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    many to odium , and perhaps sufferings , as Christians , who had never really embraced Christianity . The first method would be the means of setting apart the church of Christ from tlie mass of maukind , and of

    preserving it in its purity , while the practice of introducing nominal members into the body must tend to assimilate his church with the multitude , aud to impair its purity in the same proportion . The effects produced by the discriminate and such an

    indiscrinate application of baptism , must be in several respects opposed to each other , nor to me does it appear at all probable , that a church , all of whose members , except the original converts , were merely nominal Christians at their introduction , could have

    given rise to that distinguished excellence of character which actually prevailed in it in the two first centuries 5 or that it could have withstood the " fiery trials" to which it was exposed , and have remained in a state

    of separation * persevering in the distinct avowal of its great and peculiar p ^ ncipks , amid the severe and varied attacks of its implacable enemies . It is . then , extremely improbable , that an application of baptism , so opposed to

    the letter and design of the recorded precept , and to what the New Testament relates of the actual practice of the apostles , should have had the same origin *

    As far as appears from the New Testament , the design and use of baptism , and that to which it was uniformly confined , was , to select the faithful followers of Jesus from the mass of mankind , whatever might be their relation to , or their remoteness

    from them in other respects ; and to form them into one famil y * united by the spirit of the gospel , and spontaneously agreeing in the acknowledgment of their common . Lord , and in

    the worship of tlte one God and Fa * ther alone , ia the face of their numerous and powerful enemies : all this does , I conceive ,, appear with sufficient clearness from the books which it

    contains . There is no intimation that any of the primitive convert ** attempted to introduce nominal Christians into their body ,, but the contrary is the conclusion from all that is re lated concerning this rite , and concerning the unanimity which , gene-

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    rally speaking , subsisted in the Christian body ; and which , instead of decreasing , as it would naturally have done by the continual introduction of nominal members into their societies , appears rather to have

    increased upon the whole during the first and a great part of the second centuries . 1 do not therefore perceive the necessity of appeal to any other writings in proof that baptism is applicable to none but actual disciples .

    Other writings , however , and those not of the first nor till towards the end of the second century , leaving an interval , during which various super * stitions were introduced , and among others some relative to baptism , are appealed to by Mr . Belsham , as the sole foundations of his conclusion . It

    had then been adopted as an opinion , probably by Christians in general , that baptism was the means of regenerating and imparting light and salvation to all to whom it was applied ; " infants and little ones , and children , and youth , and elder persons . " Is it

    extraordinary that so high a degree of superstition , concerning the nature and design of the rite , should have begun to produce a variation in its practice ? For , notwithstanding the sanguine manner in which Mr . B . expresses himself or its uniformity

    and universality , the evidence which he produces from Tertulltan , who " is the first writer by whom the baptism of infants is expressly mentioned , " proves no more than that some , to whom he was writing , were apt , in his opinion , too much to precipitate

    baptism before the candidates were sufficiently instructed and prepared to embrace Christianity , sometimes even applying it to little children , a practice of which , «* except , as he says , «• in case of necessity , ' * he totally disapproved . In regard to these ease * it seems superstition had so far hood *

    winked the otherwise strong under * standing of Tertullian , as to make him suppose that dipping the little innocents in the water wa » necessary to their salvation ; but as it respects the generality of suefa cases , nothing surely cant be more pertinent or forcible than his remarks . It seems that some

    person * thought they had at warrant from our Lewd for tiie practice ( to whan ** and not to the example of

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    494 Mr . Pine ' s Examination of Mr . Bekkam ' s Arguments for Infant Baptism .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1818, page 494, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2479/page/22/