A letter from Gilbert Bvrnet, D.D. to Mr. Simon Lowth, vicar of Cosmus-Blene in the diocess of Canterbury, occasioned, by his late book of the subject of church-power Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 1685 Approx. 11 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2004-03 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A30372 Wing B5818 ESTC R7433 11631141 ocm 11631141 47935 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A30372) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 47935) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 484:33) A letter from Gilbert Bvrnet, D.D. to Mr. Simon Lowth, vicar of Cosmus-Blene in the diocess of Canterbury, occasioned, by his late book of the subject of church-power Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 8 p. ; 20 cm. Printed for Richard Baldwin, [London : 1685] Caption title. Reproduction of original in Huntington Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Lowth, Simon, 1630?-1720. -- Of the subject of church-power. 2003-10 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2003-11 SPi Global Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2003-12 Jonathan Blaney Sampled and proofread 2003-12 Jonathan Blaney Text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-02 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion A LETTER FROM GILBERT BVRNET , D. D. TO Mr. SIMON LOWTH , Vicar of Cosmus-Blene in the Diocess of Canterbury . Occasioned , by his late Book of the subject of Church-Power . Reverend Sir , I Know no other Address to you , but this of the Press , which I hope will find you out : you have forced me to deal so publickly with you , by your beginning with me ; and , which is yet worse , by your refusing to give your own Eyes that Satisfaction which I desired a neighbouring Clergyman of yours to offer you . When I saw your Letters to the two Deans , in which you accused the Dean of St. Paul's for his copying out unfaithfully the Papers of Cranmer and the other Deans , which he had published , and added , that I had also printed them imperfect , and so had abused the House of Commons unto an approbation of my History of the Reformation , ( where by the way , I cannot imagine why you left out the House of Lords , whose Approbation is printed with the other . ) I confess , I wondred upon what you could found so heavy a Charge : I printed no Record in that Collection without comparing the Copies exactly with the Original , for I thought that too important a thing to trust it to any Person whatsoever : Therefore finding my self accused of a designed Fraud , which , if true , must needs shake the credit of my whole Book ; I did what I could to prevent your bringing that Shame upon your self , which I do now unwillingly lay on you , not so much for the support of my own Credit , as for maintaining the Reputation of that Work. I therefore desired your Neighbour to tell you , that I was sure I had printed all those Papers faithfully and exactly , without departing from the Originals in any thing but the spelling : I added , that if you thought fit to fall on any Discourse or Inference of mine , you might do as you pleased , but if you accused me of Unfaithfulness , in publishing any of the Papers that are in my Collection imperfect , I should be forced to justify my self , tho to your cost : for in such Accusations a Man ought not to be over patient . I bid him also tell you , that as I had printed those Papers exactly , so if you had a mind to see the Originals themselves , I should procure them for you : this was done many Months ago . He brought me an Answer from you , that I could make nothing of ; but now I see it in Print , and so I will examine it . You say that if you may believe the Dean of Windsor , Dr. Durel , there is among these Papers in Dr. Stillingfleet's MS. one of Dr. Leighton's , in which there are two Assertions contrary to Cranmer's Opinion concerning Church-power , and that Cranmer signed Dr. Leighton's Paper ; from which he infers that Cranmer changed his Mind , and subscribed to Leighton's Opinion ; and of all this , you say I have given no account to the World , but have omitted it in two Impressions . I would willingly believe the best of every Man , and make the best of all things that I can , and therefore I should have imputed this to an extream carelesness in you ; but since you have charged me so severely for Unfaithfulness , and abusing the House of Commons in it , and since you refused to accept of the Satisfaction which I had offered you , I must crave leave to tell you ( for it is a hard thing , and needs a Preface to soften it ) that you have accused me both uncharitably as to the manner of it , and unjustly as to the matter : Since these very things that you say I have left out , are in my Collection , taken verbatim from the Original , which will appear by my setting down that which you cite from the Dean of Windsor , and that which is in my Collection , over against one another . There is indeed a variation in the Words , tho none in the Sense : mine is exactly according to the Original : and the Variations of the Dean of Windsor from it , tho they make no change in the Sense , yet are too many to be the Mistakes of a Transcriber : therefore I am apt to think that as Dr. Durel writ them out , he put them either in Latin or French , intending perhaps to make use of them in one of these Tongues , and that afterwards he translated them into his own English when the Manuscript might be perhaps no more in his power to copy them from the Original . The Reasonableness of this Conjecture will appear from a view of the Words themselves , as he and I have published them ; for I have published all Leighton's Paper together with Cranmer's Subscription at the end of it . The Words that you cite from the Dean of Windsor , pag. 485. of your Book , l. 24. are these . The Words I have , Hist. Reform . vol. 1. Coll. Rec. Book 3. pag. 227. l. 36. are these . I suppose a Bishop according to Scripture , to have Power from God as his Minister of creating a Presbyter ; tho he ought not to promote any to the Office of a Presbyter , or admit to any other Ecclesiastical Ministry in a Common-wealth , unless the leave of the Prince be first had . But that any other have Power according to Scripture I have neither read nor learned by Example . 2. I suppose Consecration to be necessary as by imposition of hands , for so we are taught by the Examples of the Apostles . I suppose that a Bishop hath Authority of God as his Minister by Scripture to make a Priest , but he oug●t not to admit any Man to be Priest , and consecrate him , or to appoint him to any Ministry in the Church without the Princes Licence and Consent in a Christian Region . And that any other Man hath Authority to make a Priest by Scripture , I have not read , nor any Example thereof . And Pag. 230. l. 22. I suppose that there is a Consecration required as by imposition of Hands , for so we be taught by the Ensample of the Apostles . And Pag. 243. l. 3. from the bottom , where Dr. Leighton's Subscription is set down , there is set by it T. Cantuarien . Thus , Sir , you see you may believe the Dean of Windsor , and believe this further , that you have slander'd me falsly : if there is any harshness in these Expressions , the things themselves draw them from me , and your unaccountable Behaviour in this matter has brought them on you . I wish that instead of reading any other Books , you would read the Gospels and Epistles more carefully ; and before you venture to treat of such tender points as Church-power , that you will learn to practise the Rules of Justice and Christian Charity ( not to speak of Prudence and common Discretion ) ; and then the Advices of your Friends will prevail more with you than your own Heats : for tho you flatter your self so far as to fancy ( as you began your Preface ) that there was a huged in and noise , Pannick almost and universal , raised in London and else-where , for two full Years and upwards , occasioned by your Treatise ; I assure you I never heard of any ; tho none , after the two worthy Deans , were more concerned in it than I was ; all that look'd into it ( for I spoke with none that had quite read it ) said it could hurt no body but the Bookseller or your self : tho I have not heard that the Chancery ever gave Equity against an Author for an unsaleable Book . Many wished for the Churches sake , and for your own sake , that she might not suffer by so ill an Advocate , and that you would not discharge your Spleen on two such eminent Men , whose Works ( as well as their Persons ) will be had in Honour , long after both you and your Book will be forgotten . You are indeed proud of the Honour of assaulting two such Men , and tell the World that their Eminence was no small Motive to you to undertake this Work , and give this modest account of your self ( Preface , pag. 7. l. 22. ) Doth the King of Israel go out as against a Flea ? I confess this is a lofty Figure , and the Application of it to your self is somewhat extraordinary . But there was a Roman Emperor that used to be shut up catching Flies , and I am afraid some will think that since you will borrow a Figure from a Crowned Head , this had become you better ; but you have secured your self by writing in a Stile so unintelligible , that as I hear few read your Book , so I am confident no body can understand it , and so to be sure they will not answer it . Yet since you tell the World that here is a Course of Studies upon full Thoughts and a thorough Consideration : you had best do as another Roman Emperor did , write of your self , and illustrate your Book with Annotations , and I suppose the Bookseller will take care that it shall only be to your self . You tell us that your Book is born with a Beard , as the Iews say Esau was : it is indeed hairy all over , and so rough is the shag , that it will not submit to the Discipline of a Comb. I shall only offer to your Consideration , one Passage which I hope you will not forget in your Annotations : it comes just after that humble comparing of your self to the King of Israel , and I suppose your Spirits were a little exalted upon so glorious a figure , and so you have risen above my pitch . The words are remarkable : Nor do those of meaner Order and Qualily undertake that Authority which is in it self none , falls of it self to the ground , nor was ever influential upon any ? This is but one of many , and is the shortest I could pick out . I suppose you had a meaning when you writ it , tho perhaps in the two full Years and upwards in which it stuck so that it is over grown with Hair , you may have lost it . I shall conclude with two short Advices ; the first is ▪ That if you intend to write any more , you will learn first to write true English , and then to write good Sense : but I believe this will prove so very hard a Task , that the best and easiest Advice can b● given you , is , that you will write none at all , but se● about matters of a more close and comfortable Importance in which I wish you better success than you are like t● have by your Book , and am , notwithstanding th● freedom with you , Reverend Sir , Your most humble Servant . G. BURNET . London , December the 20 th , 1684. London : Printed for Richard Baldwin in the Old-Baily-Corner on Ludgate-Hill , 1685.