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learned Correspondent's universal testimony here , is like his universal practice in another case . And whether Hermas ' s Pastor be a genuine book or no , itmay be said , with more truth than what your Correspondent says , it is on all hands agreed , that it is an earlier book than TertuIIian ' s
Treatise de Baptismo . It is unnecessary to produce further testimony from Psedobaptist writers , against what is so on all hands agreed , seeing we have your Correspondent's own declaration to the contrary ( in his Letter in your Repository for
April , 1818 ) . Speaking of Justin Martyr s important testimony to Infant Baptism , qi zx . itoc&oov e ^ x ^ B ^ rev ^ a-av ?< p Xpif&f- your Correspondent adds , amidst much more , the children who were thus discipled , were , no doubt * baptized . Now , according to your
Correspondent ' s way of using the term expressly mentioned ^ Justin Martyr expressly mentions Infant Baptism , It is only necessary , according to him , that the thing should be strongly implied , so as to admit , in your author ' s judgment , of no doubt . His not
introducing the term Infant JSaptism into the text cannot , on your Correspondent ' s principles , affect the matter in the least . Hermas , Justin and Tertullian , being in the same predicament with respect to that 5 for neither one nor the other mentions the words
Infant Baptism ; notwithstanding what your author says , so confidently , yet , I conceive , so incorrectly ^ of Tc rtul-Han ' s expressly mentioning it in the Treatise so often referred to . The opinion of Baptist writers on this matter may be gathered from
what is said by Mr . Robinson : ** Few writers , " says he , "have been so often quoted on the controversy concerning * Infant Baptism as Tertullian , and yet the subject is not so much as mentioned " 1 . a 1 f . I ' 1 » fT ^ l . ¦» bthis father This is
y . " speaking more closely than I have done ; for if the Baptists maintain that Tertullian never once mentions the subject , it is much if they will agree on all hands , that he is the first who expressly mentions it * " They are boys and not
babes , " continues Mr . R-, " of whose baptism he ( Tertullian ) writes . * * Now I admit that some Baptist ifWWni- » T-im - iri » n . ii- iii - - - . ¦ - - t . . 1 . - - ¦ - - i n iir mr r r 1 - . i > i . Hist , of Bapt . p . 164 ,
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writers speak of Paedobaptism , or the baptism of children , as being gradually at first introduced in Africa in the time of Tertullian * But this is a
different thing from saying he \> as the first who expressly mentions Infant Baptism . And if any writers , whether Paedobaptist or Baptist , have so spoken , they have spoken incorrectly , for the reason already givenhe never mentions it at all in the passages produced by them .
Such passages as that above quoted from Mr . R . ' s History , must have been the mark in your Correspondent ' s eye , though his arrow falls , harmlessly enough , on the word noriut : for however it may fare with that word *
the subject of baptism stands untouched by it . That passage affects both the mode of baptism , and the person to be baptizedf& \\ d your Correspondent must wish , no doubt , your readers to understand that Mr . R . has thereift
mistaken and misrepresented the subject . But I think I shall be able to shew that Mr . Robinson is perfectly correct , and if Mr . R . is right , your Correspondent himself must be wrong .
Now , according to your Correspondent ' s statement of baptism as a Christian rite , obligatory on Christian parents , in lieu of Jewish circumcision , to the uniform tenor of his Plea , and his own practice according to his Form for the Administration of
Infant Baptism , his infant , we have said , is a new-born babe : but that was not TertulliarTs parvulus , ( tlw 5 word used by him ) . According to Mr . B . ' s practice , his baptism is sprinkling , affusion , or applying water to some
part of a child ' s face ; but that was not Tertullian ' s baptism : and if so , Mr . B . ' s Infant Baptism was not Tertullian \ s , so that , as far as concerns the subject of baptism , Mr . R . appear © to me to be perfectly correct : let us see , then .
1 . Tertullian ' parvulus was not a new-born babe-It has already been observed that Tertullian , in his Treatise on Baptism , never uses the term Infant Baptism :
* Antonio Van Dale . Hist , Baptismorum . iC Audiamus , hie , quseso TertnlHanuin , cujus tern pore ille Baptismu * ( P ** " dobaptismuft ) videtur introductus seutiui , vel potius exoi'tus , ' *
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610 On Mr . Robitison s " History of Baptism"
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1819, page 610, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1777/page/22/
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