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consistently reject this rite without at the same time rejecting those inestimable records which contain the charter of our immortal hopes. In fact, there is no book of that collection which forms the New Testament, the evidence of which can be compared in clearness and decision with that which establishes the apostolic origin of infant baptism.

The Church of Rome supported so many of her gross corruptions of the Christian religion by the authority of tradition, that the early reformers went, as is usual, into the contrary extreme. And making no distinction between facts which rested upon legitimate historic evidence and the palpable forgeries of the dark ages, they refused to admit any evidence but that of the New Testament. But by this they involved themselves and their successors in inextricable difficulties. For, besides overlooking the consideration that the authority of the scriptures themselves rests wholly upon the testimony of antiquity, they retained various rites, particularly those of baptism and the religious observation of the Lord's day, which never could be proved by scripture warrant, though easily established by the same means by which the scripture itself is proved to be genuine. The errors of the reformers may be forgiven; but it becomes us who live in a maturer age of bibli

cal knowledge, and who enjoy the help both of the reformers and of their venerable successors in the great work of elucidating the doctrines of the Christian revelation, to judge more correctly, and to be willing to embrace truth by whatever medium it may be conveyed to the mind.

I am, &c.

T. BELSHAM.

LETTER II.

The temper with which controversy should be conducted. Tertullian's testimony to the practice of Infant Baptism. Reflections and conclusions suggested by this testimony.

DEAR SIR, THEOLOGICAL Controversy is too often conducted with acrimony; and it has not unfrequently been observed that the baptismal controversy has been carried on with more intemperate heat than most others. Let us, my friend, endeavour to be exceptions to the general rule; and while we exercise our own right of private judgement, and adhere firmly to what appears to us after due inquiry to be the primitive apostolic practice, let us leave to others the undisturbed exercise of the same privilege, and not quarrel with them, if their conclusions should be different from our own a

Dr. Ryland, of Bristol, in a treatise, published in 1814, entitled "A Candid Statement of the reasons which induce the Baptists to differ in opinion and practice from so many of their Christian brethren," has exhibited a very amiable example of the truly Christian spirit with which this controversy may and ought to be discussed.

The result of the most careful and diligent inquiry which I have been able to make into the subject is, a firm conviction that the baptism of the infant descendants of baptized persons is a rite founded upon apostolical authority, and that the mode of baptism, whether by immersion, affusion, or sprinkling, is left to the discretion of the parties concerned.

The proof of this fact is not direct, but indirect a mode of reasoning which is often more satisfactory and conclusive than the most explicit testimony, and by which indeed direct evidence is often set aside. We produce no explicit precept from the New Testament enjoining the baptism of infants: but we go higher still, we produce the very same kind of evidence upon which the genuineness and authority of the books of the New Testament are themselves established: the uniform, the universal, the undisputed testimony of the primitive Church. Deny infant baptism, and we do not say that you deny the obligation of a precept formally expressed in holy writ, but you deny that upon which the authority of holy writ itself is founded, you subvert the credibility of the Christian scriptures.

I now proceed to lay before you the evidence upon which this conclusion rests.

In the first place, it is agreed on all hands that

Tertullian is the first ecclesiastical writer by whom the baptism of infants is expressly mentioned. Tertullian was a presbyter of the church of Carthage, and flourished about A.D. 200, a hundred years after the apostolic age. His words are these:

"Therefore, according to every one's con dition and disposition, and also their age, the delaying of baptism is more profitable, especially in the case of little children. For what occasion

b It is very true that Tertullian is the first writer who explicitly mentions infant baptism; but there is a clear and indubitable allusion to this practice in the writings of Irenæus bishop of Lyons, thirty years before Tertullian. He was in his youth the disciple of Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, who was the disciple of the apostle John. It is impossible, therefore, that he could be ignorant of the injunctions and the practice of the apostles concerning baptism. His words are these. Speaking of Christ, he says "Omnes venit per semetipsum salvare: omnes, inquam, qui per eum renascuntur in Deum infantes, et parvulos, et pueros, et juvenes, et seniores." Adv. Hær. 1. 2. c. 39.

"He came to save all persons by himself: all persons, I say, who by him are regenerated unto God: infants, and little ones, and children, and youths, and elder persons."

By regeneration here, baptism is unquestionably to be understood, that being the only regeneration of which infants are capable. Dr. Wall (Hist. of I. B. p. 19.) says that this is the sense in which Irenæus always uses the word as far as he has observed. And this is the sense in which the word is commonly used by the early ecclesiastical writers. Justin

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