Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	church_n	succession_n	2,569	5	10.4652	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33222	Several captious queries concerning the English Reformation first proposed by Dean Manby (an Irish convert) in Latin, and afterwards by T.W. in English, briefly and fully answered by Dr. Clagett.	Clagett, William, 1646-1688.	1688 (1688)	Wing C4399; ESTC R27257	28,726	51

Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus Several Captious Queries c. Guil. Needham May 10. 1688. Several Captious QUERIES Concerning the English Reformation First Proposed By Dean Manby an Irish Convert in Latin And afterwards by T.W. in English Briefly and Fully ANSWER'D By the late Reverend and Learned Dr. CLAGETT Preacher to the Honourable Society of Grays-Inn and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed by H. Clark for James Adamson at the Angel and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVIII AN ANSWER TO T. W's QUERIES Sect. 1 Quer. THe Church of England is either the whole Catholick Church or a Member thereof If a Member only Name me that Church or Congregation under the Sun whose Sacraments and Liturgy she embraces unless she have cut her self off form the rest of the Body Answ If the Church of Rome were spread over the Face of the whole Earth excepting here in England and nothing would serve but we or they must be the Catholick Church Reason would require that the Church of England should be so which is the better and not the Church of Rome which would be but the bigger Church But we pretend not to be the Catholick Church because we neither need nor ought to boast beyond Truth The Sacraments we embrace are received by All Christian Churches in the World and no Church ought to receive any more We embrace the Liturgies of the other Reformed Churches and use our own as they use their own and embrace ours We embrace all that honest Chistians can embrace in the Liturgies of the Vnreformed and we reject the rest We have not cut our selves off from the rest of the Body but the Church of Rome has done so because she is resolved to be All or Nothing Sect. 2 Quer. Does she allow the Sacraments of Lutherans or Calvinists Answ She allows and administers the same Sacraments that Lutherans and Calvinists do not because they are Sacraments celebrated by them or by any others but because they are Sacraments instituted by Christ. Sect. 3 Quer. From whence was Cranmer that first Patriarch or Reformer of the Church of England sent Who gave him Authority to preach his Reformed Gospel Was it just or honest for him to rise up against the Church of Rome by vertue of a Commission from her received And if so I pray inform me whether a Bishop or Minister fallen from the Church of England may not also take upon him to Preach against the Church of England by pretence of the Orders received from her hands Answ Cranmer was immediately sent by the Bishops that Ordained and Consecrated him Originally by Christ who left that Power in the Church by which they did so So far therefore as he was the First Reformer of the Church of England he did what became his Mission better than if he had gone on to maintain False Doctrins as the Patriarch of Rome did That he was the First Reformer was not his fault but theirs who went before him in that great Station and should have done the same thing but did it not The Gospel which he preached was not the Gospel of Man and therefore not his own but the Gospel of Christ Nor was it properly a Reformed Gospel which he preached since the Gospel of Christ is in all Ages one and the same But if because he reformed the Profession of the Church in some things which were no part of the Gospel though they were pretended to be so he must be said to have preached a Reformed Gospel neither was he to blame for that whose Duty it was to cast Errors out of the Church but they only were to blame who had been so careless and treacherous as to let them in He did rise up against the Church of Rome when he arose against the Corruptions of that Church which had obtained in England unless the Church of Rome cannot subsist without such notorious Errors as he rose up against He was not her Enemy unless he became so by telling her the Truth Nor is it true that he receiv'd his Commission from Rome though he receiv'd it by the hands of Bishops that were in servitude to that See For his Commission had been every whit as good if they had not been subject to the Roman Bishop as they ought not to have been But since his Obligation to Christ from whom he received his Commission by their hands was infinitely greater than to them it was just and honest in him to rise up against those Unchristian Doctrins and Practices which they maintained and no less justifiable then to have risen up against the Arian Heresie if he had received his Orders from Arian Bishops And if ever the Church of England should fall into the like Corruptions again which God forbid those Bishops and Ministers that have received Orders from her hands and who in discharge thereof take upon them to preach not against the Church of England but against the wicked Doctrines and Practices of the Church those Bishops c. I say will do not only what they may but what they ought to do and for the doing of which they shall be rewarded at the last day by the Great Bishop and Shepherd of Souls by whose Authority and Command they so did Sect. 4 Quer. Whether want of Mission be not an Error in the Foundation of any Church It being Theft and Robbery as our Saviour hath taught us not to enter by the Door into the Sheepfold Answ That Cranmer did or that our Pastors now do want Mission is Falshood insinuated by this Query Their Mission has been more Canonical than that of many of your Popes has been But for once to Answer directly to an Impertinent Question The want of such Mission does not destroy the Being or as you call it the Foundation of a Church Nor is that the Door of which our Saviour spake in Joh. X. since in the needs of the Church Good Shepherd may come into the Fold without Canonical Mission and it has on the other side too often happened that Thieves and Robbers have come into the Fold by it who came not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy Sect. 5 Quer. Whether Cranmer entred by the Parliament Door or by the Gate of the Scriptures But this latter is the Old Song of Hereticks and Sectaries perpetually boasting of Scripture I demand therefore Does not the Bible admit of various Interpretations Whence of necessity some Judge is to be assigned to determin which is the true Interpretation unless your Inclinations be to wrangle to all Eternity Answ To the first of these profound Interrogations I Answer thus That if Cranmer entred by the Parliament Door 't is a Door at which you whoever you are would be glad to enter too provided you could get in without first passing the Gate of the Scriptures which you shut up against men for ye neither go in yourselves neither suffer ye them that are entring to go in For your saying

and if you intend to go on in this way then you shall hear farther from me Concerning the Sacraments which the Church of England appears I have told you my mind once already Sect. 14 Quer. Whether at this day there be no Pure and Apostolical Service of God in the World except that established by Law in England and Irealnd Whether it be lawful for the People of England to invent a Church to themselves divided from all the rest of the Christian World By what Authority do they censure the Sacraments and Rites of the Roman Church Answ For an Answer to the first part of the Query I send you back but to the last Query of all where you may find it As to the second I say 't is not lawful for the people of England or for any other People to invent a Church by which you mean I should think to invent a New Religion New Doctrins Worships and Governments But what came into your Head to ask this Question I am not able to imagin since our people have Invented no New Church but only retrieved the Old Whilst you all people have been the best at this Invention and by Inventing a New Creed and New Objects of Worship and New Sacraments and a New Head of the Catholick Church have effectually divided yourselves from all the rest of the Christian World that stick to the Old Religion and will have none of your Inventions 2. I must acquaint you that the two former Branches of this Query seem to me to make up a kind of Nonsence between them for in the first you suppose that we pretend to have a pure Apostolical Service amongst us and in the second that we must needs grant our Church to be one of our own Invention Now we might take it ill to have Questions put upon us as if we were such Ninnies as to pretend to an Apostolical Service and yet to grant that we our selves were the Inventors of it 3. Take all together and the most I can make is this that you lay great weight upon your Presumption that by our Service we stand divided from the rest of the Christian World which I have already told you is notoriously false But for your better Instructions I shall add that if indeed we only had a Pure and Apostolical Service and yet upon the account of our Service no other Christians would Communicate with us the rest of the Christian World ought to be ashamed of it but we not at all By the run of your Queries you seem to be ignorant of one of the plainest things in the World which therefore I do again commend to your Consideration viz. that Truth is the same and changes not whether they be many or few that profess it and that our Religion stands not in a multitude of Pretenders but in a Holy Doctrin and a Holy Practice which all ought to follow even when the most do not As for the third Branch of this Query By what Authority c it comes in as if you could never ask it often enough But if I have not given you a sufficient Answer pray do you try to give a better if you can to this By what Authority do you censure the Sacraments and Rites of the English Church Quer. Whether Cranmer was the first Arch-Bishop of the Church of England The reason of my doubt is this because Archbiships of Canterbury for nine preceeding Ages were all Roman Catholicks If he was the first he wanted Episcopal Succession because being the first of his Sect he succeeded to none Then how could he be a lawful Pastor who had neither Succession Mission nor Miracles to recommend his New Doctrin I say New and strange at that time and for many Ages before Sect. 15 Answ He that affirms there were Roman Catholick Archbishops of Canterbury for Nine Ages before Cranmer and yet makes a doubt whether Cranmer were the first Archbishop of Canterbury or not shall doubt on for me If indeed Cranmer was the first Archbishop of Canterbury then as you say he wanted Episcopal Succession in the See of Canterbury that is he had no Bishops that were his Predecessors in that See because he was the first and I am very glad that you don't doubt of that too And yet I think there is as much reason to doubt of that as of the other But then you are come to an end of the first doubt presently for now you do not doubt but Cranmer was the first Archbishop tho' there were Archbishops for Nine Ages before him and wanted Episcopal Succession I suppose you do not care to stand doubting long upon a Matter But in the name of sence how can this be Why Because being the first of his Sect he succeeded none Notably spoken and all is now as plain as can be Because Cranmer was the First of his Sect in the See of Canterbury Therefore he was also the First of his Order for if there were no Archbishop of his Sect before him without all doubt there were no Archbishops before him at all And yet there were too therefore I begin to doubt this will prove but a bad business at last However Sir I give you many thanks for your Argument such as it is for the distinction which it proceeds upon we have been tugging for this hundred and fifty years and you at last have very civilly yielded it to us For in plain English you would prove that Cranmer wanted Episcopal Succession because he wanted Doctrinal Succession he was say you the First of his Sect and therefore he succeeded to none And again How could he be a lawful Pastor who had neither Succession c. to recommend his New Doctrin Now tho' I can by no means grant that want of Doctrinal Succession implies the want of Episcopal Succession nor will you neither when you have taken something to clear your Brain yet I do very thankfully acknowledge that to make a Good Pastor there ought not to be an Episcopal Succession only but a Doctrinal Succession also Now Cranmer we say received his Orders from the Bishops of his Age and his Episcopal Succession from his immediate Predecessor in the See of Canterbury and so upward Thus far now we are very well But then for his Doctrin for which you would make him the First of his Sect he took a far better course than as you would have had him to receive it for good and all from his immediate Predecessors for it was possible and upon trial he found it certainly true that his Predecessors had made a failure in Successon of Doctrin and innovated against the Antient Faith and Worship of the Christian Church He therefore went to the Records of the Primitive Church and to the Scriptures which are the most Antient of all and the only Infallible Rule of Faith by which he found and so may you if you have Grace to do it that some of those Bishops whom you speak of that went