On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    V has finished them ,- & ® he . may if , he so please /* go oa to . those , of . the three next *

    8 . Your Correspondent greatly prefers immersion or pouring to sprinkling : and he has my free consent to use his own discretion . All I plead for is Infant Baptism * 4 « Your Correspondent seems to be sadly puzzled with Tertullian ' s u si

    noa tarn oecesse est ; " but though the meaning appears sufficiently obvious to those who are acquainted with the controversies of the age 9 yet I would inform him for his comfort that the words are by many learned men given up as an interpolation .

    5 « Your Correspondent pleads that upon the same principles upon which I argue the obligation of Infant Baptism , all the early corruptions of Christianity in doctrine and practice might be justified . —My argument is , that Infant Baptism was the institution of the apostles ^ and the uniform

    practice of the primitive church . When your Correspondent can with equal justice allege the same argu « ment in favour of any other doctrine or practice * I will readily acknowledge that doctrine or that practice to be a vital part of the Christian religion *

    6 . But your Correspondent does not seem to be aware that the charge which he urges against my reasoning rebounds with redoubled force upon his own 3 and that the will-worship which he advocates * but which , the

    Apostle most explicitly discourages , opens the flood-gates to an endless tide of superstition and absurdity-He practises infant baptism because ? forsooth * he . thinks it " innocent and laudable- " Another makes the sign of the cross , because he thinks it * ' innocent and laudable . " Another

    repeats ten Ave Marias to one Paternoster , because lie thinks it " innocent and laudable . " Another bows to a crucifix , because he thinks it " innocent and laudable . " Another counts beads , because he thinks it innocent and laudable . " Another makes a pilgrimage to Loretto or Jerusalem , because he thinks it && innocent and

    laudable . " Another defends iojiageworship , because he thinks it i& innocent and laudable / 1 And another worships and then devours the consecrated bread * because he thinks it

    Untitled Article

    v * u innocent and laudable ., . In . short there is no end to these ifiijoc&nt and laudable' * appendages to .. Christianity-: and the apostate church lias introduced and authorized smch a countless multitude into its code of discipline and worship ,, that the simplicity of evangelical doctrine and worship is completely overwhelmed under the enormous mass of these

    ** innocent and laudable" excrescences * —So have not we learned Christ . If Infant Baptism is an apostolical institution ; , let it be observed as such ; if not * let it be abandoned altogether : and let not us set ourselves up as better judges of what is fit and right than Christ and his apostles .

    Having thus disposed of your Correspondent ' s arguments , I will beg leave to re-state my own . Infant Baptism was the uniform , universal and undisputed practice of the Church from the apostolic age down to the fifth ' century , and even later .

    No reasonable account can be given of this singular uniformity in a rite never before administered to the infant descendents of baptized parents , but that which the primitive Christians uniformly assign , viz . the appointment of the apostles .

    Had it been left to discretion , some would have baptized their infants and others not . * Had the apostles instituted adult baptism , and limited the application of baptism to adults only , it is absolutely impossible that a change so universal should have taken place so early without notice and opposition .

    They who impugn this conclusion must shew either that the practice of Infant Baptism was not universal : they must produce churches , sects or individuals who practised adult baptism , or writers who asserted its authority and obligation , or they must shew how it might be universal without

    being of apostolical origin . To object to the evidence as traditional because it is historical , is puerile and weak * Upon the same principle they might object to the resurrection of Jesus Christ : and in fact with equal reason Tindal does object to Christianity Itself as a traditional revelation .

    The great objection is , that Infant Baptism is not enjoined ia the New Testament * But who told un that

    Untitled Article

    H © Mt ^ Mdsham m Argument Infant Baptismo

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 30, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/30/