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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.
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shoulder \ o the wheel , it must be deemed unreasonable to call upon Jupifer . Mr , R . has not only done his own part in this business , but that of Mr . fe . too . As counsel for Adult Baptism , he was engaged for his client , but he
never loses sight of the opposite party ; and we ought rather to say , that Mr . R . overflows with facts and arguments relative to it , than that he is defective . His facts and arguments may , indeed ,
in the judgment of some , make against Infant Baptism : still , whichever way they tel ) , they are facts and arguments , and they elucidate Baptism , infant as well as adult , by disengaging it from all foreign mixtures .
In treating of the character and mission of John the Baptist , and of the baptism administered by him , he observes , ( p . 5 , ) " the word is confessedly Greek , that native Greeks must understand their own language
better than foreigners , and that they have always understood the word baptism to signify dipping ; and , therefore , from their first embracing of Christianity to this day , they have always baptized , and do yet baptize
by immersion : " and he shews , iii numerous instances , by undou bted testimonies from the earliest fathers of the Greek Church , as they are called , * ' that it was so administered by the earliest Christians' ( and see
further p . 583 , a Review at- large of the apostolical churches )* This is another fact ; he then proceeds to consider the places where , and the persons whom , particularly Jesus , John baptized ; and he thereby elucidates the subject with more learning and ingenuity than , perhaps , it required ,
to p . 2 < J . He traces the critical sense of the words bapto , baptismos , &c . p . 7 . This has been done more at large by Dr . Gale , allowed to be an excellent classical scholar , and well-acquainted with matters of antiquity ; though whether the sense adopted by him , is
to be universally received , or that more qualified one , which * according to Mr . Walker and Mr . Wall , besides dipping , will admit of u a partial mersation into water / ' I shall not stop to inquire . Still Robinson does not overlook , but frequently illustrates Paedobaptism , In chap , xxxvii . under the head of Reformed Baptism , he
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considers the subject much at large , exhibiting it as it is practised in all the Reformed Churches ; and in p . 537 , he gives a minute account of a baptism of this kind , in the person of an administrator of Infant Baptism ; and to my apprehension , I own , he throws considerable light on it .
He , however , shews by repeated appeals to the New Testament , that baptism , in his judgment , was always performed by immersion ; and with respect to the subjects of it , that it was men and women , or persons capable of repenting , believing and acting for themselves . These are facts , and
they become arguments , to shew that there was no sprinkling of babes in these times , and they are mentioned by him not owly once or twice , but are repeatedly enforced . In p . 430 , he points out the true origin of the first law for
infant-sprinkling among Christians , and appeals , in accounting for it , to an undeniable historical fact . He observes , p . ' 13 $ , that baptism was universally ( following Basnage , Thesaur . Monument Eccles . &c . ) performed by immersion , single or trine , till the fourteenth
century ; that from thence till after the Reformation , it was generally performed by trine immersion ; that pouring or sprinkling began to be allowed for baptism only in the eighth
century , in cases of necessity ; and that in this country sprinkling was never declared valid , ordinary baptism , till the Assembly of Divines , in the time of Cromwell , influenced by Dr . Lightfoot , pronounced it so .
And here , by the bye , let it be observed , that the sprinkling of newborn babes is a thing very different , according to him , either from adult baptism or infant baptism . The word infant , together witli many other
words synonymous with it , he sh § ws to be a vague word , and that there is wo forcing any thing determinately from its use . It may mean a newborn babe or not . In the early and middle ages , nay up to our own time , it was used for a minor . lu the
Eastern and Western empires infancy was the period from the birth to twentyfiwe yeajv of age , p . 140 : after their dismemberment , eighteen , twenty pr twenty-five years limited the term of infancy , according tfctlie different taws of the VandakuXombardd , Saxons * &c .
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434 On Mr . Behharns Censure of Robinson .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1818, page 434, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2478/page/26/
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