An Argument for Discourses on Christian Nurture: Addressed to the Publishing Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society

Excerpt from An Argument for "Discourses on Christian Nurture" Addressed to the Publishing Committee of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society If I give you reason to believe that the same doctrine of Christian nurture was held by the church of the apostolic age, in connexion with infant baptism, after which the rhe fell into long ages of abuse, where its preper meaning was lost out of mind; then that when the Reformation came it brought no such view of it to light, that the re formers and fathers and learned professors whom we have most in confidence, down to the present day, have ever had any fixed agree; ment among themselves, in regard to the state of childhood as con' useted with baptism, or the meaning of the rite itself, and have ad' vanced continually different theories, without offence; some of them, regarded as even ultra orthodox, asserting the precise doctrine of nurture which I have maintained; if I show you moreover that the very type of religion which has produced this extraordinary sensitives ness to my book, is in fact a novelty itself just a hundred years old, being that which was derisively called New Light in its day, and which now is really taken to be synonymous with antiquity and all orthodoxy; a type of religion which approaches strict individualism, which practically hangs all power and progress on adult conversions, which owered in the brilliant era of Burchard and Knapp, and is now dying under mildew or passing into seed - showing you thisi think your committee will at least find some confirmation of their judg ment, and the subjects of thi panic some solution of the very peculiar courtesy and intellectual dignity that has attended their demonstra tions. If I give you reason to believe that the same doctrine of Christian nurture was held by the church of the apostolic age, in connexion with infant baptism, after which the rhe fell into long ages of abuse, where its preper meaning was lost out of mind; then that when the Reformation came it brought no such view of it to light, that the re formers and fathers and learned professors whom we have most in confidence, down to the present day, have ever had any fixed agree; ment among themselves, in regard to the state of childhood as con' useted with baptism, or the meaning of the rite itself, and have ad' vanced continually different theories, without offence; some of them, regarded as even ultra orthodox, asserting the precise doctrine of nurture which I have maintained; if I show you moreover that the very type of religion which has produced this extraordinary sensitives ness to my book, is in fact a novelty itself just a hundred years old, being that which was derisively called New Light in its day, and which now is really taken to be synonymous with antiquity and all orthodoxy; a type of religion which approaches strict individualism, which practically hangs all power and progress on adult conversions, which owered in the brilliant era of Burchard and Knapp, and is now dying under mildew or passing into seed - showing you thisi think your committee will at least find some confirmation of their judg ment, and the subjects of thi panic some solution of the very peculiar courtesy and intellectual dignity that has attended their demonstra tions.