I was not as yet ripe for deeper inquiry: yet I, about this time, decidedly modified my boyish creed on the subject, on which more will be said below.
Of more immediate practical importance to me was the controversy concerning Infant Baptism.

For several years together I had been more or less conversant with the arguments adduced for the practice; and at this time I read Wall's defence of it, which was the book specially recommended at Oxford.

The perusal brought to a head the doubts which had at an earlier period flitted over my mind.

Wall's historical attempt to trace Infant Baptism up to the apostles seemed to me a clear failure:[1] and if he failed, then who was likely to succeed?
The arguments from Scripture had never recommended themselves to me.

Even allowing that they might confirm, they certainly could not suggest and establish the practice.