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. XIII.

BEsides, this poysonous (and now so swoln) errour of the Anabaptists in Engl. against Infant-baptism,* 1.1 is further sowred by other seditious principles & infamous pra∣ctises attending that opinion, wherewith some of them have taught the world long ago in Germany, as lately in England, to beware, lest in stead of water, they baptize both in∣fants and elder people with blood and fire, as proclaiming all to be no Christians, nor better than Heathens, who will not come to their new dippings. Their errour is not solitary, nor the sting of their schisme either soft or blunt, or unvenomous; which doth not a little discover their opinion to be as far from the Spirit of Christ, as it is from the mind, meaning, and intent of Christ in his Word: nor are they now excu∣sable (as Luther at first thought, but afterward recanted, when he saw the bad and bitter fruits of their new doctrine;) they cannot now with any colour plead simple or invincible ignorance (which, now, is boyled up by the heat of their spirits to obstinacy, contumacy, and insolency against this and all Churches both peace and practise) for they doe still boldly persist in their tedious errour, after so many Scripture-de∣monstrations, cleared and confirmed by the Catholick testimony and practise of the Church of Christ. Nor is their judgement or practise in other things accompanied with such meeknesse, modesty, charity, humi∣lity, and innocency, as might render this a veniall errour, or tolerable difference; which may grow as a weed (not very noxious or unsa∣voury) among many sweet flowers of Graces, Vertues, and good Works: like that of S.* 1.2 Cyprian in point of rebaptizing such as Here∣ticks had baptized; which S. Austin calls (in that holy man and Mar∣tyr) a wart or mole in a fair and candid breast, to be covered with the vaile of Christian charity. But the Anabaptistick fury flies in the very face of this and all Churches, pulling out the very eyes of Christi∣ans,

by which they obtained their (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) first illumination,* 1.3 as Baptisme was anciently called by the Fathers, and the Apostolick Au∣thor to the Hebrews: it not onely sliely picks at, but violently strives to overthrow the first foundation of all Christian Faith, Pro∣fession, Polity, Order, and Church-communion.

Hence, besides its novelty and heterodoxie, it riseth naturally from so presumptuous an errour, to pertness, sharpness, tumultuariness, sedition, haughtiness, contempt of all Christian men and Magistrates too, who wil not either receive, or connive at, this and other their imperious errours.

Who is the••, Minister or other, that differs from them, be he never so sober, grave, and holy, but he must be vilified, reproched, and openly railed at, by their libellous & scurrilous, either pens or tongues? Their greatest spite and malice lies (as the Jesuits) most levelled and implacable against the best and ablest Ministers, who retain both Ca∣tholick Ordination and Baptisme; whose successfull labours and excel∣lent lives do most confute this and all other novell fancies; while themselves are, by the blessing of God, justified to all the Christian world (not willingly blind) to be Ministers, not onely of the Letter and Water, but of the Spirit, Grace and Power. Such as desert Catholick Ordination and Government by Bishops, give greatest advantage to Anabaptists; for the pulling out of one corner-stone in a wall, makes way for others easily to follow. As all Anabaptists are against Bishops, so all the Ancients who are for Infant-baptism, as Catholick, are for Episcopall Government, even S. Jerome himself.

Not that I think all men, who, it may be, lesse approve Infant-baptisme, than that of elder years, conceiving that practise to be more clear in the letter of the Scripture, have the same calentures and cruell distempers; many of them, I hope, may have sincerity to God-ward, and charity to those Christians who in this differ from them. But I con∣ceive the tumultuating, rude, violent, and uncharitable Anabaptists (with all their Spawn of other Sects) have greatly sinned against the Lord Christ, and against his Church, both in England and else∣where, also against his servants the Ministers of all ages and places, whom they have most injuriously slandered, and shamefully treated with great scorn, malice, and all manner of indignities that were within their reach and power; whom I pray God to forgive, giving them that true repentance, which may redeem them from that gall of bitter∣nesse, and bond of iniquity, in which they seem to lie: this is the worst I wish any of them. In order to which good desire, I thought it not amisse thus far to expresse my judgement, and as much as in me lies, to justifie (after many others) in the point of Infant-baptisme, the doctrine and practise of my Mother the Church of England, and both its Fathers and Sons, who have suffered so undeservedly, and there∣fore complain so justly of, the mischiefs and miseries befaln and threatening them, from this dangerous party and faction; who re∣solve never to be satisfied in their perverse disputes and endlesse jang∣lings; who with one puffe blow away all that concurrent strength, which in the behalf of Infant-baptisme is truly and solidly mustered up, from

the Covenant of Grace, from the tenour of Scriptures, from the propor∣tion of Evangelicall priviledges, from the relation which Christians in the Church have to God by Christ, from the Catholick custome and practise of all Churches old and new, from the joynt suffrages of all a 1.4 Councils, Fathers, and Church-Historians. Against all which cloud and army of Witnesses, they bring onely two or three literall allegati∣ons, partially and incompleatly interpreted. They boast much, but falsely, of Tertullian in this point, whom they forsake in many others; who was a person, though excellently learned, and of high parts, yet immoderately passionate, easily transported, and in that very point, as I have shewed, is either different from himself in other places, or to be understood in a b 1.5 meaning limited and occasionall; ei∣ther to the children of Heathens, yet untaught and unprofessing Christian Religion, or the children of Christians hurried up and down by persecutions, which in Tertullians times were, if not con∣stant, yet very frequent. After him they have found in six hundred years one c 1.6 Walafridus Strabo, who seemed to scruple Infant-baptism, as not of primitive use, but shews no grounds of his scruple: and at last Ludovicus Vives, in his d 1.7 notes of late on S. Austin de civitate Dei, is produced as a witnesse against Antiquity; a Papist in all things else, and in this point differing from his own e 1.8 Church and Communion, if it were his opinion and judgement; which I see no cause to be∣lieve, because he proveth nothing, he not thinking it unlawfull or vain, but (perhaps) not absolutely necessary to baptize all in infancy; to which f 1.9 Nazianzen inclines, except in case of death. But all these are either single Doctors and private opinions, or petty Pygmies and Mushromes, compared to those g 1.10 many Heroes, that Lebanon of tall Ce∣dars, which were all advocates of Infant-baptisme in all Ages and Churches from the Apostles dayes. There is not any one of the An∣cients doth dogmatically deny it as lawfull, or so far doubt and dispute it, as to question the usual and approved practise of it from all times; which S. Austin so vehemently affirmes, that in his Epistle to Volusia, he sayes, The h 1.11 custom of our Mother the Church in baptizing Infants, as it is not to be neglected as superfluous, so nor would it have been either practised or believed, unlesse it had been so delivered by the Apostles, as their undoubted sense and practise: which Pelagius did not, yea, could not with any colour deny, as i 1.12 S. Austin observes, though it had much served his design about original sin, if he could in that point have baffled the credit, custome and authority of the Catholick Church: which k 1.13 S. Cyprian, who lived in the second Century, so beyond all ca∣vill or scruple, so industriously and fully sets down, that if there were no other testimonies of the Ancients, that alone would satisfie any so∣ber man, being written, not upon any heat of dispute, but calmly and clearly, as of a matter ever done, and never under dispute in the Church to his dayes.

But I have in this part done more than I designed, in order to ad∣vance not strifes and further contention, but Christian peace and charity on all sides in this Church and Nation, as to those reli∣gious differences which are a great occasion of our miseries.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The dangerous effects & prin∣ciples of Ana∣baptisme.
• * 1.2

  Candidissimi pectoris naevus charitatis velo obtegendu••. Aug. de Cypr. errore.
• * 1.3

  Hebr. 10.32.
• a 1.4

  Conc. Carth. v. Milevit. an. 418. can. 11. Qui parvulos recentes ab ute∣ro matris bapti∣zandos negat, Anathema fit. Conc. Gerun∣dense anno 517. Parvuli, si infirmi fuerint, etiam eadem die qua nati sunt, si oblati fuerint, bapti∣zentur. Can. 5. Conc. Braca∣rense an. 572. Praecipiant epis. ut infantes ad baptismum offe∣rant.
• b 1.5

  Tert. de bap. c. 18. Quid fe∣stinat innocens aetas ad remis∣sionem peccato∣rum?
• c 1.6

  Anno 850. de reb. eccl. c. 26.
• d 1.7

  Ludov. Vives in l. 1. c. 27. Aug. de civ. Dei.
• e 1.8

  Bellarm. de Baptis. c. 1. par. 3. So the Coun∣cil of Trent.
• f 1.9

  Naz. or. 40. de Bapt.
• g 1.10

  Propriae, oc∣cultae & priva∣tae opiniunculae, à cōmunis, gene∣ralis, & publicae sententiae auto∣ritate secretae. Vin. Lir. c. 39.
• h 1.11

  Consuetudo matris ecclesia in baptizandis parvulis ne∣quaquam sper∣nenda, nec om∣nino superflua deputanda, nec omnino cre∣denda, nisi Apostolica esset traditio. Aug. ep. ad Volusiam.
• i 1.12

  Aug. l. 1. de pec. mer. & remis. c. 26. Parvulos baptizandos esse concedunt (Pelagiani.) Qui contra autoritatem universalis ecclesiae proculdubio per Dominum & Apostolos traditum venire non possunt.
• k 1.13

  Ep. lib. 3. ep. 8. ad Fidum.