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    Now , whether gentlemen may choose to side with Dr . Lightfoot or Drs . Gale , Gill and Benson , on this disputed point of proselyte baptism , all men unquestionably very conversant in Jewish antiquities , with this I

    have no concern : but surely it is too much to insinuate , that Mr . Ft . has not gone into the proofs and arguments on this subject , when he has produced them in chap , v , at large , and frequently touched upon them incidentally elsewhere .

    Again , other distinct proofs , on this subject , he considers under the head of " -Baptism- connected with Judaism / ' where he observes , p * S 87 , ** the union between baptism and the covenant of God with Abraham and his family , of which circumcision was a

    sign , is to be placed among these arbitrary Jewish associations ; for the New Testament doth not mention any such union , neither is there any such contract between God and Christians , nor is baptism a seal , nor is there any likeness between baptism and

    circumcision , nor are the treatises on this subject any thing more than heterogeneous combinations of allegory and fency ; having no foundation in the reason and fitness of things , and having nothing to support them but detached passages of Scripture . " He

    takes the same view of the subject elsewhere , and in p . 537 , he lets a Paedobaptist state his view of the subject under the New Testament , viz . according to the Confession of Faith of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster , " that the Covenant with Abraham under the Old Testamert , and the Covenant of Grace under the

    New , do not differ in substance , but are one and the same under various dispensations ; " and he occasionally , in different parts of his work , opposes the doctrine founded upon these ideas ,

    in regard to the children of believers . Now here again , without stopping to inquire what Mr . Robinson ' s arguments on the above particulars amount to , it is pretty clear that the insinuation which our writer intended

    to make by no proof , was of the same sweeping character , as his not a single fact or argument , so they must all go together . His disappointment should not have been so serious . Mr . B « " In vain did I look for any opposition in the earliest ages to the

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    early and prevailing practice of Infant Baptism . " Some , perhaps , would think it enough to reply , what was not prac

    tised could not be opposed in the earliest ages , ( chap . i . —v . and xl . ) : and that it was not practised in the times of the apostles , or of the apostolical fathers , is pretty clear from what hai been already said .

    A greater part of the Caians ( a sect of heretics so called ) , did certainly , in the time of Tertullian , 6 ppose and entirely reject water baptism ; and , of course , they must , a fortiori , have opposed Infant Baptism . Tertullian speaks of them as repelling , opposing ,

    destroying water baptism . They formed , it is clear , societies or churches , according to Tertullian ' s account of them , and , indeed , under as good authority as Tertullian himself and his Catholic Church , for they were all

    alike , at the time , unprotected by the civil magistrate . It signifies nothing to say these Caians were heretics . Tertullian himself afterwards joined a church of this sect , ( Montanists , who branched out from the Caians , ) so that , however heretical he had

    thought them , he found out , at length , that they had something good among them . Now Robinson distinctly notices this people , and more than once . This example , it should seem , ought to be reckoned early enough . He speaks of them as a branch of the Gnostics ,

    spoken against , as he says , by Paul , ( 2 Cor . ) and by John ( l $ t general Epistle ) , History of Baptism , p , 247 . Mr , Robinson says of Montanus , ** He was one of the members of this church , and that his church

    multiplied and spread itself all over Asia , Africa , and a part of Europe /* p . £ 70 . He further supposes , that Infant Baptism itself originated with one branch of this people , and his arguments are at once ingenious and probable .

    Even the single example of these Caians ought to have kept your Correspondent from sinking under his anxieties . But they were heretics . Well then , what shall we say of

    Tertullian himself and hisCatholicChurch at Carthage ? Robinson says , «« Thia book ( De Baptismo , on which Mr . B . I perceive , lays bis great stress ) , does not provfe that infants were baptized

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    On Mr . BelshanCs Censure of Robinson . 437

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1818, page 437, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2478/page/29/