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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), November 1817, Edition 1 of 1, Page 682, REVIEW. 44 Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."—Pope.

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    • REVIEW. 44 Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."—Pope.
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      Review. 44 Still Pleased To Praise, Yet Not Afraid To Blame."—Pope.

      REVIEW . 44 Still pleased to praise , yet not afraid to blame . "—Pope .

      Untitled Article

      Art . I . —A Plea for Infant Baptism . To which is annexed . An Appendix * containing Two F ' orms of Administering the Rite , By T Bel sham , Minister of Essex-Street ChapeL

      Hvo . pp . 130 . 1817 . AS this work is under discussion in the Monthly Repository , we judge it equitable to confine our Review to ^ n analysis of its contents .

      Mr . Belstiam proposes " to prove that" the baptism of the infants of baptized Christians was the uniform , universal , undisputed practice of the primitive church , and consequently that it was an apostolic institution . —

      That the mode of baptism , whether hy immersion or affusion , was , in fact , and with great wisdom , left to the discretion of the parties concerned And , finally , that infant baptism is a religious service of great and obvious practical utility . "—P . 101 .

      He allows that direct evidence concerning baptism , and particularly the baptism of infants is wanting ; but maintains that its place is abundantly supplied by that which is indirect . " And though we cannot produce the testimony of Scripture , we

      produce evidence fully equivalent to that of Scripture : nay , if possible , even superior to scripture evidence itself ; for it is , that upon which we actually receive the Scriptures : namely , the uniform , universal , undisputed testimony of Christian antiquity . "—P . 9 .

      The following is Mr . BelshanTs own nummary of this testimony : — u baptism of the infant descendants of baptized persons , though clearly alluded to by Irenceus , who was the pupil of Polycarp , bishop of Smyrna and the disciple of the apostle John , and even by Justin

      Martyr , who flourished within half a century of the apostolic age , is first explicitly mentioned by TertuUian , a preshyter of Carthage , about A . D . 200 . It is mentioned by this pious but eccentric writer incidentally as a prevailing- practice , which

      indeed be disapproved ; and for this disapprobation he assigns his reasons , but he appeals to no authority whatever in support of his opinion . Far from declaring * that it wiis the apostolic rule and the primitive practice to defer baptism to years of discretion , which surely he must have known

      Untitled Article

      and would have appealed to bad the face been so , he refers to no church , to no sect or party of Christians , to no ecclesiastical writer , not even to a sing-le example in his own age , in support of his own advice for deferring- baptism . The conclusion is

      that he knew of none such , and consequently that infant baptism was the universal , or at least the prevailing- and undisputed practice of the church in the time o f TertuUian . From whence it follows by irresistible inference , that infant baptism was an apostolic , and therefore a divine

      institution . " Origen , likewise the learned contemporary of TertuUian , in his Commentary upon the Gospels , if they are faithfully translated by Jerome and Rufinus , of which in this case there appears no reason to

      doubt , incidentally mentions infant baptism in away which plainly indicates tbat in his time it was the prevailing * practice . He was the most learned man of his ag * e . a presbyter of Alexandria , and spent much of his time among the Christians in different parts of Asia .

      " After this , little or no mention is made of infant baptism for nearly fifty years , till A . D . 253 , when a question was moved in a council of sixty-six bishops assembled at Carthage , not whether infant baptism was lawful or expedient , or whether it were a rite of apostolical origin , ( these were facts

      whicb never came into discussion , ) but whether it was expedient that an infant should be baptized before the eighth day ? The reply is still extant : in which the council , with St . Cyprian at their head , unanimously determine that it is not necessary nor advisable tbat the baptism should be postponed till the eig-hth day .

      u After this , the question aiept for nearly one hundred years : only that Greg-ory , the celebrated bishop of Nazianzum , in Asia , A . D . 360 , in a Treatise written expressly for the purpose of urging pfosel 3 * tes to submit to baptism , advances it as a private opinion of his own , that except

      where life is in dang * er it would be expedient to defer baptism till a child is two or three years ef age , when he would be able to speak and to repeat the formula , though he should not be able to understand it : —rplainly allowing- that infant bap tism was then the prevailing * practice .

      " But this fact was most fully and indisputably established fifty years afterwards , ahout A . D . 410 , when the Pelagian controversy arose concerning * original siD « Pelag-ius , born in Britain , a man of gre * talents , learning and ^ coinj rikhuieiits ,

      Untitled Article

      ( 682 )

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1817, page 682, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2470/page/42/