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. XII.

FOr my part, I freely professe,* 1.1 that if the administration of Baptisme in point of age and time, were in it self free and indifferent, so as men might be baptized when they will, and so baptize their children sooner or later, as they please, deferring it, as some of old did, even to their decrepit age and death-beds, be∣cause they would not sin after it; if this were left to an indifferency, which I doe no way think it is, any more than all other duties of the Lords Supper, prayer, hearing the Word preached, &c. are, which have no precise measure and limited time set, because they oblige al∣wayes, as opportunity is offered; Gods favours and indulgences im∣port mans duty to accept and use them, as soon as the Lord offers them to us and ours; though Baptisme be not, as S. Cyprian tells Fidus, con∣fined to the eighth day after infants birth, nor yet to the eighth year, yet when it may be duly had in the way of Gods providence, it may not be delayed to the death of the child (unbaptized) without a great detriment to the infant so dying, and crime to the parents or guardians so delaying, and by their sottish negligence depriving the child of that visible means of grace which God hath allowed in his Church,* 1.2 both to parents and their children: which is the judgement of Gre∣gory Nazianzen, one of the ablest Divines that the Church ever had. As a due debt unlimited to any day of payment, is every day due; so the favours of God, and priviledges of his Church, not precisely con∣fined, but daily offered us, and not accepted, contract upon us a great sin, either of unbelief under the means, or affected negligence, under∣valuing and ingratitude toward Divine Mercies: sins under which no Christian of a truly tender conscience will dare to lie seven yeares, no nor seven dayes, meerly upon the delayes and scruples of his own or other mens both foolish and sluggish hearts.

As that a 1.3soul among the Jews was precisely cut off from the Church of God, (both parents and children) who was not (unlesse in Gods con∣nivence and speciall dispensation, as in the b 1.4 fourty yeares pilgrimage in the wildernesse) circumcised the eighth day; so may those among Christians justly seem to be cut off from the Church of Christ here and hereafter, which do presume to slight, neglect, and so not at all use Baptisme to their children, according as God gives them in the uncertainties of life both opportunity and conveniency. Gods lea∣ving some things to our choice, discretion and ingenuity, must not be any remission, but an excitation to speedy duty, especially in setled Churches, where daily, at least weekly, opportunities are offered; which if denied by hot persecutions, the delay is more excusable, and (it may be) in some cases commendable, where parents have just cause to fear, lest their baptized children shall never attain by their paternall care such education as is correspondent to their Baptisme: In which

cases, I conceive, it was of old deferred; not because it was thought either unlawfull or undesirable in it self, to baptize infants born in the Church, but for feare of the mischiefs attending persecu∣tion, and sometimes the parents were cold and negligent in their duty.

If, I say, the time of Baptisme were left to our freedome, which it is not, as I have shewed; yet still the black brand and grosse impu∣dence of such a reproch, contempt, and errour, as the ruder and spite∣fuller sort of Anabaptists cast upon this and all other Christian Churches, is most intolerable; while they dare to re-baptize such who have been once duly baptized (if it be indifferent when) in their infancy: which re-baptizing of such as were once duly baptized in the Church, was ever judged as much a monster, and most insolent in all Christian Churches, as it would have been to renew or repeat circumcision among the Jews, which was not so much in expresse letter of Scripture forbidden, as made indeed impossible in nature:* 1.5 nor is repeating of Baptism so expresly forbidden in the Word of God, where (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) one Baptisme is mentioned, (which place the Hemerobaptists or daily dip∣pers slighted) as indeed it is, and alwayes was excluded by the inter∣pretation, tradition and practise of the Catholick Church; which no more allowed any to be twice baptized in Religion, or twice ordained to the Ministry, than twice born in nature: yea, this fancy, heresie, and novell insolency, was looked upon as the setting up of a new Go∣spel, another Jesus, and more Gods than one, as the ancient Councils and Fathers alwayes determined, even in the case of S. Cyprians candid errour.* 1.6 Against whose judgement, for invalidating, and so repeating Baptisme, where administred by Hereticks and obstinate Schisma∣ticks, the Councils both of Africk, Europe, and Asia determined, up∣on the ground of Scripture and Primitive custome; both as to the use of Infant-baptisme, and the not repeating of that or any other true baptisme once received. Both which being such Catholick determina∣tions of the Church, it is, with me, not in the least degree disputable, whether I should chuse to conform to the Churches universall testi∣mony, constant practise, and primitive tradition, in this and other mo∣dern disputes (as that of the government of Churches in larger di∣stributions by Bishops above Presbyters and Deacons; so the use of the Lords day, instead of the Judaick Sabath, &c.) which are conforme to the generall scope, tenour and direction of Scripture; or rather comply, both sillily and shamefully, with those modern captious novel∣ties and perverse disputings of some private spirits of yesterday, who dare to cast so great jealousies, blame and dishonour upon the Catho∣lick Churches of Christ in all ages and places, as not onely to suspect, but to proclaime them, both socially and singly, to have been either grosly ignorant, or most basely unfaithfull, as to what the Apostles had delivered to them for the mind and will of the Lord, either by Epi∣stle, word, or Example.

No, I had far rather, with humility and charity, though in infirmity and ignorance, conform to the Catholick Church in errours and mistakes,

(not fundamentall or immorall, of which it never was guilty, nor will be) rather, I say, than by proud and pernicious curiosity, or by scepticall and schismaticall novelty, either blemish the Churches Inte∣grity, or break its Unity.

Both which the Anabaptists ever have done, and ever will doe (since their first eggshell and spawning in Germany) by their endlesse and peevish litigations touching Infant-baptisme; which though to some it seem but a small and circumstantiall businesse, in point of time, yet the scorn, contempt, and abhorrency of the Sacrament, as ap∣plied to infants, is an errour (as I have shewed) of so spreading a ve∣nome and dangerous consequences, that it tends to overthrow all that is or hath been of religious polity and power too, of essence and or∣der, in this and all true Churches, of which we have any record in Scripture or other Writers.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The sin of presumptuous delaying and denying bap∣tisme to Inf∣ants.
• * 1.2

  Gr. Naz. orat. 40. de Baptis. An & eos bap∣tizahimus qui (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) nec damnum nec gratiam sen∣tiunt? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Ita pror∣sus, si quod pe∣riculum urgeat. Praestat enim abs{que} sensu (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) sanctificari, quàm sine sigil∣lo & initiatio∣ne abscedere. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• a 1.3

  Gen. 17 14.
• b 1.4

  Josh. 5.
• * 1.5

  Ephes. 4.5.
• * 1.6

  Con. African. can. 48. Synod. Capuensis an. 389. Zonar. in Con. Carthag. can. 53.