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A33222
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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.
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Clagett, William, 1646-1688.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing C4399; ESTC R27257
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28,726
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51
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against him Sect. 9 Quer. But more Common Answer is That every National Church may Reform itself Be it so Then it follows Scotland may Reform itself to Calvinism Saxony to Lutheranism c. Answ And so you leave us to gather the rest in this manner but Scotland ought not to reform to Calvinism Saxony to Lutheranism and therefore a National Church may not reform itself Which is as much as to say That because the National Churches which reformed themselves did not all of them agree in every Point of Doctrine and Discipline with one another therefore they ought not to have reformed the most manifest Abuses notorious Errors in the taking a way of which they all agreed If you intended to insinuate that we Confess some defects in this or that National Church since they reformed your Argument is just such another as this Because the National Churches in reforming themselves did not do every good thing which they might therefore they ought not to have done the Good which they did You may Sir observe if you please that the Authority of any National Church to reform itself does not imply it to be an Indifferent thing how she proceeds in doing it Nor does it follow that because 't is possible for a National Church to use Authority in this Matter better or worse therefore she has no Authority at all in it If you are Ignorant of these things you do well to make Queries upon them but it should have been done modestly and without pretending to dispute of things in which you are so very unskilful Quer. Moreover 't is false that the Change of Religion was made here in England by Vote of the National Church or Clergy of England No no but by the giddiness of a Few during the Minority of Edward VI. being then a Child of Ten years old Read the Annals of those Times even Fox himself where 't is evident that almost all the English Bishops Cranmer and two or three more excepted were utterly against the pretended Reformation Sect. 10 Answ If the Reformation were not a Pretended only but a Real Reformation and if all the English Bishops almost were against it the more to blame they but the Reformation was not the less necessary Truth is to be followed with a Few if they are but Few that follow it but thou shalt not follow a Multitude to do evil It is better to be in the right with a Young King though he be but a Child than to be in the wrong with an Old Pope But for what you say That the Change of Religion in England was made by the Giddiness of a Few 't is notoriously False for they were but few in Comparison that opposed it and it was so generally received that Fire and Faggot in the next Reign was not able to destroy it Sect. 11 Quer. Yet let us suppose but not grant Religion to have been Reformed here by the major part of the English Clergy I understand not how it may be lawful for the Church of England being in Actual Communion with the Catholick Church to separate itself from the rest of the Body Answ She has not separated herself from the rest of the Body though she has not now for some time been in Actual Conjunction with one part of it and that the most corrupted part of all the Rest the true Reason whereof is that you will have no Communion with us but we must pay for it at the price of our Souls If to reform our selves be to separate from your Church look you to that who have it seems made both these things to be in effect the same thing by your hating to be Reformed We for our parts are amazed that Men who talk so much for Unity of Communion will not do that for the sake of Unity which ought to be done though Discord and Separation would certainly follow upon it Sect. 12 Quer. If you say this was not done by Fault of the English Church but of the Church of Rome obtruding on the World her Errors and Corruptions I answer in short That all Hereticks themselves being Judges will escape Condemnation And father let the Reader take notice that all Presbyterians are wont to urge this very Instance in their own defence against the Church England to wit that they have left only the Errors and Corruption of the English Church Answ If you say this was not done by Fault of the Roman Church but of the Church of England refusing to submit to the Supreme Pastor and rejecting the Catholick Faith I answer in short That All Vsurpers and Deceivers themselves being Judges will escape Condemnation And farther let the Reader take notice that though this Plea of forsaking the Errors of a Church lies in the middle to be taken up by every one that separates from a Church yet one may take it up with very good reason against one Church while another lays hold on it without any just cause for so doing against another Church Nor ought it to be esteemed any prejudice against using such a Plea when there is Cause for it that others may using when there is none For otherwise 't is impossible that the Innocent should ever make a good Plea for themselves since they that are guilty may if they can but speak take the same Words into their Mouths When the two Apostles said to the Council Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken anto you more than unto God judge ye they might have been told that this was no more than what every Deceiver might say And yet I suppose you will not deny but the Plea in their Mouths was a very just and sufficient Plea. Sect. 13 Quer. Whether the true Service of God had been corrupted throughout the whole World before Cranmer's Rise If not tell me in what Province of the Earth did exist Whether among the Waldenses But I am ignorant from whence Peter Waldo the Merchant of Lyons received his Mission Nor do I know whether his Sacraments are approved by the Church of England Answ The whole World is a very wide place and the Query is a very Impertinent Query For whether the true Service of God bad been corrupted throughout the whole World before Cramner's Rise or not one thing we are sure of that it was most vilely corrupted here and therefore that there was crying need to have it Reformed But if you long to have a more positive Answer to the Question first go and learn that every Corruption in the Service of God does not destroy the Truth though it lessens the Purity of it and that every Defect does not deserve to be called a Corruption that as to this Matter some Churches were better and others worse none I doubt perfect but that there was one worst of all so very bad that Peter Waldo needed not anny Mission to declare against the Corruptions of it Learn these things as you ought to do against the next time
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