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
the Character of a good Man whether they had the same Spirit of Sincerity and Piety and Charity and the like then according to this Notion I Answer That I verily believe they bad both the same Spirit notwithstanding that difference and consequently that the Spirit of the one as well as of the other was of God. Thirdly and Lastly This word Spirit is sometimes used to signifie a Persuasion concerning some Doctrin proceeding from the immediate Inspiration whether of the Good or the Evil Spirit And if the Question goes upon this meaning 't is an Impertinent Question for Luther and Calvin did not pretend to teach Doctrine from Immediate Imspiration but to Prove their Doctrine by the Scriptures But if you only meant to make some advantage to yourself from these two Mens disagreeing in a Matter which we must confess to be of Moment I only desire you to turn the Tables and to Answer these Queries Whether the Spirit of the Jesuites who say that the Pope is above a General Council and the Spirit of the Sorbon utterly denying it be the same Spirit Whether the Spirit of Thomas Aquinas affirming that the same Honour is to be given to the Image that is due to the Person represented by it or the Spirit of the Bishop of Meaux denying it be the same Spirit And not to be tedious Whether the Spirit of Innocent III. and his Lateran Council and of I know not how many more Popes and of Cardinal Perron and many more Cardinals affirming that Heretical Kings may and ought to be Deposed and the Spirit of our English Representer and those for whom he undertakes who all deny it be the same Spirit If not then both cannot be of God. Sect. 22 Quer. Was not John Calvin a most impudent Creature in assuming to himself the Office of Reforming the World being but a Young Man of Twenty five or Twenty six years of Age and without all pretence of Miracles a thing which Christ himself undertook not under Thirty years of Age Answ I think indeed Geneva may pass for the World by the same Figure that the Church of Rome goes for the Catholick Church When the World groans for a Reformation I do not see where lies the Impudence of trying by good Doctrine and Example to Reform that Part of it where one lives unless it lies in being Impudently and Bravely Good which is sometimes necessary to give a check to Impudence in that which is Bad. If he be a Young Man that takes this upon himself he is the more to be commended And if he can fairly carry the Reformation beyond his own Countrey this is still more commendable and if he could Reform the whole World then I say for that which you call Impudence Generations to come ought to rise up to his Name and call it Blessed You ought not I tell you to despise John Calvin's Youth as one of your Great Ones did Luther's Meanness who hearing the Auspurg Confession read said to his Confident That these things indeed were True but it was not to be endured that a pitiful Monk should Reform the World. But if nothing else will satisfie you but it must be Impudence in a Young Man to think of Reforming the place where he lives yet at least do not represent him as a most impudent Creature for as I take it there are a long row of Popes from Formosus downwards who if your own Historians are to be credited shall compare with John Calvin in this point not of Reforming the World but the other and shall get the better of him by much And amongst these there is one John XI Son to Sergius III. one of his Predecessors who was something less modest than John Calvin in as much as being yet but a Boy he took upon himself to be Head of the Catholick Church which our John I dare say would never have accepted any time of his life Indeed the young Pope was thus far to be excused that he was put into the Chair by Merocia who though she was not Sergius's Wife was yet John's Mother For Donna Olympia was not the first of her Quality that swayed all at Rome Sect. 23 Quer. Whether from the Womb of the Reformation have not issued all those Slaughters Rapines Tumults Plundering of Churches Schisms and Civil Wars which broke out in the year 1641. Answ No truly for since the Reformation the Church of England hath lent neither Principles nor Examples nor Counsels nor Arms nor Men nor Money to carry on Rebellions or Rapines The World saw that she stuck by her Royal Master to to the last And if you say that it was her Interest to do so then I hope you will grant that she has at other times given Proof of a higher Principle Nor can you without rubbing your Forehead question the strictness of her Loyalty who begin some of you to laugh at her for it I hope you will not say that the Irish Rebellion which broke the ice for all those Slaughters Rapines c. which you mention to come after it that that issued too from the womb of the Reformation I think this Query had better rest least when the Mother of that Off-spring is agreed upon we should be tempted to inquire who was the Father of it Sect. 24 Quer. Whether Africa produces more variety of Monsters than Britain does Fanaticks where every Man may read and interpret the Scriptures according to his own Judgment of Discretion Answ I know pretty well what Fanaticks Britain has produced but what variety of Monsters Africa produces I cannot well say the surest way to be satisfied is to go thither your self for Authors are not agreed But if by Fanaticks you mean False pretenders to Inspiration you may take your comparison nearer home where 't is as much as a Mans or Womans life is worth to have the Scriptures to read In short Britain has Fanaticks but the British Church does what she can to reclaim them which she thinks ought nor to be tried by setting up an Inquisition for some of 'em and cannot be done by making Saints of others of ' em You understand I suppose and therefore go on Sect. 25 Quer. Whether Queen Elizabeth born of Ann Bolen Queen Catharine yet living can be thought Legitimate Answ Without all Question she can be thought Legitimate for I find that I think so and I know many who say so that do not use to say one thing and think another Sect. 26 Quer. How admirable was the Wisdom of Henry the Eighth by expelling one Pope of Rome to raise up infinite Popes of his own Subjects Answ Not very admirable I confess if it were so for we had even too much of One Pope of Rome before as the Complaints and the Laws of our Ancestors can well witness But how did he raise up infinite Popes of his own Subjects Were there so many Heads of the Catholick Church raised by him in his own Dominions Or did every
Body think himself Infallible when once they depended upon his Holiness no longer When you design a witty Query take care whilst you live that there be some Sence and a little Truth at the bottom and in one Word that it be not like this which is a meer Bubble and turns to nothing Sect. 27 Quer. By whose Authority did he Divorce his Virtuous Wife Queen Catharine His own or a Foreign If by his own why may not other Kings also put away their Wives at their pleasure If Mary his Daughter by Queen Catharine was Legimate Heiress of the Kingdom then Elizabeth was not because it was not lawful for King Henry to have two Wives at once Answ I doubt not but Queen Catharine was a Vertuous Wife but under favour since you will needs be medling with these Matters you should have put your Question either with more honesty or with more skill and instead of asking By whose Authority he divorced his Virtuous Wife you should have asked by what Authority he divorced his Brothers Wife For there lay the point and here I must tell you that after that Question whether the Pope had Power to dispense with that Marriage had been debated and determined in the Negative by the most famous Universities of Europe for you an unskilful Querist to ask by what Authority the King did as he did shews that you have spent your time to little purpose and are to be admonished to bestow it better for the future As for your other difficulty how Mary and Elizabeth could be both Legitimate I Answer that the Legitimacy of Elizabeth is plain supposing the Marriage of Queen Catharine to King Henry to be void but yet Mary the Child of that Marriage was not Illegitimate because the Marriage was made without Fraud But if one or other of them must necessarily be Illegitimate pray look you to the consequence who I suppose apprehend some great Matter to depend upon this Dispute For my own part these kind of Queries seem to be very impertinent for if Queen Mary was Illegitimate our Religion is not one jot the truer for it and if she was Legitimate neither is it the worse But there is a time to answer Questions that are none of the wisest Sect. 28 Quer. If that Religion be Sacred that is established by Law why did Queen Elizabeth destroy the Catholick Religion Established by so many Acts of Parliament Answ It seems then that what you call the Catholick Religion may be destroyed And yet these Queries are publish'd with Allowance Your Superiors surely can instruct you that to destroy the Legal Establishment of a Religion is one thing and to destroy the Religion is another But they saw that if you had expressed the former the Query had looked so ridiculously that it had been a shame to let it go For all the Sacredness that Human Law can give to a Religion is a legal Sacredness and no more or if you please a legal Establishment And so this is the English of your Quaere If that Religion has a legal Establishment that 's established by Law why did the Queen destroy the legal Establishment of the Catholick Religion which was of estalibshed by so many Laws In my opinion it had been much better to Query thus like a plain man If the Catholick Religion was established by so many Laws why did Queen Elizabeth unestablish it by Law again And now having brought your Query to this Form I Answer that yours is not the Catholick Religion and it was pity that it should have that Sacredness which the Law gave it because it had no Sacredness of its own to deserve it and therefore it was a very good Law that took away the other Sacredness from it If you think this Answer not to be full enough you may pick out somerhing more in Answ to Sect. 20. whither I refer you Sect. 29 Quer. Queen Elizabeth expelled fourteen Catholick Bishops from their Sees for refusing the Oath of Supremacy But how could they swear her to be Head or Supreme Governor of the Church when they could not swear she was Head of this Kingdom Answ I think truly Fourteen Bishops were deprived in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and that for not taking the Oath of Supremacy But take this along with you too that most of these Bishops if not All had taken the very same Oath before and some of 'em assisted at the framing of it So that one would think that their refusing to take the same Oath under Elizabeth was as much as to deny her to be Head of the Kingdom as you say which all modest Men must grant to have been a sufficient cause for their Deprivation But yet as tender as Princes are of their Titles it is to be remembred to her immortal Credit that she did not serve them as her Predecessor did Cranmer Latimer Ridley and Hooper but used them in all other respects with great gentleness What their true reasons were for refusing the Oath of Supremacy I shall not go about to Divine But as for you who will needs have it to be this in part at least that they could not swear she was Head of the Kingdom Thus far you are to be commended that you have chosen a more modest expression of your Malice than that impudent Writer did who told us the other day that she was a known Bastard But in the Calumny I perceive you are both agreed And heark ye Gentlemen I do in behalf of the dead Queen and of that Age which universally acknowledge her Title defie you both to make good your teproach and fix the Title of Calumniators upon you both if you neither can justifie it nor will publickly retract it Sect. 30 Quer. Did not Cranmer and his Reforming Associates steal their Liturgy out of the Roman Missal Ritual and Breviary Answ Or rather did not you steal this Query from the Dissenters Sure I am that hitherto it has been theirs saving only the rudeness of the expression which you have added to it Go to them and they can furnish you with an abundant Answer to this terrible Objection But if something must be said here our Liturgy if it must be stolen looks as if it were stolen not out of your Roman but the Old Gallican Missal which once was ours and therefore it was not stolen but now every Body has his own again But if we had taken your Roman Missal Ritual and Breviary only and compiled our Liturgy out of them yet we took nothing of your peculiar Goods from them but only what every part of the Catholick Church has as much right to as your selves and as for that which is peculiarly and properly your own there we have left it entirely to you and much good may it do you Sect. 31 Quer. Are not Protestants bound by their Dath de Supremacy to obey the King as Supreme Governor as well in all spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal