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trie Son , * ' or it may not . The substitution of an equivalent phrase is a very different thintj from obeying a command , iu the institution of a ceremony , to use a certain prescribed form of words . That the apostles did employ the verba ipsissima of Christ , and that the historian
uniformly substituted an equivalent phrase , ( supposing it to be so , ) is a wholly gratuitous assumption , a very bold one , and not particularly creditable to the accuracy of- the historian . Are Registers kept thus at Worship Street ? Do they baptize converts there in the name of the Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Spirit , " and then write down in the books that they were bap - tued " iu the name of the Lord Jesus" ?
Your Correspondent attempts to prove that the apostles understood Matt , xxviii . 19 , as the institution of a ceremony-, by the fact that they baptized afterwards . What , then , does he say to the fact that they baptized previously ? See John tr . 2 . If they baptfzed inconsequence of Christ's
having instituted such a ceremony , the institution must have been , not after his resurrection , but at an early period of his ministry . Where is the record ? Until it is produced , I am entitled ^ to assume that baptism , as practised by Christ ' s disciples , was an affair of custom and not of cHviue institution .
Baptism might have been a Jewish practice and yet not " one of those traditionary practices of which Christ spoke wit ? h awch reprobation ; " and , if so , there could not be the inconsistency which Mr . Means supposes in our Lord ' s alluding to it . Some such cases there were , for Chrrst attended synagogueworship , which does not appear to have been of divine i-nstitution .
1 cannot perceive the pertinence of your Correspondent ' s concluding question , "How is it we have no record or trace of any discontent on the part of the Jews ., fchat baptism was enjoined on them ; as we should expect , if they had previously known H' as an ordinance applicable only to converts from heathen * - ism / " The Critical Notice on which
your Correspondent animadverts , contains no such view of baptism as is here intimated ; and as it does not appear to njfe to be a correct ode , I fchall leave those to auswer it whom it m&y concern . To the Author of the Pamphlet I beg tq explain myself a » follows :
Christ commiBsioned his apostles to teach all nations , and specified three topics in particular with : which they Were to make their disciples fully acquainted , viz . the Divine paternity , his own mis-
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sion , and the miraculous powers by which his kingdom was adtniuistered ( the Father , ( he Son , and the Holy Ghost ) ; into these they were ( figuratively ) to baptize them ; an allusion to which there are many analogous ones not uncomiuon amongst ourselves , as
when we talk of plunging into a subject , being immersed iu it , &c , &c . Tt waa the mind which was to be plunged , immersed , or baptized , not the body ; and truth , ( on those great topics , ) not water , was the element ; and the mental process was described in terms boiv
rowed from a physical one to which they were accustomed . Christ gave a figurative command to teach , and the practice of baptism ( about which he commanded nothing ) supplied him with the figure . No very harsh one , for tike enlightenment of the mind is the true circuincteiou as well as the true baptism .
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Unitarianism the True Orthodowy . To the Editor . Birmingham , Sir , Oct . 15 , 1829 . I request the favour of your insertion of the following extract , stfd of the remarks which it has called forth : * ' Uwtabmm Devotional Exercises , as used at the Old Meeting-Howe , Birmingham .
< c On few subjects are the mass of mankind less informed than on that of the Unitarian faith : by many it is confounded with Sociniauism , from which it differs as essentially as light from darkness . Evans , in his ' Sketch of the De * - nominations of the Christian World , ' was one of the first to identify Unitarianism with Sociniauism . A calm and
dispassionate perusal of the volume before us ought to satisfy every rational being as to the real tenets of th « Unitalians . We have given the Work this perusal , and find that , so far from their worship being contrary to the Christian faith , as some persons have said , it approaches most near to what once was the orthodoxy of the Established Church . These ' Devotional Exercises' are
selected from the Prayer-book of th « Church of Euglund , with » slight revision . The Litany , the Supplications , the Thanksgivings , are all from the same source ; and so far from a denial or a rejection of the Saviour , these prajtef * initially" etfd with a supplication to God through hinv . So much then for a sect whose doctrine * all rational Christians will prefer to * the canting Puritanism which , of late > ha »
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Miscellaneous Correspondence * 881
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VOL . III . 3 P
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1829, page 881, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2579/page/65/
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