Hiera dakrya, Ecclesiae anglicanae suspiria, The tears, sighs, complaints, and prayers of the Church of England setting forth her former constitution, compared with her present condition : also the visible causes and probable cures of her distempers : in IV books / by John Gauden ...

CHAP. X.

10. ALl which weight and strength of reasoning drawn from Scripture in many instances,* 1.1 and most con∣form to the love, grace, philanthropy, mercy and benignity of God, through Christ, to his Church under the Gospel, are sufficient to out-weigh those two small and weak cavils, urged by the Anabap∣tists; either from the Scriptures silence, not naming Infants in the pre∣cept or history of Baptisme; or limiting, as they fancy (for ever, which was but in the first planting of Churches) Baptism only to such as are taught and actually believe: which is true (as in Abrahams case, and such as were men grown in his house; he and they were first taught of God the meaning of that Evangelicall mystery; but the Infants, who, in the second place, received it, could not be in∣structed, and yet were circumcised, that is, owned for Gods, dedica∣ted to him, distinguished by this visible sign from the children of A∣liens, and by this means of grace brought, no doubt, to glory) so is it in Baptisme, where the root of parents believing is once holy by baptismall relation and dedication to God, keeping communion with Christ and his Church, there the branches or children are also holy,* 1.2 and belong to the Lord.

11. Nor is this reasoning from Scripture, as to the harmony and con∣current sense of it, either scepticall, or curious, or infirm; but farre more pregnant and potent in Religion, both as to faith and manners, than any urging of one or two particular places, contrary to this te∣nour and Analogie of faith; or those proportions of truth and mercy, which are so manifest in the Scriptures, that the contrary opinion or practise, however seemingly drawn from some Scripture, (as Tertull. Cyprian, S. Austin, observed in the quotations of Hereticks) yet car∣ries great incongruities and absurdities, such as are inconsistent with the Evangelical dispensations, many wayes in other Scriptures decla∣red, and easily to be observed by those that bring no prejudice or prepossessions with them.

Our blessed Saviours wisdome hath taught us thus to understand the mind of God, by this collective or deductive sense of Scriptures. Thus he evinceth a grand article of Christian faith, the resurrection

of the dead,* 1.3 against the blind cavils of the Sadduces; first, by alled∣ging such Scriptures as named not, but implied the Resurrection, yea rather the souls immortality; then he doth by principles and conse∣quences of right reason, draw forth the force of those places, shew∣ing as the souls existence, so the possibility and certainty of the Resurrection, also the state of those that are once risen and in glory.

* 1.4In like manner our Saviour, by comparing Scriptures, proves Gods dispensations of labour, as to works of piety, charity and necessity, both to God, to man, and to beasts, even on the Sabbath, where the let∣ter of the command was expresse and fully negative, Thou shalt doe no manner of work, &c. yet doth Christ redargue those Sabbaticall ri∣gours which were by the Pharisees both hypocritically and uncharita∣bly urged from the letter of that command; Christ tells them they erred (though they insisted on the letter of the command) not know∣ing the Scriptures, in their harmonious and concurrent sense, which is by sober and right reasonings to be fairly understood, rather than by harsh and dissonant exactings so urged, as to make one part of Scripture clash with another, or one place enterfeare and jarre with the whole tenour and Analogie of Divine wisdome, truth, mercy and grace.

Which in this point of Baptisme the Anabaptists do; if not to their own damnation, yet very much to the subversion of the faith of many, to the dividing, undermining and destroying of a famous and well-setled Church, which hath suffered infinitely of late by some Ana∣baptistick petulancy, pertinacy and peevishnesse. Which in this point of Baptisme is much upon the same lock as they are in the point of Ministers maintenance under the Gospel by Tithes; which is clear by the Analogie, equity, and intent of the Scriptures, comparing the old and new together, in which the mind and measure of the just and gra∣cious God is evidently as liberall to the Gospel-Ministers as to the Jewish,* 1.5 as S. Paul urgeth, Even so hath the Lord ordained, &c. The force of which place I have unanswerably proved in a particular dis∣course upon Tithes.

Yet what out-cries and clamours, what reproches and calumnies, what a Tragick and Judaick businesse hath the covetous scrupulosity and sacrilegious nicety of some men made against Tithes, and Mini∣sters now receiving them, pretending Scriptures against them, which are most fully for them; still wresting in this, as other things, the Scriptures silence, or letter, by the bias, and scrue, or rack of their own prejudices, or depraved lusts and passions, against the equity, force and reasonings of Scripture, concurrent, and manifest from many places?

Notes

• * 1.1

  Of right rea∣soning from Scripture.
• * 1.2

  1 Corin. 7.14.
• * 1.3

  Matth. 22.29.
• * 1.4

  Matth. 12.5, 8.
• * 1.5

  1 Cor. 9.14.