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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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nmwSi ai 3 | d * tQ introduce systems teas popular indeed , but more conducive to the improvement and melioration of society . Vet such is the state of things , thjat this is the only recon * - pence which men who have the courage a& 4 perseverance to act on these principle * cap at present reasonably expect . But this , however it may disappoint or mortif y * should not discQurage them . The period will , come , though distant , when , if they have be $ n successful in the cause of truth and virtue , full justice will
be done them . With the progress of time towards that period , the march of kpowledge will keep an even pace . Truth alone is immortal , while error , whether founded on power or on prejudice , is as perishable as the men who entertain it . Personal prejudices or animosities will become extinct ,
and party names forgottep , with the revolution of ye ^ rs . Biblical criticism will becoqpe more general * more instructive and systematic ; the philosophy of language better understood ; undue submission to learned
authorities will give way to eyid ^ nce ^ and sound reasoning ; the institutions of society , , deriving their origin from the dark ages , will receive successive shocks from public discussion ; and , gradually opening their dark and dreary interior to the light of reason ,
moulder by slow degrees or suddenly tumble by their own weight . When this happy period arrives , those opinions in theology or literature that are important and useful , if found to rest on the pedestal of ancient facts , and to be sanctioned by the great law
which regulates the human mind , will rescue those who in times past maintaiued them , from negiecjb or iguominy , and confer immortality oa their names j while the reputed wise and learned who direct the public taste , but , who , from interested
motive , employ their talents to prop established errors <—while the indo-Iqnt , the conceited , the blind tool of prejudice , and the obsequious slave of power , who have no other way to raise themselves but by depressing
others differing from thpm , will be forgotten , or if , in consequence of the art of printing , they stilt survive , they survive like skeletons preserved *» the cabi&ete of tke curious , or like wiuniwie B which the art of embalm-
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ing the dead keeps from putre&uctiou , and perpetuates in their ghastly figures only tbe triumphs of death , Mr . Gilchrist in a postscript informs us , that he has more confidence in baptism than in in any subjects of grave importance . Those
who knovy his sanguine temper will not doubt but that he is sufficiently confident in what he may chance to believe . But the public have to dp not with his confidence , but with the grounds of it : and it may not be
amiss just to hint , that confidence misplaced is credulity ; and that an overweening zeal for a frivolous external ceremony , always argues narrow views , and is too commonly the mere offspring of ignorance and superstition .
But on what does Mr . Gilchrist rest his * confidence ? £$ e answers , ia the Preface to his Lecture , "On Christ ' s authority , ^ nd the maj esty of the Christian dispensation /* The authority of Christ , we have pretty clearly seen , is against him * With
regard to the second ground , J wrdially embrace the Christian dispensation as truly majestic and worthy of all acceptation - J , > ut & $ majesty eojisists solely in the grand aod elevated views which it unfolds respecting the attributes , the government of God , and the final destination of man ; and
moreover , in the purity of virtue , the simplicity of character which it produces in its genuine votaries . But what has majesty Jike this to do with the puerile practice of plunging a person pver head in water , and then perhaps giving him a spoon-full of brandy against cold or the ague * Persons who do not know Mr .
Gil-Christ might suspect , that m . hi $ zeal for baptism he is a disguised enemy of the gospel , wishing to degrade Site native dignity by patching upon it tJie worn-out rags of Judaism as part of ttie bright ethereal robe in which she descended arrayed from heaven .
With regjgrd to expediency * it seems the forlojrn hope , m the only use to which it ean noyv be applied , is to < Jistiiigvu&h the Deists from the Uni ~ turian church . What wiU the 5 i *
dependent Bapt < i $ ts say ot such use ? They will deem it a gross prostitution to apply a Christian ordinance for the separating two parti ^ s whom they a , re studious to represeat an
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Dr . Jones In Eeply to Mr . Gilckrist on Perpetuity qf $ aptism . 607
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1826, page 607, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2553/page/35/
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