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wished . For all Mr . R . V positions and expressions the writer is not responsible . He is responsible only for what he defends ; and , perhaps ,
before the close of these Letters he may , agreeably to what he formerly hinted , speak , though but briefly , to a few points on which he differs from the Historian of Baptism , on his authorities , errors of the press , &c .
In the former Letter , of your last Number , p . 36 , the words , * ' but to return to Mr . R . and Mr . B . " were not in order . They should have been placed here ; a note also in the Number preceding that , was out of order , as the reader must have perceived *
Mr . B . " Yet this is the book to which 1 am sent for a full refutation of all that I have advanced on Infant Baptism . * ' I am afraid very justly . Mr . B . " The misstatements and
gross misrepresentations of what Tertullian wrote on the subject of Baptism , can only be accounted for by the hurry in which Mr . Robinson wrote , and must have been corrected had he
lived to revise his work . " Here is something like a charge of wilfulness and design , and towards Tertitllian on the subject of Baptism , as though Mr . R . had given a
uniformly false statement of the design and end of Tertullian ' s treatise ; qualified , indeed , with something of your Correspondent's , smoothness and candour . And here , at the outset , I
perceive , your Correspondent h « s confounded Mr . R . ' s two works , one of which , at least , he had told us he had sought , and , by his own account , had read with such eagerness and fond expectation for information . Now Mr . IL did Jive to revise his work on
Baptism , and brought it through the press himself- The Advertisement , prefixed by the editors , informs us , that he wrote very little during the last twelvemonth of his life , and that
the whole of the volume , except the Preface and Recapitulation , was ^ rmAerf before that period . So that he lived long enough to revise his History of Baptism , and did revise it . It was for his Ecclesiastical Researches that the
apology was made in the Preface to it . " It is to be lamented that these papers were not subjected to the last corrections of the Authors pen ; and the candid reader will , we doubt not , make due allowance for the imperfec-
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tions of a posthumous work . " Your Correspondent has been shewn before from this ver 3 posthumous work pf Mr . Robinson ' s , what little thanks he
would have got from that gentleman , had lie lived , for his candour , in the case of St . Augustine ; and see what a scrape it has got him into now ! He has plainly confounded the two works .
As to the hurry in which the History of Baptism was written , here is another mistake through your Correspondent's excess of candour . For though I do n 6 t say Mr . R . was a faultless writer , I will say he was the furthest possible from a hurrying one . He had , no doubt , prepared some
materials towards his History before he actually sate down to compose it , and he was seriously employed on it from the year 1781 , to the year before his death , which was in 1790 . A full account ( from his own statement ) of his proceeding in this business , is given in the Memoir of his Life and
Writings , ( p . 214 , ) published in 1796 . The History , then , was the labour of many years , written with , perhaps , too much of aim , and by his intense application to it , the Author
shortened his days . Every advantage that a man could wish for the prosecution of a learned work he possessed- —retirement , leisure , access to some of the best libraries in the kingdom , and kind friends . It was undertaken
before those strict orders were made by the senate , with respect to the use of books in the public library of the University of Cambridge . He lived in a village of but two miles' distance ;
and , by the kindness of many learned members of the University , he procured any numjber of books , and at any time he wished ; and he had them in the greatest abundance to his own house . He was also allowed the use
of books from several college libraries . He was , besides , accommodated by Dr . Gifford , one of the librarians of the British Museum , with an apartment there for the purpose of consulting books and manuscripts , and
for some time attended part of a week in every month . What use he made of these advantages , and what a hurry he made in his work , may be collected from two curious letters of his , printed in the above Memoirs , pp % 270 , 323 .
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On Mr . Belsham $ " Plea for Infant Baptism" 233
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1819, page 233, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1771/page/21/
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