the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

‘ [288] of Bigotry when made essential to Baptism;’ which was soon followed by ‘A Plea for Infants, or the Scripture Doctrine of Water-Baptism stated.’ These tracts presently excited a controversy, in which our author returned several times to the charge in reply to sundry opponents, particularly the Rev. J. Burroughs and Mr. D. Dobell. In these publications he defends the cause of infant baptism with great zeal and perseverance, and urges all the arguments which are usually brought forward to vindicate or recommend this practice, not only from the expediency and propriety of the thing, considered in its moral influence on the minds of the parents, but on the alleged footing of authority derived from the supposed uninterrupted tradition of the church, from the presumed practice, or at least connivance of the apostles, and from the real or supposed analogy between this rite and that of circumcision, as practised under the law of Moses. Some of these arguments appear to us plausible, while others will scarcely bear examination. The main strength of the paedo-baptists' cause (provided that the ‘previous question’ is assumed, that water-baptism is to be received as an ordinance of permanent obligation in the church at all) is derived from the consideration, that it must be practised as a rite of initiation; whereas adult baptism seems to invert the natural order, when administered to persons who have already gone through a course of religious instruction and education. It seems preposterous, first to instruct, and then to admit into the school. When the question is not of the first introduction of a convert, but of the offspring of Christian parents,