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to have the opinion of a few learned men , who have pursued the same inquiry iu the same way , and of men , too , at least as honest as St . Augustine . The writers above referred to , were unquestionably independent men , and
at the time under no professional bias . But the evidence issuing from this source is so powerful , that it has impressed those whose professional creed inclined the other way . Dr . Isaac Barrow , Sir Isaac Newton ' s predecessor as Mathematical Professor at
Cambridge , was eminent for his acquaintance with classical literature and Christian antiquities , as well as for his knowledge of the mathematics . He had made a similar research into
this subject ; and he speaks of it in a way so decidedly favourable to this side of the question , that the most rigid sectarian Baptist could not ask or even wish for more . He is
accordingly quoted in testimony of it , by a respectable Baptist writer , Mr . Stennet , as Bishop Burnet is by the learned Dr . Gale . Bishop Taylor and Bishop Barlow have also , occasionally , expressed themselves in language very
favourable to the same opinion ; and I have myself received testimony as ample and full from learned clergymen in conversation : nor , indeed , can I perceive ( except that I know learned men are sometimes less than the least
of all men ) how any one , who should take the same course of inquiring and comparing , can fairly and honestly avoid coming to the same conclusion . And here let it be observed , to prevent the necessity of much criticism , ( which the immediate object of these letters did not require , ) that , if a fair
statement has been given above of the primitive practice , the difficulties urged by several learned Paedobaptists , ( in their views of certain passages in the New Testament , ) it may be presumed , might be removed by considerations arising from the different manners , customs and climates of different nations : and should the
word boomerfAQ <; f as applied to things , be used sometimes in a secondary sense , and be understood of a partial washing , as the learned Mr . Walker and Mr . Wall contend , still , as applied to persons , baptized according to the primitive mode , it appears to have been a total immersion , single or trine . So that should what those writers
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contend for be granted , ( though if * their criticisms , in my humble opinion , there is not much , ) still they would gain little but a gloss of words to their argument , without any substance of meaning . For even they do not deny that the primary signification of the
words bcvrcrcio and 'Sant ^ rC ^ co ^ with respect both to things and persons , is to immerse ; and , agreeably thereto , I think it will appear from what has been said , that the primitive mode of baptizing , as applied to persons , was always by immersion .
But—to be ingenuous and seriousthough the ceremony of sprinkling new-born babes was comparatively of very late origin , Infant Baptism , properly so called , appears to have been of an early practice in the Christian Church . It was natural that it
should be . The Orientals ( as well as the Greeks and Romans ) considered the ocean , as well as rivers and fountains , sacred - , and bathing in them was made by them , as it is well known it continues by mauy to this day , a religious , daily rite . When the primitive Christians renounced the
Pagan divinities , and among others those of the rivers , they did not abandon the sacredness of water : on the contrary , they improved upon it . Tertullian himself has shaped this idea into a most fanciful and extravagant
form ; and fhe peculiar sacredness of the baptismal water became a very popular notion . A mystical union of water and spirit , was supposed to take place ; agreeably to those elegant lines , written by a later Latin poet , Paulinus :
Hie reparandarum generator fons aniliiaium Vivum diyino luniine flnmen ag-it : Sanctus in hunc ccelo descendit spiritus am n em , Coelestiq : sacras fonte matilat aquas .
Tertullian , we have seen , considered it as making free of eternal life , * or as giving- a right and title to it , and henc , e Corneille , in his admired tragedy of Polyeuetes , very correctly describes the sentiments of that period ( the third century ) to which his drama relates :
* Felix Sacramentum aquae nostrre , qua abluti delictis pmtinse ccecitatis , in yitam tcteinam liberamur . —DeBupt *
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On Mr . Belshmns Censure of 3 fr . Robinson . 695
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1818, page 693, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2482/page/29/
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