On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
children , with what confidence shall we , unless we keep our baptism pure and undefiled , enter into the kingdom of God ?"* JW here we may see the contrast does not lie between their children and our children , or the
baptism of our children > but between their children and our entering , by keeping our baptism , into the kingdom of God . Next follow the shorter epistles of Ignatius , bishop of Antioch , being more generally reckoned the genuine
ones . These were first published in Greek s by Isaac Vossius , from a Greek manuscript , in the Florentine Library . Ignatius was said to be the very child whom Christ took into his arms , when instructing his disciples in humility : and though Chrysostom denies
this , yet it is pretty generally allowed , on his authority , that he Was contemporary with the apostles . The only passage that occurs in the epistle to the Srnyrnseans on Baptism , throws no light on the mode or the subject : Without the bishop it is lawful neither to baptize nor to celebrate a
love-feast . " The epistle to Polycarp throws light on the subject : " Let your baptism remain as arms , t ( with which the body is covered ) ; your faith as a helmet ; your love as a spear , your patience as a panoply ( ixravQTr } . ia >) The whole passage is clearly an allusion to the words of St . Paul : " Put
on the whole armour of God ; " each adopting the language of one rousing and encouraging Christian soldiers , not lisping or whistling to bleating babes : as the writer had been saying just before , " Please him under
whom you fight , from whom also ye receive your pay . " This is all L can collect on Baptism from the ancient Greek Apostolical Fathers , as they are called : every thing on this subject is in agreement with what is said in the Four Gospels ,
* Ezek . xiv . 14 , 20 : The passage is quoted according to the reading in the Epistle . ou SwavToti tcch ; orjtcov $ iK . octo < rvi / ocL <; f pv < ra . < rO&i roc rewa , awroov , t ) ju , £ * £ tow \ M \ Trf ^ yja-co ^ ev to € cnrvi < r [ Aoc cLytcv nat a / Aiavrov , wauf , iffzitQ&Yia'et ii < r * tev < rou . £ 8 a > ti $ to € < x < ri \ etov m Oas ; Sect . vi .
f To pawTtciMt vpvY peytrco £ <; Qir \ ap &c . Sect , vi .
Untitled Article
the Acts of the Apostles , and the Epistles . 1 could never find it * either of the tatter afty thing about Infant Baptism ; and in the former there is not a syllable on the subject : all speak clearly ou the immersion of adults , but , in my humble opinion , not a syllable about the baptism of babes .
I am aware , however , that some suppose , that these latter ( of the Greek Apostolical Fathers ) are not the genuine productions of the persons to whom they are ascribed . Certain , however , it is , that these writings ,
ascribed to the Apostolical Fathers , were found in very ancient manuscripts : some of them are referred to and quoted by the other ancient Greek Fathers ; and they have been edited by persons conversant in old writings .
It is , however , not my business nor my inclination to maintain nor to deny r at least now , that they are the genuine works of those persons whose names they bear . I formed , and long since gave , in part , my opinion on thi * subject , and I see no reason materially to alter my opinion .
But further , I must beg leave to add , that the consideration of their authenticity does not affect the present question . If the writings are genuine , we have undoubted testimonies to real facts ; if they are forged , *
we possess studied resemblances of them . Composed by whomsoever , and at whatever period , they may have been , they were intended to bear the stamp of the period , the character of
the persons , to whom they relate ; and of this we possess striking proof . Thus we meet with ( particularly in Ignatius and Polycarp ) repeated opposition to the Dacetce , who maintained that Christ did not come in
* Eusebius speaks of the Catholic Epistle of St . Barnabas , as written by an uncertain author . ' It is at least presumed , by those who doubt its * being" a genuine writing- of Barnabas , to have been of the second century . " The Shepherd of Hermas" and Epistle of Barnabas are both
rejected by Tertullian as uncanonical : but even this rejection of them by Tertullian ^ supposes they were very ancient writings . On the genuineness of these writings , and of those of tbeptbers called Apostolical FatkerSj and the doctrines contained in them , sec some thoughts in An Inquiry on thti
Untitled Article
j 588 On Mt . Bdsliarns Censure of Mr . Robinson .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1818, page 568, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2480/page/32/
-