Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	england_n	write_v	3,090	5	5.8086	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30378	A letter writ by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury, to the Lord Bishop of Cov. and Litchfield, concerning a book lately published, called, A specimen of some errors and defects in the History of the reformation of the Church of England, by Anthony Harmer	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1693 (1693)	Wing B5824; ESTC R7836	16,103	32

A LETTER WRIT BY The Lord Bishop of Salisbury TO THE Lord Bishop of Cov. and Litchfield CONCERNING A Book lately Published called A Specimen of some Errors and Defects in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England by Anthony Harmer LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard M DC XC III. A LETTER Writ by the L d. BISHOP of SALISBURY To the L d. Bishop of Cov. and Litchfield Concerning A Book lately Published called A Specimen of some Errors and Defects c. MY LORD A Book lately published under the Title of a Specimen of the Errors and Defects in my History of the Reformation calls upon me to say somewhat in Justification of that Work Which I intend to do in the same Method in which I composed that History and address it first of all to you and then to the Publick after it has past under your Censure in which I know you will use the same friendly and plain Freedom that you did in perusing the other and let nothing pass to which you find any just or even plausible exception And indeed if there are such Errors in that Work as this Specimen pretends to discover and puts the world in expectation of more this being offered but as a sampler that does not amount to above a Third part of what may come afterwards your Lordship must submit to bear some part of the blame You know well that you were the Person that prest me most to undertake that work and to encourage me to it you promised me two very valuable things the one was The Copying-out of all your Collections relating to that time The Value of this can only be judged by those who have seen with what an amazing Diligence and to how vast an Extent and in how exact a Method all those many Volumes I had almost said that Library of Collections is digested No part of this pleased me more than that Criticalness which is so peculiar to your self in marking all Dates so punctually this being one of the most necessary but withal one of the most unacceptable to me at least of all the Labours of a Historian All this as far as concerned my Design I had the free use of and I found my Work much shortned by it Your other Promise was no less exactly performed by you of revising my first Draughts with that Censorious Severity that became your Zeal for Truth and for that Great Work and also that most obliging Friendship with which you had honoured my self And you did acquit your self in all Points as became an Honest Man and a Faithful Friend You spared me in nothing you made both Rasures Additions and Alterations with so much Reason and so true a Judgment that I all along felt what I can never enough acknowledge how happy I my self was and how great Advantages that work received from the share that you were pleased to take in it So that I hope you will suffer me to say that you ought to take some share likewise in the Fault that is found with the History and the Reproaches that are cast both on it and on my self Your Friends have hitherto often blamed you for being so minutely Critical in all you do which as they do rightly judge has deprived the world of a great deal that might have been otherwise expected from you and no man has taken the liberty to complain more of this than my self who have seen the almost incredible Compass and Fulness of your Collections which indeed seems to be beyond what the longest life of any one man could lay together and has made me often say That if you could be but at half the pains to bring out your Learning that you have been at to lay it up never man should merit so much of the Learned World as you might do This I confess made me the more secure in Publishing my Work when it was so strictly sifted by you for I do still preserve the Copy that was so carefully perused by you The greatest part of it was examined by you when you were in the Countrey out of the Town and out of that vast Application in which you laid your self so intirely out upon the greatest Parochial Cure of England that it took up the whole Day constantly and tho you gave the best part of the Night to your Study yet I could not have expected that a Work in which every thing was to have been weighed could have had such a share in those hours as it required But you reserved it for your Retreats into the Countrey and there you answered and even exceeded my Expectation You saw there was need of more than ordinary care since we could not but expect that every thing of a work of this nature would be enquired into I confess we expected it from other hands We thought they of that Church which was most concerned to blemish the Honour of the Reformation would have taken some pains to have discredited its History especially when they saw it had the Reception which this Author confesses the World gave it he is pleased to add justly but it seems this was meant only to gild the Pill for he has been at a great deal of pains to lessen the Credit of it with what Success let the world judge I do not believe that he did this to ingratiate himself with them whom he chiefly gratifies in this But I do acknowledge I looked for nothing of this strain from one of our own Communion It was no small addition to the Credit of the Work that in the late Reign in which the Book and the Author both were in such Publick Disgrace yet nothing was then Published to lessen its Esteem and that it was appealed to by our best Writers as often as Matters of Fact were under Debate But Quod non fecerunt Barbari fecerunt Barberini I may be pardoned to quote from Pasquin since he that deals thus with me vouches Athenae Oxoniensis I do not trouble my self to find out the Author I am assured that the Name in the Title page of Anthony Harmer is a feigned one nor as I hear does the Stationer for whom it is printed know any thing concerning him But this is a matter of no Consequence I am only concerned to consider what is said and not who says it And what Reason soever I may have to lay my conjectures on the true Author yet that is not to enter into the present discourse only I must crave leave to say That a Man who pretends to have many Papers in his Hands and to affirm a great many things upon his Single Word without saying upon what authority he grounds most of his Corrections ought to have named himself True and to have told how he came by his Informations that if we must take his word for every thing that he says without searching into the truth of it yet at least we might have been

my Pattern And that I might copy after it with some Resemblance and Success I read it over five or six times before I set about that Work If a Man is to write Memoirs he must keep close to his Vouchers but when he writes a History on a Subject of much Consequence and that was transacted long before his own Time and that it is visible that many of the most valuable Papers relating to it are lost but that enough remains to give him a right view of the whole and a Thread to guide him in it he may certainly find many Hints of Things which since he cannot lay before his Reader as Historical Facts he may and ought to suggest them as Probabilities And he who forms a true Character of a Man from some of his secretest Papers can frame Judgments and see Likelyhoods that could never come in the way of one who only reads his Work but does not dwell so long upon it nor turn it so much in his Thoughts as he himself has done And yet the offering of these may be necessary since they may be of use to let his Reader see further than he would do without them For instance he is angry for my taking notice of Bonner's writing to his Friends for Puddings and Pears I must desire you to observe his Ingenuity in this since my Reflection did not fall upon these words of Bonner but on his adding that if his Friends did not furnish him with them he would give them to the Devil to the Devil and to all the Devils Now this from a Bishop in Affliction writing to his private Friends shewed a strange kind of Brutish levity and the observing of that was not below the Majesty of History since Bonner acted so great a Part during the whole time that I write upon so that such a Stroke as this in my poor Opinion ought not to have been suppressed I come now to the fourth and last Head of the Specimen which relates to those additional Discoveries that he has made He calls them the Defects of my History how justly I leave to you who are a true Critick in the use of Words According to my sense a Defect is a vitious want of that with which one might have supplied himself if he had not been too careless I cannot see what I could have done more than I did to be well Informed I put Advertisements in Gazettes desiring the assistance of all that could furnish me with Materials I let two Years and a half pass between the publishing my first and second Volume I did in the first desire the assistance of all the Learned and Curious Men of the Nation I went through all the Offices and Records that were about London or Westminster I went to Cambridge when I understood that Arch-Bishop Parker's Manuscripts were there I was upon going to Oxford had not Bishop Fell let me know that he was informed they had nothing worth my Journey that was not already printed I met with great Assistances from many Learned Men all which I gratefully and publickly acknowledged and made the best use of them that I could I do not see what more I could do Your Lordship and several others of my worthy Friends set all Persons that you thought capable of assisting me on work for Materials That Great and good Man who was then Lord Chancellour the late Earl of Nottingham did on many Occasions recommend the procuring Materials for me in the most effectual manner Their Majesties most deserving Attorney General that now is was pleased without my presuming to give him the trouble to visit and examine some Offices for me in the Countrey If our Author has been an Inquisitive Man of so long a standing he pretends to be longer for he tells us of what he observed 20 Years ago he could not but hear of all this so there was occasion offered and Time given for him to have contributed out of his store If I had refused any help that had been offered me or had not look'd out and got together all that could be had If I had either called for no Assistance presuming on my own Industry or if I had made so much haste that I had prevented even the diligence of Learned Men here had been great occasion for Censare But he has got a Council-Book of the last four Years of King Edward the sixth's Reign and this must be brought out with great Pomp to reproach the Defects of my Work I had the Book of the first two Years of that Reign But though it was freely given me I thought it did of right belong to the Crown and delivered it in to be kept among the Council-Books if this Author does the same with his then his Quotations out of it may be examined They make indeed the Valuablest part of his Book But neither these nor any thing else he says can be of any value till he gives himself his true Name that 〈◊〉 one may know how to look into or examine those things that he pretends to have in his Hands I have now gone as far as I can in so general a way when your Lordship or any other Person whose Judgment is of weight with me advises me to descend into further Specialties I shall not decline it Yet if I had any Inclination to it I think still it is best to make one Work for all and to stay till he brings forth that which he has in Reserve for I will still hold him to it he must either give the World a great deal more or he must expect to be thought to have insinuated that which he cannot perform Only when he writes next I wish he may do it with a better Spirit and in a decenter Stile He who knows so much cannot judg so ill as not to see that the attacking a Man's Reputation but especially a Bishop's in so great a Point as is that of his Truth and Fidelity upon which the Success of all his Labours and the Credit of his whole Life and Ministry does depend is not a slight thing and is not to be attempted unless one is very well assured that what he objects is not only just in it self but that it is incumbent on him to do it The Fame of a Man is a most valuable thing and the Rules of Charity and against Detraction and Slander are delivered in such weighty Strains in the New Testament that it is no small matter to make so bold with them The Years I have spent in the Service of the Church the Labours I have undergone and the Station I am in deserve at least a modest and decent treatment and my Diligence in that History the Designs I pursue through it all and that Sincerity and Candor that even Enemies do acknowledg appears in its Contexture the great Additions I had made to what was formerly known and the general Acceptance with which it has been entertained both at Home and Abroad ought to have made a Man to have thought well of what he did before he had attack'd it at all but if he was so full of his Matter that he was not to be restrained at least he ought to have writ it in another manner with another Air and in a Strain of Civility I had almost said Respect sutable to the Subject and such as my way of Writing had deserved If this Author is so made that nothing of all this touches him I am sorry for it I will not treat him more roughly but must despair of working on him so as to do him good I should think it a very particular Happiness to be able to turn such a Man to a better Mind from that Sourness which prevails over him at present He seems capable of better and greater things but till his Capacity and his Industry are sanctified to him at another rate than this Specimen shews he is a much worse Man for them and will have a much greater Account to make at the last Day I ask your Pardon for having given you so long a Trouble I am with all possible Esteem and Respect My LORD Your Lordship 's most Affectionate Brother and most humble Servant Gi. Sarum Windsor Feb. 23. 1692 3. FINIS Books Sold by Richard Chiswell BOOKS written by GILBERT BURNET D. D. now Lord Bishop of Sarum THE History of the Reformation of the Church of England in 2 Volumes Folio Abridgment of the said History Octavo Vindication of the Ordinations of Church of England Quarto History of the Rights of Princes in disposing of Ecclesiastical Benefices and Church-Lands Octavo Life of William Bedel D. D. Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland togewith the Copies of certain Letters which passed between Spain and England in matter of Religion concerning the general Motives to the Roman Obedience Between Mr. James Wadsworth a late Pensioner of the Holy Inquisition in Sevil and the said William Bedel then Minister of the Gospel in Suffolk Octavo Some Passages of the Life and Death of John late Earl of Rochester Octavo Examination of the Letter writ by the late Assembly-General of of the Clergy of France to the Protestants inviting them to return to their Communion together with the Methods proposed by them for their Conviction Octavo A Collection of seventeen Tracts and Discourses written in the Years 1687 to 1685 inclusive Quarto A Second Volume or a Collection of eighteen Papers relating to the Affairs of Church and State during the Reign of King James the Second With twelve others published a little before and since the late Revolution to Christmas 1689. Fast Sermon at Bow-Church March 12 1689. Luke 19. 41 42. Fast Sermon before the Queen July 16 1690. On Psal. 85. 8. Thanksgiving-Sermon before the King and Queen Octob. 19. 1690. On Psal. 144. 10. 11. Fast-Sermon before the King and Queen April 19 1691. On Psal. 82. 1. Thanksgiving-Sermon before the King and Queen Nov. 26. 1691. On Prov. 20. 28. Sermon at the Funeral of Robert Boyle Esq Jan. 7. 1691. On Eccles. 11. 26. A Discourse of the Pastoral Care Octavo 1692. Pag 161. Pa● 26. P. 9. 10 1● 2● Pag. 3. P. 28 121 153. P. 127. Pag. 51. P. 140. 141. Pag. 87.