without the least liberty of Paraphrase and word for word excepting only the addition of the necessary expletives to express an Interrogation in English But what do I trouble my self to find out some colour of a Fault when you set me to seek one The place concerns no manner of Controvssie between us And I am apt to think that you borrowed it out of a Book that was false printed and then had not judgment enough to correct it At last we have it seems corrupted Exod. 20.4 by putting the words Graven Image in the Second Commandment for is not that it you would have And pray why should we not do so since not only the Hebrew (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but even your own Vulgar has the same which you here confess to be Non facies tibi sculptile For what is a Graven Thing here but a Graven Image Oh but this word Sculptile is by the Seventy Interpreters translated Idol Thou hast a lucky Brain Belike then the Seventy had the Vurgar Latin before them and followed it in this place To what purpose is it to spend time upon such stuff as this Look Sir this is the short of the Business the Septuagints Translation is Good and the Vulgar Translation is Good and that because it will hold good to the Worlds end that Graven Images or any likenesses whatever that are worshiped are Idols not excepting the Picture of our Saviour if we had it which I do not say in hatred of the Picture of our Saviour unless I must needs hate every thing which I do not worship But I know no necessity of that for I am far enough from worshipping your own self and yet I cannot find in my heart to hate you But I wish you well and shall therefore give you a little good advice Do not for the future as I hinted to you before meddle with Kings or Queens Cardinals Archbihops or Noblemen for they are Persons too high for you nor with the Septuagint or the comparing of Originals and Translations as I add now for these are things too high for you too And for the same Reason meddle no more between Churches trouble your Head no more about Questions relating to Holy Orders Mission Succession and the Power of Reformation Give not your self to Controversies and above all things write no more Queries And if this distemper be once cured I 'll not despair but that your Ingenuity may direct you to an Imployment more suitable to your capacity so that you may be able to give a tolerable Account of the Time. Farewel FINIS ERRATA PAge 14. line 3. for using read useâ—â— P. 15. l. 8 f. appears r. approves P. 45. l. 2. f. due r. subâ—â—â— P. 47. l. last f. the r. your Books lately Printed for James Adamson I. Mr. Chillingworth's Book called The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation made more generally useful by omitting Personal Contests but inserting whatsoever concerns the common Cause of Protestants or defends the Church of England with an exact Table of Contents and an Addition of some genuine Pieces of Mr. Chillingworth's never before printed viz. against the Infallibility of the Roman Church Transubstantiation Tradition c. And an Account of what moved the Author to turn Papist with his Confutation of the said Morives Quarto II. Two Discourses of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead in Quarto III. The Present State of the Controversie between the Church of England and the Church of Rome Or an Account 〈◊〉 the Books written on both sides in a Letter to a â—â—end in Quarto IV. A Treatise of the Celibacy of the Clergy wherein its Rise and Progress are Historically considered in Quarto V. Clementis Epistolae duae ad Corinthos Interpretibus Patricio Jâ—â—lio Gothifredo Vandelino Joh. Bapt. Coteleâ—io Recensuit notarum spicilegium adjecil Paulus 〈◊〉 â—â—esius Bibliothecae Lambethanae curator Accedit Tâ—â— Brunonici Windsoriensis discertatio de Therapeutis Philonis His subnexae sunt Epistolae aliquot singulares vel nunc primum editae vel non ita facilè obviae in Quato VI. The Travels of Monsieur de Thevenot into the Levant in Three Parts viz. 1. Into Turky 2. Persia 3. The East Indies in Folio
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
have a Question to offer you which will go near to spoil your Query and this it is If you will needs call our Articles Additions to the Common Articles of the Christian Faith whether it be not somewhat worse to add notorious and dangerous Errors to the Creed than to add plain and profitable and as the case may be necessary Truths to it Sect. 18 Quer. Whether the Reformed Religion may not be divided and sub-divided into Endless Reformations Answ The Turks have taken much notice of the Divisions of Christians Do you therefore go and Answer a Turk putting this Query Whether the Christian Religion may not be divided and sub-divided into Endless Religions And then I will Answer this wise Query of yours if you be not from that time able to Answer it yourself But if you should have but little concern for Christianity yet surely you have a great deal for Popery Therefore I expect your Answer to this other Query Whether the Sence of the Council of Trent may not be divided and sub-divided into endless Expositions and Representations Tell me this and I also will tell you whether the Reformed Religion c. Sect. 19 Quer. Whether in the matter of the Eucharist the Argument drawn from our Senses be not fallible The Reason of this Question is because the Serpents deceiv'd our first Parents by persuading them to believe their own Eyes rather than the Word of God. As that they should eat of the Tree of Knowledge because it was fair to the Eye Now if Mankind should be so deceived by their Sight Pray whence should their other Senses deserve more Credit Answ And was not the Fruit of that Tree fair to the Eye How then did their Sight deceive our First Parents Would any one that had but read Gen. 3.4 5. say that the Serpent deceiv'd our First Parents by persuading them to believe their own Eyes Be so just to yourself as to believe your own for once and read the words And the Serpent said unto the Woman Ye shall not surely die For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof then your Eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evil. Now I take this to be a persuading them to believe something which they did not see and not as you say to believe their own Eyes And their Credulity as to this unseen Effect was that which prevailed with them to their ruin Remember therefore if you please that our First Parents were deceiv'd by giving an easie assent to a confident Boaster and bold Promiser of Supernatural Effects and from expecting more from such Assurances than what they could have been led to by the most full Information of their Senses Remember this I say and then apply it to the Eucharist as you shall see convenient Read the Text again and then tell me why you say that the Serpent deceiv'd them by persuading them to believe their own Eyes rather than the Word of God and why you give this Instance of it as if it were his Argument That they should eat of the tree of knowledge Because it was fair to the eye The truth is the Serpent set up his own glorious Promises against the Threatnings of the Almighty and in this we know he has been well imitated And if he had not wrought more upon them by their Hopes and Credulity than by Evidence of Sense for tho' they saw that the Fruit was pleasant to the Eyes we have no reason to think they would have tasted it had they not been deluded with the Expectation of being as Gods his Attemps of deceiving might have been as vain as yours are in this Query Quer. Whether the Church of England be not Changeable according to the various Inclinations of English Parliaments Sect. 20 Answ Changeable as how I pray for this one word Changeable splits the Query into I know not how many Queries unless you had told us as to what the Church of England may or may not be Changed according to the Will of English Parliaments For Instance the Church of England is at present the Church Established by Law and if you ask whether the Church of England with respect to Legal Establishment be not Changeable according to the various Inclinations of English Parliaments including as I hope you do the Pleasure of the Sovereign then without all doubt English Parliaments may Change the Church of England but we hope they will not do it But if by Changing the Church of England you mean that Parliaments can make the Religion professed by the Church of England to become a False Religion when their Inclinations are once varied from us then I tell you that the Church of England is not Changeable by English Parliaments nor by all the Powers upon Earth For this Matter is fixed to their hands and can never be unfixed to the end of the World. And I do willingly acknowledge that the Religion of the Church of Rome is in this respect every whit as Unchangeable as Ours that is to say that Part of it which contradicts Ours is False to day and all the Parliaments in the World cannot make it True to morrow If this Answer should offend you I pray do not blame me but thank yourself for putting the Query which no doubt pleased you very much But the Answer let me tell you is a good one We of this Church depend upon King and Parliament for the Legal Establishment of our Religion but not for the Truth of it the former therefore is Changeable because Men are so but the latter is not so because God Changeth not Thus we render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are Gods. And it were well if you would do so too Sect. 21 Quer. Whether the Spirit of Calvin denying and that of Luther affirming a Corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament be the same Spirit If not then both cannot be of God. Answ This again is so ambiguous and deceitful that one would think you had learn'd to frame your Queries after the pattern of the Famous Apollo's Answers Here therefore I must fall to Distinguishing as fast as I can and Answer as warily as if some great Matter depended upon it In the first place then I well remember that this word Spirit sometimes signifies Doctrin and if the meaning of the Question be whether Calvin's Doctrin against and Luther's for a Corporal Presence be the same I Answer positively and resolutely that they are not the same and finally I grant that those Two contrary Doctrins cannot both be of God. Secondly By this word Spirit we do sometimes understand the Disposition and Temper of a Man's Mind and then if the meaning of the Query be whether Calvin and Luther one of whom denied and the other maintained a Corporal Presence of Christ c. whether I say both these Men were for all this endued with the same qualities that make up