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Circumstances and facts , therefore , must direct its true meaning , and to such facts Mr . Robinson alludes very
liberally . He elucidates this subject in the clearest manner and with much learning , chap . xix . from genuine histories , monumental inscriptions , authentic records and ancient laws : and
he shews also , that were all that is asserted concerning Infant Baptism admitted , much of which , however , he denies , still that it would not apply to the sprinkling of new-born babes .
But the great moral argument which Mr . Robinson grounds on the several facts produced , and which runs through his book , arises , strictly speaking , not from much or little water , but from making that , ( religion , ) which ought to be a personal concern , to depend
wholly on the will of others : p . 47 . It has accordingly , and he states the particulars much at large , been made a great instrument of despotism , rather than of conversion , of worldly policy more than of religious zeal , of paltry trafficking and gross avarice
more than of moral and religious principle , making Christianity depend not on argument , but on authority . It enabled conquerors and despots more effectually to subject and enslave whole nations ; popes and ecclesiastics to extend the empire of the Catholic
Church ; monks , of the most groveling character , to obtain immense revenues for religious houses . In short , the baptizing of babes became a species of state and church generalship , a sort of kidnapping and trafficking with souls , as portentous and ruinous as the slave trade ever was . This
subject is elucidated by facts enough in the History of Baptism , See the dreadful instance of the Emperor Charlemagne and the Saxons , p . -282 ; of the efforts of Augustine to bring in the baptism of babes , p . 202 , &c ; of Monachism connected with baptisiq , p . 37 O *
Mr . Robinson found and left " baptism one of the most curious and complicate subjects of ecclesiastical history . " Some frolicsome wits of former times called the exorcism ,
previous to baptism , or the expelling of the Devil by sprinkling Holy Water , the Devils Baptism ; but it was in reference to Its immoral effects ,, that some old Baptists < allt < l that administered wd received iw the Fojpish
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Church , not God ' s , but the Devil ' s Baptism . See History of Baptism , p * S 94 . * .-
In what Mr . R . says of Infant Baptism , more generally of the origin of the . baptism of babes in Africa , in the time of Cyprian , chap . xxii . and in
the subsequent chapters , of the first law for the baptism of babes in Africa , A . 416- —of the reduction of baptism in the East from men to minors , and from minors to babes—of the first
ecclesiastical canon in Europe for the baptism of babes— -of the first law in . Europe for baptizing babes , A . 7 $ 9 , and the effects of it—of the transition from children in a catechumen state to that of babes ; in all this there is much that is highly probable , much that is certain , and all displays vast
ingenuity and great research ; at all events , it abounds with historical facts . In short , it should seem as though Mr . R ., in his way of elucidating ^ had some presentimental sympathies ( if I may so speak ) with such readers as had bad eyes or weak memories , and with such as are more affected with
what is agreeable in literature , or plausible in the eyes of the world , and commendatory to the bulk of professing Christians , than important in baptism . Hence , perhaps , much that he says on Pagan lustration , chap , xxxiii . and in the following chapters , of Christian lustration , of Christian
lustration applied to baptism , of infant sprinkling , as a sort of Christian lustration , and of the other miscellaneous articles , which he finds " nearly or remotely connected with baptism . " In all this range of reading which is gone through , it might , perhaps , with
some truth be said , that the author displays more of a fondness for literature , and finds greater exercise for genius , than the subject absolutely required ; but will any one say there is neither fact nor argument > In sober truth , Mr . R . not only elucidates adult
baptism , infant baptism and babesprinkling , in the most copious man * ner , but the twenty-two ceremonies and superstitions connected with them , consecration of the water , exorcism * chrism * &c . This is . done with
considerable ingenuity , and so as to found on , some of them an argument in ftvour of adult baptism . History of Baptism , chap , xxxvi . JZven apostolical tradition is not pawed over with-
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On Mr . Belskanfs Censure of Robinson . 4 $ 5
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1818, page 435, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2478/page/27/
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