my case :-P), but the community of believers stretchign back 2000 years does NOT

"I believe that Baptism is a means of grace, that it saves, but it isn't a 'work' of man but that it is God's gift and that the commandment to preach the Gospel and baptize means children too" ---> that's a very orthodox belief. Good on you! For wmfights, I've enumerated the reasons why it is the scriptural, traditional correct one

The thief on the cross — saved by faith, saved by repentene, saved by God’s grace, saved by baptism of desire, saved by the work of acceptance of Christ.