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. VI.

* 1.1AMong other Sects that, like swarms, are of late risen up against the Church of England and its ancient Mi∣nistery, none are more numerous, petulant, and im∣portune, none more busie, bold, and bitter, than the haughty-spirited and hotter-headed Anabaptists. (For all of them have not (at least shew not) the like horns and hoofs: some are persons of more calm, grave, and charitable tempers.) These novel Disputers against, and despisers of all Infant-Baptisme (whom no ancient Church ever knew; no late•• Reformed Church but ever spewed out and abhorred) these now desire to ap∣pear as Goliah in their compleat Armour, boldly braving the whole Church of England: and this not onely as great Scripturists, but great Artists too; yea they would seem great Statists, Pragmaticks, and Politicians. They pretend to be curious inspectors (beyond all men) into all religious mysteries; yea rigid and exact Anatomizers of all both Modern and Ancient Churches; subtile Insinuators into all In∣terests, and grand Modellers of all Polities both Civil and Ecclesia∣sticall; aiming (no doubt) in time to erect some Saintly soverainty for their party in England, though their former ambitious attempts have every where miscarried, as in severall parts of Germany, so of late in Ireland.

These Anti-paedo-baptists, who are such hard-hearted Fathers, such unkind and unchristian Parents to their Children, as to deny them those distinctions and indulgences of divine grace and favour, which God of old granted to the Jewish infants, and which the Catholick Christian Churches in all ages have thankfully accepted and faith∣fully applied to the Children of professed believers, as a priviledge and donation renewed to them by Christ, and confirmed by the Apo∣stles;* 1.2 these Birds, (glorying like Ostriches in their negligence toward their young ones) are risen up to be not onely nimble Disputants against children, but valiant combatants against men. For they find (after the way of the world,) more is got in one year by the terrour of armes, than in ten yeares by the shew of arguments. And although the pre∣tended principle at first of that party was, to go with soft feet, as Lions and Cats do, (hiding and preserving their Clawes till there is use of them) crying up Peace, and crying down all Warre and sword-work upon Christs or the Gospels score; yet the latter sort of their Dis∣ciples, (being in hopes to become more regnant and triumphant,) have interpreted the meaning of their Grandsires to be, onely in pru∣dence and caution, not in piety and conscience: that fighting was onely forbidden them, when they had cause to despair of getting the better, or just fear to be worsted; but if Providence gives them honest hopes, and advantages by the arm of flesh, and the sword of Steel, to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and his spirit, they are ready, with S. Pe∣ter, not onely to fight for Christ, but to cut off Malchus his eare, yea and

his head too; if they find any Christian, Prince or Prelate, Magistrate or Minister, stand in their way, or if he seemeth to fight against that Anti-infantall Christ, which they say is so predominant in them, that he ought by their assistance to reform and rule all the Christian world; first beginning to destroy the Baptismall rights of Christians Infants, and then to go on to invade the rights of their parents, both Civil and Ecclesiasticall. The ancient Church, as in England, so every where, adored a Saviour, who invited infants to him and blessed them: These men set up a Christ, who will not endure the Infants of his Church and people to come neer him, or have any relation to him, as Lambs of the flock to that great Shepherd.

Thus, the Papists on the one side agitate an endlesse controversie with this Church of England and all Reformed Churches, touching the Lords Supper, First, in not restoring the Cup to Lay-men, agreeable to Christs institution and intention, which was best declared by the practise of the Apostles, and the Catholick Church after them for a thousand years; next, in their stating precisely and explicitely, as matter of faith, under a grievous curse and Anathema, the manner of Christs presence in that Sacrament; which as we confesse to be very mysterious, adorable and ineffable, yet most reall, true and effectuall to a worthy Receiver, according to the proper capacity of Faith receiving its object; so we conclude, that it is not in that grosse and contradi∣ctive manner, which they have lately invented, and imposed upon the Churches credulity by way of Transubstantiatings,* 1.3 & which is a strange nulling of the substance & nature of the signes, Bread and Wine, (own∣ed as such by the Apostle after consecration) and inducing the intire substance of Christs Body and Blood, under every crum and drop of those accidents or shadows, which seem still to be Bread and Wine to the four Senses. And this must be first done, even then when Christ was yet at table with the Disciples, and had not yet suffered: so that they corporally eat of Christs Body made of the Bread, when he gave them the Bread; and was at once in their eyes, and between their teeth. Which strange and unheard-of manner of super-omni∣potent transmuting or transposing, or annihilating of Substances, the Papists owe more to the wit and subtilties of some Schoolmen of later ages (who scorned to seem ignorant of any thing, or to be posed in any Christian mystery) than either to the verdict of their senses, to the principles of true Philosophy, to the grounds of sound Reason, to the Analogy or tenour of Scriptures in parallel Mysteries or Sacraments, or last of all, to the Testimony of the Primitive Fathers and ancient Churches (as hath been amply and unanswerably proved by many Re∣formed Divines at home and abroad.)

Who, though they spake very high things of this blessed Sacra∣ment (as to its holy use, end, and relation to the Lord Jesus) yet they thought it enough for Christians to believe, adore, and admire the in∣visible, mysticall and spirituall, yet reall, presence of Christ in it; (for truly and fully present they ever believed him to be, though they confessed themselves ignorant how, and so were both humbly and mo∣destly silent of the manner of his presence.)

In which bounds if the later Church of Rome could have contain∣ed it self, I believe much trouble and misery, much blood-shed and persecution had been saved in these Western Churches, which are now divided and destroyed upon no point more than this of the Lords Supper; which was the greatest Symbol of Christians communion with Christ and one another, till the Papall arts and policies did so maim and mishape that blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper, as to make it a ground of everlasting contention.

On the other side, the peevish and petulant Anabaptists, who for many years past (almost since the first day-spring of the Reformation visited these Western Churches) have by the pens and tongues, the writings and preachings of many learned and godly men, been brayed in the mortar of Scripture-testimonies, Ecclesiastick practise, Catholick cu∣stome and tradition,* 1.4 yet wil not their folly depart from them. These, I say, have heretofore in Transilvania, Westphalia, and many parts of Ger∣many and the adjacent Countreys, (and of late in England, since it be∣came Africa Septentrionalis, the Northern Africa, full of Serpents and fruitfull in Monsters) with greater boldnesse and freedome than they ever enjoyed under any Christian Magistrate, or in any Reformed Church, sharply contested against the other great Sacrament of Bap∣tisme, so far as it was in the Church of England, and ever hath been in all ages and successions of Christianity, imparted to the Infants of Christian Parents, who own their own Baptisme, and continue in the Churches communion, professing to believe that covenant of God made to them and their children, as Gods people, or Christs Disci∣ples, for the remission of sins original and actual through the blood of Christ.

Against which gracious sign of the Evangelicall covenant, (sealing the truth of the Gospel, & conferring the grace of it; also distinguish∣ing, as by a visible mark of Church-fellowship, the Infants of Christians or believers, from those of heathens and professed unbelievers, who are strangers to the flock of Christ) the Anabaptists have (ever since their rise in Germany, which is about 130 years) been not so much fair and candid disputants, as bitter and reprochfull enemies, for the most part: not modestly doubting, or civilly denying it, as to their own private judgements, with a latitude of charity to such in all the Christian world, who from the Apostles dayes have, and do retain In∣fant-Baptisme; but as if all the Church had erred till their dayes, they imperiously deny it, they rudely despise it, they scurrilous∣ly disdain and mock at the baptisme of Infants, as wholly void and null: therefore they repeat Baptisme to their Disciples; whence they have their name.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The endlesse bickerings with Anabap∣tists, &c. now in England.
• * 1.2

  Job 39.14.
• * 1.3

  In the Coun∣cils of Trent & Laterane. 1 Cor. 10.16, 17. 1 Cor. 11.26, 27.
• * 1.4

  Prov. 27.22.