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    ( 660 )

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    Art. V.—Remarks on the Arguments advance...

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    ( 660 )

    ( 660 )

    Art. V.—Remarks On The Arguments Advance...

    Art . V . —Remarks on the _Arguments advanced by Mr . p Edwards jor the Baptism , Church-membership , and Salvation ofInfants , in a Work entitled \ _" Candid Reasons for renouncing the Principles of _Antiptedobaptism . In a Letter to a Friend , wherein the certain happiness of all Children dying in infancy is B bell . pp . 174 . 12 mo . 2 s , maintained . y Joseph

    DoThe subject of baptism has been so often _discussed by men of the

    greatest learning and abilities , of all persuasions , that little that is new can be expected to be advanced upon it . The present work is , we are told , intended as an

    answer to one Mr , Peter Edwards on this subject , a gentleman who had been a baptist minister , but who , having changed his opinion , became one of the most zealous

    pa _^ dobaptists . we are not greatly mistaken , the performance of _Afr . D . discovers profound thinking and great ingenuity of _argu - ment . He has also the merit of

    occupying rrew ground and ol stating the question in new points of view . Indeed , so thoroughly has his mind been immersed in his subject that he is by no means _,

    satisfied with common-place arguments . Most of the baptists have incautiously admitted that children under the Jewish economy were members of that church . This

    Mr . D . boldly denies , and maintains that infants never wire the subjects of a promise , or of an ordinance , or members of the church under any dispensation : That all covenants ar > d promises were made

    with , and given to ad tills , that the command to circumcise was given to the parents and not to their infants , and that the parents being th _^ su bjects of the command , it was their duty to obey it , and not that of their infanis .

    Art. V.—Remarks On The Arguments Advance...

    * A church , " says Mr . D . is a society , a number of persons united together for religious purposes , for the worship and service of God , and wJio stand in special relation to him . Now everyone must see , that such a society must

    be a voluntary one ; that the persons constituting such a society must be capable of understanding the purpose , for which they are united , and of perform * ing those religious services for which they assemble together . But can infants be members of such a society

    ?—Are they capable of such union , of the purposes for which it is formed , or of the services to be performed by it I The very stating of these questions is sufficient to shew the extreme absurdity of the position , that infants ever wtxe . members of the church of _G-od . ' _* -

    The several topics above noticed , together with the reasoning usually adduced upon them , ar » , with great cogency of argument , considered much at large . After which Mr . D . proceeds to prove , _" _ilie certain happiness of all chiU dren who die in their infancy . But he opposes thecommon notion of infant _salvation \ because , as he states ,

    < The term salvation in the scriptures is used to denote either the blessings of grace which are the means of salvatioi > to believers , or deliverance from sin _^ n 4 condemnation , which is % o them th

    Infant salvaiiou supposes in- * fant guilt . Sin is a transgression of the law ; but where there is . no law there can be no disobedience . This i * the state of infants _.

    They are not moral agents . They sire under no obligations of law , and therefor _^ they _cau _ftcithcf

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1807, page 660, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121807/page/40/