On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    ration , which , as he says , was of necessity . Now , here is not a single word about Infant Baptism , I know your Correspondent lias quoted one or two Greek words from Justin , which he forms into an argument for Infant Baptism . But I speak with confidence , not a single allusion is

    made to it here , nor in any part of Justin ' s writings . I think it has been observed before , that St . Cyprian , though an advocate for Infant Baptism , and even for what he calls , generally , apostolical tradition , where bethought he could found

    on it an argument for his domineering church government , yet says nothing of such tradition as a peculiar reference to Infant Baptism ; * and what St . Cyprian , with his assessors in

    council , did say or think appears to me of very little consequence . But it was left , it should seem , to St . Augustine to deliver the entire doctrine upon this subject . He says , " What the church universal holds , what

    was not instituted by councils , but has always been retained , is most rightly believed to have been handed down only by apostolical authority . " Now , as I think the only reason why St . Cyprian did not make the same use of the sword of the civil

    magistrate , to enforce his dogmas , as Augustine did , was , because it was not at his command , I pay very little deference to his authority ; yet 1 shall borrow the following passage from him , by way of illustration , though not in proof of any thing . It is , too , one of the few flowing passages in this Saint . He observes , " There is

    a compendious way for religious and simple minds , both to lay aside error , and to find and dig * out the truth . For if we go to the head and origin 4 of divine tradition , human error is at an end : and , the reason of the celestial sacraments being understood , whatever before lay obscured in mists , and

    a cloud of darkness , opens into the light of truth . If a channel bearingwater , which once flowed copiously and largely , suddenly fails ; do we not proceed to the fountain , that the reason of the failure may be there discovered , whether the veins being grown arid , the water at the

    spring-I mnm' ^ mmm' " " * " ' iii ¦ ¦¦• * mmmmammm—r' * 'mm ^ mi * m ^~ ' *** * Cypriatti Epistola lkxiy . Fido Fratri ,

    Untitled Article

    head is dried up ; or , whether after flowing from it pure and full , it has stopped in the midst of its course j that if it has been affected by the fault of the interrupted or bibulous channel , that the water has not flowed on perseveringly and largely , the bed of the stream being repaired and

    strengthened for the use and drink of the city , the water collected may be restored to the same copiousness and purity , with which it flowed from the fountain ;* which the priests of God , who now preserve the divine precepts ought to do , that if in any thing the truth should waver and stumble , we should return to our Lords ' and

    evangelical origin , and to apostolical tradition , f that there the rule of our action may arise , where the order and origin first arose ?" It is scarcely necessary , it may be hoped , to say , that this quotation is not made for the sake of the allusion fo water .

    It is worth remarking , however , that whatever blessings were to be derived from this apostolical tradition , is entirely reserved for Cyprian ' s one church , from which unity , whoever departed , he was of necessity to be found with heretics . " The sacrament

    of which unity ( these are St . Cyprian ' s words ) we see also expressed in the Song of Songs , from the person of Christ , saying , ( and , by the bye , this may be taken as a fair specimen

    of St . Cyprian ' s , St . Augustine ' s and other such men ' s spiritualisms and criticisms , ) € A garden enclosed is my sister , my spouse , a sealed fountain , a well of living water , a paradise with the fruit of apples . " Solomon ' s Song , iv . 12 . Within this garden , Cyprian ' s church , all these treasures were t 9 be deposited : this is all very clean But it is not so very clear , whether this apostolical tradition is referrible to any thing written in a book , which common sense could understand aa

    well as St . Cyprian , or to something secreted like cucumbers in a garden ^ known only to Cyprian and his orthodox church : if it be taken in thre ^

    » Caeci A liani Cypriani , Epist . lxxiv . -f- Ad Originem Dominicam et Evang * - licam , et postolicam Traditionem vevertamur : et inde surgat actus noatri ratio , nnde et ordo et origo surrexit . ^ pri < tffi JEpist . ut supra *

    Untitled Article

    6 gf 6 On Mr . BehltanCs Censure of Mr . Robinson .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1818, page 696, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2482/page/32/