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ctoctriue or to positive institutions . But this Christian Politician wields his theological hatchet with a more ruthless mind than the savage throws his tomahawk ; and in the true spirit of the imperial tyrant who wished
that the Roman people had but one head that he might enjoy the pleasure of striking it off , he severs at one mighty arid decisive stroke , from the Christian community , the great mass of professing Christians for the first ten centuries , all the members of the
Asiatic , the African , the Greek , and the Roman Churches ; Catholic and Protestant , Lutheran and Reformed , Episcopalian , Presbyterian and Independent , the vast majority of martyrs and confessors of ancient and modern
times , the teachers , the reformers , the pillars and bulwarks of the church , and without hesitation he delivers them over to Satan , and assigns them their portion with hypocrites and unbelievers 3 for whatt ver they might profess , or however eminent they might
be for talents and virtues , for their piety , their orthodoxy , their zeal and usefulness , they baptized infants and consequently were no"trueCbristians . " Indeed , according to this new gospel , so strait is the gate and so narrow is the way , " that few beside the Christian
Politician himself , and the noted John of Ley den , and those far-famed Christian politicians , the pious German Anabaptists of the sixteenth century , and a few worthy and good men of modern times , stand any chance of salvation .
But the Christian Politician appeals to positive law . ' Make disciples was the precept : the initiatory rite was the consequence . We must not set the plain terms of a law aside to bring it within the pale of tradition /* Granted . But does it follow that
because proselyte baptism is a Christian institution , infant baptism is not i > Where is the Christian Politician's logic , if from such premises he draws such a conclusion ? Proselyte baptism is unquestionably a rite of the highest authority : and upon what ground does
the evidence rest ? Not surely upon the doubtful authority of a doubtful and reasonably suspected text : but upon the uniform , universal , and invariable practice and testimony of the primitive church \ upon that high ground of historic evidence , which
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the Christian Politician is pleased to call tradition , but which he well knows is the only evidence upon which the Gospel of Matthew can be received as genuine , and consequently the only authority upon which the precept rests .
But the very same testimony which establishes the obligation of proselyte baptism , establishes that of infant baptism : and if it is competent to authorize the one , it is equally competent to authorize the other . What foundation
is there , then , for that unmeaning sneer of the Christian Politician , " how a disciple is to be made of a babe , who cannot assent to any proposition , it is in vain for any learned Rabbhiism to attempt to explain" > But the Christian Politician demurs
to the fact . " We , " says he , meaning , I suppose , himself and his snug party of true Christians , " believe that there
is no foundation for it . " Had these true but simple Christians been men of sound understandings and of competent learning , they would not only have told us what they believe , but why they believe j they would have shewn ,
that though Jerome and Augustin on the one side , and Pelagius and Celestius on the other , who examined the subject with the greatest attention , declare the universality of iufant baptism , and that
they had never seen or read of any heretics so impious as to deny it ; yet that nevertheless these great and learned men , the most eminent writers of the fifth century , were quite mistaken ; and that there had been a time , when the
whole Christian church were utter strangers to infant baptism , and applied the rite only to adults . They would have appealed to some nation , or sect , or church , in which adult
baptism only was practised : or they would have produced some early instance of the descendant of a baptized person , whose baptism was deferred to years of discretion : or at least some early
ecclesiastical writer , who opposed the practice of infant baptism , and denied its apostolical authority . And finally * these well-meaning true Christians , if they had understood any thing of the art of reasoning , would have
endeavoured to shew how it came to pass that when Christ and his apostles had appointed one mode of baptism , the universal church should , in Jess than a century , practise a different mode ; and that this great change should have
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> 08 Mr . Belsham , on his " Plea for Infant Baptism . ' *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1817, page 608, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2469/page/36/
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