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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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Mais pour en reeevoir la sacre caraetere , Qui la ve nos fo if aits dans une eau salutaire , Et qui purgeant notre ame et desillant nos yeux , Nous rend le premier di oit qui nous avions aux cieux . Such , then , having been so early the popular belief , it was natural that Christian parents should wish to
make their innocent children partakers of what made them so happy and secure ; and that the fair sex would easily find advocates in behalf of their dear offspring , among bishops and elders of a more complaisant and
complying character than the rigid Tertullian . For it was among the Africans that Infant Baptism is supposed to have originated , and even Africans , in this respect , were not different , probably , from all the world .
Mais vous ne savez pas ce que c' est qu une femme , Yous ig norez quels droits elle a sur toute V ame . Add to this , that situated as the first Christians were among the
Heathens , separating from them , and domesticating into churches , they would naturally wish to provide against their children ' s returning to Paganism ; and by making them , together with themselves , members of their Christian family , to bring them within the pale of the church . And what more
effectual preservative could there be than Baptism ? And if , as is supposed , Infant Baptism originated in Africa , where the offering of infants in sacrifice , by fire , was practised to a most
enormous degree , what preservative more benevolent ? They had , too , before their eyes the example of religious separations and consecrations in the Gentiles and Jews , but
especially among the latter , by religious ceremonies , particularly by water . The circumcision of the Jews , as the seal of a covenant with the offspring of God ' s people , would necessarily present itself ; and the Africans
were much of what is called Judaizing-Christians . So that we may readily suppose , that Infant Baptism would be an easy , natural process ; that it would be popular in practice , and be considered of a pious tendency . If it appears , from what has been said , that Baptism by immersion was
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the primitive mode , and the subjects of it adults j and if it is difficulty for the reasons advanced , to admit apostolical authority as the foundation of Infant Baptism , it is obvious that we must look for some other adequate cause , or combination of causes , ( for in different churches there might arise different causes for the practice , ) and those reasonable ones too . Whether
any of the above be of that kind , is left to the judgment of the reader , nor do I feel any anxiety on the subject : for into causes , times and places , it is not my proper business , nor have 1 any inclination to inquire : for inquiring into causes is often like feeling
about a dark place without a guide , and at every step we are liable to stumble . Operum fastigia cernuntur , jundamenta latent . Infant Baptism , it is probable , was a silent , gradual process , growing up among those
who in general practised adult ; it was administered , at first , it should seem , occasionally , in cases of necessity , or where there was a danger of death ; it might be used at discretion or not ; it might be left as matter of liberty , not made or considered as one of
necessity , which was Grotius ' s opinion . It is not improbable , I think , that this restricted , occasional , conditional and free use of Infant Baptism , whenever it was first introduced , was practised pretty generally , and very
early practised in the ancient Christian Churches ; and growing , as it would , up in churches , where otherwise the immersing of adults was uniformly practised , it would be impossible , perhaps , to say when and where and under what circumstances it was first
administered : but to call this occasional , accidental , conditional and free use of Infant Baptism , its universal practice would surely be an abuse of terms . For though it was probably a gradual process , yet even when it became more common , whatever the
cause might be , it could only be , it must have been , partial . Universal it never could be . For , how could it be universal , when even at a much later period than that to which 1 allude , it
is allowed on all hands , that great people were in the general habit of deferring baptism to a very late period , and those , the' offspring of Christian parents ? How could it be universal when we find the first cate-
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< 694 Oh Mr . B eh ham ' s Censure of Mr . Robinson ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1818, page 694, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2482/page/30/
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