Licensed April 1. 1687. AN ANSWER TO Mr. Lowth's LETTER TO Dr. Stillingfleet In another Letter to a FRIEND LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers Hall. MDCLXXXVII An Answer c. SIR BEcause you had so often desired it I have at last forced my self to turn over Mr. Lowth's Letter to Dr. Stillingsleet I found it a very tedious and uneasie Task You had been almost as kind if you had chang'd your Pennance and ordered me to walk to Highgate with Pease in my Shooes The Way you sent me proved so rugged and uneven that every step I took I fancyed I was treading upon Cinders and Pibble-stones But I am resolved to be revenged I 'le send you another Letter that shall be as troublesome to you as that was to me But I 'le promise you for your Comfort it shall be scarce half so long and not above a quarter so Ill-natured I cannot imagine what should move Mr. Lowth to fall upon the Dean in such a manner If it were pure Zeal 't is great pity it had not been tempered with more discresion if there were any thing of particular Pique in the Case it was not managed with Artifice enough The World will never swallow the Potion when the Venom swims on the top of the Cup. The first known occasion of Mr. Lowth's ingaging of Dr. Stillingsleet was the Pretence of the Irenicum A Book set out by the Dean in his younger Years in which were many passages which his riper Judgment could not approve And this he had signified to the World in other Writings which came abroad before the Publication of Mr. Lowth's Papers But here you must note the grand Objection against the Irenicum had been formerly made by T. G. and his Companions they had found as they pretended that the Design of it was only to Ruine and destroy the Church of England And that was a thing which they Good men were not able to indure and therefore out of pure kindness no doubt they discover the Plot and warn us of the danger we had cause to apprehend from this young brisk Presbyterian that had disguised himself in Irenicum Armour The Truth of it is they had reason enough to be very desirous to be delivered from a troublesome Adversary They saw by experience they were not able to oppose his force and to secure themselves they found it necessary if possible to give him a Diversion And this seasonable assistance Mr. Lowth very wisely affords them by fomenting the Jealousies they had cunningly raised In his Treatise concerning the Subject of Church-Power besides some insinuations in the Book it self to the same purpose there is a Letter to Dr. Stillingfleet c. Printed after that to the Reader wherein he is imperiously Summoned and little less than Commanded to satisfy the Church of God by a recantation as publick as his Error Scandal and Offence And then he is gravely admonished to consider that he has not erred in the Leviora Evangelii and that the Point is whether God has a Church on Earth with its peculiar appropriated Power or not This bold and importunate demand of Satisfaction seconded with so heavy a Charge urged upon him with so much fierceness after he had given sufficient Evidence of the contrary and done the Church very considerable Service upon several occasions could not choose but incline the Dean to reject the Calumny with some degree of just resentment Which he did in a short Epistle to my Lord Bishop of London where you may see that he was not wholly insensible of the abuse but yet notwithstanding the great Provocation he had received he could not be tempted to any rude and undecent expressions Though Mr. Lowth has snatched up some of them in haste and by the help of a rare Art of Composure which he has gotten has mixed and altered and jumbled them together I know not how till he has made a shift at last to make them look almost as oddly as some of his own This you will find he has done about the beginning of this Letter which he tells us is In answer to the Deans Epistle Dedicatory For it was the gentle rebuke which had been given him in that Two-penny Letter as he elegantly calls it that put him out of all Patience and set his Blood into such a violent fermentation that I cannot observe any great abatement of the Paroxysme for eighty four Pages together It seems to be little else but a continued sit of Passion and the Dean is all along treated with that gross disrespect that it must needs be a very pleasing entertainment to the Gentlemen of the Romish Perswasion to see him who had frequently baffled the subtillest Advocates they could find not confuted but abused and affronted by an angry Man of our own Church This is certain they were the only Men I ever heard of that applauded the Letter when it came abroad His other Friends who were not much displeased with his first Book were quite ashamed when they saw This they had not a word that they could offer in defence of it The most partial Readers were not able to frame any Apology for so much rudeness That you may not think I load it with prejudice without a Cause I will make it evident in some Reflections upon a few passages of the Letter and then consider the business of the Irenicum which gave the occasion to the whole Debate If you look into the Dean's Epistle you may observe that he has expressed a due sense of the injury done him but never let fall a word any ways unbecoming a Person of Civil and Ingenuous Education But Mr. Lowth as I intimated before has raked together some scattered expressions and by a strange Liberty of adding altering and misapplying as he thought best for his purpose would make the World believe that the Dean had represented him in a woful scandalous manner After some general flourishes of Clamorous Objections riotous Pag. 12. Noises choice Epithets and the like he goes on thus If you can reap any satisfaction from loading me with the general Titles of a Plagiary ridiculous fool malicious unskillful maker of Controversies a barbarous and rude Disputer with his Brethren an accuser of his Brethren an implacable Man uncharitable unjust Slanderer proud void of Prudence and common discretion the usual Complements you are pleased to bestow upon me you may be happy in the injoyment of your humour though it hath not an Irenical Complection But I that design nothing but the pursuit of Truth and Honesty c. And a very good Design really it is and I hope he will be careful to keep it always in his eye But I must look a little and inquire into the Titles of Honour he says he is loaded with Plagiary I cannot find this Title in all the Dean's Epistle nor any thing from whence it may be gathered without mightily straining of his words It has been always accounted an ill
Article or any other but only to the Last which must be understood to have been done in confirmation of all the rest as well as that and there both their Names are still to be seen in Dr. Burnet's Printed Collection How many voluntary mistakes does he run into that he may accuse his Adversaries of Vnfaithfulness when by that very attempt he makes himself guilty of it in in a very high degree But yet he will plead they have heen Vnfaithful too because they have not acquainted the World with Cranmer's Retractation of his former Opinion To this it may be replyed that if Cranmer's Subscription to Leighton's Paper did imply such a Retractation then they have acquainted the World with it by the publication of that Subscription if it did not then it was well done not to impose upon the World as he would have them by false Glosses and forced Interpretations But did not Cranmer retract his first Opinion then without doubt he did Why then was this wholly omitted whatever Mr. Lowth may pretend it was not Dr. Burnet had given an express account of it in the proper place as he knows and used a more convincing argument to prove it than that Subscription in the very Page wherein he refers to the Record we are contending about His words are these In Cranmer's Paper some singular opinions of his about Hist Râ—f Book 1st the Nature of Ecclesiastical Offices will be found but as they are delivered by him with all possible modesty So they were not established as the Doctrine of the Church but laid aside as particular conceits of his own and it seems that afterward he CHANGED his opinion For he Subscribed the Bock that was soon after set out which is directly contrary to those Opinions set down in these Papers This passage Mr. Lowth could not be ignorant of but he cunningly slides over it because he saw it was not for his purpose And this I think may be enough to shew that Cranmer's Subscription to Leighton's Paper was not omitted nor his Retractation otherwise concealed But indeed it was not any thing of this nature that was the real ground of the quarrel it is the bare Publishing of the Manuscript that seems to have made Mr. Lowth so angry he would have had it otherwise disposed of and he insinuates his mind in a Story out of Livy which he thus relates In the ground of Petilius the Scribe were found two Chests the one had a bundle in it containing Seven Books in Latine de Pag. 60. jure Pontificio or relating to Religious matters they were perused by several and at last read to the Senators who immediately condemned them to the Fire and they were accordingly burnt before the People because in many things tending to the dissolution of their Religion This is a way of proceeding would have fitted the Conclave as well as it did the Senate 'T is probable that City has been under the Influence of the same cautious Planet from the very beginning but I did not think before that the way of dealing with Heretical Manuscripts could have been proved by such ancient Tradition Well! but what thinks Mr. Lowth of this Why he admires it much and esteems it a choice Example of an extraordinary Prudence For so he goes on The Wisdom of that Government knew full well the ill consequences of admitting such looser Papers into competition with their received Worship c. But I hope their Case and ours are something different A false Religion may have reason to be jealous of all Opposition and do that by Fire which it cannot by Argument but the true One has no need to be so extreamly apprehensive of danger It knows it self to be built upon so firm a Foundation that it cannot be easily shaken and therefore it is not afraid of what can be objected against it Whatever others may be forced to do the Church of England has no occasion for any unwarrantable Artifice to support it self we are not put to a necessity of forging or suppressing any Writings to maintain our Cause We do deservedly retain a very great Veneration for Arch-Bishop Cranmer but we do not think we can suffer so much by any private Opinion of his that we should be tempted to Destroy his Papers for the sake of that especially when it was subscribed with so much Dubiousness and deliberately Retracted not very long after And when all is done I am verily perswaded that the Generality of the Church of England are better satisfied to see the Manuscript Published as it is than if it had been Burnt as Mr. Lowth advises very gravely like a Roman Senator The next thing wherein he imagines the Dean has not given sufficient satisfaction is The Power of Church-Officers And to make this out he undertakes to examine some of his Books where he might have found many things that way which he thinks fit to take no notice of and for what he has chosen out he very often either mistakes or else wilfully perverts the sense Sometimes 't is pleasant to see how he will be Tutoring Pag. 66. the Dean and shewing him how he should have expressed himself But I must not trouble you with such Observations as these that were Pag. 64. an Argument too Copious The first Treatise he pitches upon is the Appendix to the Irenicum where he acknowledges the Arguments for Church-Power are common but good This is a very kind concession for Him. But then the exception is that this is limited to the Power of Excommunication Why then that was Competently well done so far And that was the Subject to be treated of and to have extended it farther in that place had been little to the purpose And the Dean I believe can hardly be sorry yet that he was not impertinent though that it should seem had been the only way to have pleased Mr. Lowth The next Treatise he falls upou is The Vindication of Arch-Bishop Lawd the same which he thinks might have discomposed him upon the Pag. 65. Scaffold if he could hve been aware of it and it is not strange if all be true which he says In which I sind little amends for these your Irenicum Doctrines but rather an evident confirmation of many of them if not doing worse That must be very bad indeed at least in his esteem but then the wonder is that none of these very ill things should be discovered by the Reverend Prelate that licensed the Book who in his time was taken for as Wise and Learned a Man as Mr. Lowth and had certainly done and suffered as much forthe Church Nay besides this publick approbation of so eminent a Person and other acknowledgments which some of his Graces near and Learned Relations thought sit to make all the Bishops of that time were pleased to give the Dean their particular thanks for the Work An Honour I believe that has not yet been conferred upon the Author of
scarce out of danger of it yet But let us see what we may indeed suppose to have been the real Design of this Irenicum we are contending about And the matter may be brought to a very short Issue There are but two Designs that can be tolerably pretended the one is the Dean's own the other Mr. Lowth has made for him The Dean had solemnly professed at the Writing of it that his Design was to heal the wounds of the Church and he tells us again very lately in the Two-penny Paper that is tacked to one of his Four-penny Sermons that he did adventure to Publish it hoping by that means to bring over those to a compliance with the Church of England then like to be Re-established who stood off upon the supposition that Christ had appointed a Presbyterian Government to be always continued in his Church and therefore they thought Prelacy was to be detested as an unlawful Vsurpation And to the same purpose elsewhere This he which knew best often assures us was his Design and in my mind it was not an ill one This Mr. Lowth out of a wonderful Sagacity in spying out Designs flatly denys and like a Man of mettle tells the Dean roundly that He shall make it appear that the account he gives of his Irenicum is not fair nor true and that he conceals his crime in the very confession of it The whole Design and Plot being in one place meerly in another mostly if not altogether against the Re-establishment of the Church of England 'T was most bravely offered indeed at the beginning But what makes him falter so soon How comes meerly to be turned into mostly and mostly very near into Meerly again with an If not What is the meaning of this staggering so strangely This uncertainty in pressing home the main Charge argues that the Case is not very clear He must be conscious to himself of something more than ordinary when such a Bold mans heart begins to fail him Well! But here you have two very different Designs as can well be imagined and now which of these do you take to be the true one Or which is the same question in effect which do you think the Dean or Mr. Lowth was most certainly acquainted with the real design and occasion of writing the Irenicum The one assirms upon his own certain Knowledge that he intended to serve the Church the other advances a few feeble insignificant Conjectures to prove that whatever he says his meaning must be to overthrow it And I think this Case may be easily decided betwixt them by any indifferent Judge For unless the Dean's Credit and Reputation be quite for feited which Malice it self dares not affirm there is no reason but that we should take his word His positive and repeated Assertion of a thing which no man in the World can know so well as he must needs outweigh Mr. Lowth's groundless and uncharitable suspicion in a matter of which he can never be assured There is no Comparison in the Evidencâ— and if Mr. Lowth were of the Jury he must bring in a Verdict against himself But yet that he may not complain of Partiality I will briefly examine the general Plea that he makes The grand Principle which ran through the whole Discourse he is so angry at is this That Christ had not appointed any unalterable form of Government in his Church This is acknowledged it was an Errour and be it so Yet how does it from hence appear that the Design was either meerly or mostly against the Re-establishment of the Church of England All that he offers in proof of this is his Denying Episcopacy to be by the Laws-of Christ always binding and imutable and that he attributes too much Power to the Civil Magistrate in Ecclesiastical Affairs This will be freely confessed and yet the Design Pag. 25. he speaks of cannot be rightly gathered from it And to convince him that his Argument will not hold we will turn the Tables And let us suppose then for once without offence that Mr. Lowth had been a Zealous Presbyterian then because the Irenicum denyes that Government to be immutable as well as the Episcopal and gives away some of the Power to the Civil Magistrate which is wont to be assumed by their Classical and Synodical Assemblies he might have made the very Pag. 40. same Complaints in favour of the Consistory and turned the Design quite another way and said it had been meerly or mostly if not altogether against the settlement of the Church of Geneva This he might have done with as much reason as what he did For I do not see where the Disparity lyes And you know he that proves too much proves nothing That Argument can never be good that will serve the Plaintif as well as the Defendant and may be urged with equal force on both sides 'T is like a mans slourishing his Weapon with a here I could have you and there I could have you I will not call it ridiculous but for all that it is nothing better than an idle kind of skirmishing with the Air. But it is not only evident that the Design of the Irenicum may be as easily levelled against the Prerbyterian as the Episcopal Church but if the Dean's word who only could certainly know his own design were not sufficient yet if you please to peruse the Book you will find so many things spoken there to the advantage of it that would be enough of themselves to incline any unprejudiced man to believe that the intent of the Author was indeed To bring over Dissenters to a complyance with the Church of England Nay this is so very obvious that Mr. Lowth himself could not avoid being sensible of it For after he had taken a great deal of pains to lay open the Dean's Design as he would have it he concludes that part of his Letter in a wonderful Heat calls all his Rhetorick together and aggravates the matter very Tragically and that untoward Irenicum he tells us It is a Hotch-potch or mixture Pag. 5. of all Religions I may safely say It has perverted many Thousands should I add Millions I did not exceed A very sad thing really Millions But don't you think there may be something of the Hyperbole here He says he did not exceed but I hope he was mistaken But he goes on still It is the very Center of Puritanisme and Epitome of Fanatick madness Mighty Lofty indeed But the unhappiness of it is that as soon as ever he had ended this warm Declamation he overturns it all immediately by an unlucky supposition If it be objected What that you have in some particular passages of this Book declared your self in a different manner than is here represented Why Are there any such Passages in that very Center that Epitome of Fanatick madness What was the Reason then that they were all smothered What Design was there in that Nothing but the pursuit of
Truth and Honesty to be sure For he picks out whatever he thinks is for his purpose and slyly passes over what he pleases And when he has by this means mangled the Discourse he makes most passionate Invectives against the horrible mischievous Design of it and when the guilt of this false and unjust Dealing slyes in his Face he indeavours to palliate all and put it off with a slight Evasion and only saying I answer My business is not to reconcile every contradiction in your Book That were impossible he thinks But though I verily believe indeed his Business was not to Reconcile Contradictions or any thing else yet certainly it was his Business to give a fair and impartial account of the whole matter and not to lay together the worst he could find on one side and conceal every thing that had been said on the Other Now because he has done this by his own Confession I leave it to you to Judge which is the most probable That the Design was for the Church of England as the Dean professes or against it as Mr. Lowth pretends and seems resolved to maintain Right or Wrong But whatever your Opinion be of the Design of the Irenicum or whatever any one may suppose it was Let us now see whether the Dean hath not since given sufficient Satisfaction for any material Errors and Mistakes that might be in it This Mr. Lowth imagines he has not and this I will indeavour to shew the Dean has effectually done To this purpose it will be necessary to inquire what satisfaction will be accepted I answer in Mr. Lowths words it must be A Recantation as publick as the Errour Scandal and Offence This I say had been done a considerable time before ever that Imperious Demand was made For that was in Mr. Lowth's first Letter of May the first 83. and the exceptionable Passages of the Irenicum had been formally retracted in a Book that was Licensed May the sixth 79. It consists of several Conferences and when the Romish Priest had put the Question in one of them What say you to his Irenicum in the first place The Dean under the Person of the Protestant Divine replies thus I will tell you freely I believe there are many things in it which if Dr. Stillingfleet were to write Several Conf. p. 148. 149. now he would not have said For there are some things which shew his Youth and want of due consideration Others which he yielded too far in hopes of gaining the dissenting Parties to the Church of England but upon the whole matter I am fully sacisfied the Book was written with a design to serve the Church of England And the design of it I take to be this that among us there was no necessity of entring upon nice and subtle disputes about a strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy such as makes all other Forms of Government unlawful but it was sufficient for us if it were prov'd to be the most ancient and agreeable to Apostolial practice and most accommodate to our Laws and Civil Government and there could be no pretence against submitting to it but the demonstrating its unlawfulness which he knew was impossible to be done And for what proposals he makes about tempering Episcopacy they were no other than what King Charles 1st and Mr. Thorndike had made before him and doth T. G. think they designed to ruine the Church of England And as long as he declared this to be the design of his Book both at the beginning and conclusion of it suppose he were mistaken in the means he took must such a Man be presently condemned as one that aimed at the Ruine and Destruction of the Church This place is so clear and remarkable that I wonder how it could escape Mr. Lowth's notice I have transcribed it intire as it lyes because it contains a general Recantation of whatever was amiss in the Irenicum For here the Dean frankly acknowledges There are many things in it which if he were to write now he would not have said That there are some things which shew his Youth and want of due consideration Others which he yielded too far This is a free and open Confession and as much I think as could be reasonably expected Then he confirms what I have shewed already that the Design was to serve the Church of England And he indeavours to excuse the Mistakes of it upon that account For what he had mentioned about tempering Episcopacy he defends it by the Authority of King Charles 1st and Mr. Thorndike The words of King Charles he repeats again in the Epistle Dedicatory to My Lord of London they are for the Reducing Episcopacy and Presbytery to such a well-proportioned Form of Superiority and subordination as may best resemble the Apostolical and Primitive times These words Mr. Lowth takes no notice of but seems extream Pag. 55. 56. Angry tells the Dean he had slandered all our Princes and Bishops since the Reformation c. and that his Friends of the Presbytery cannot take it well at his hands that he should attempt to perswade the World they brought that Glorious Martyr to the Block for being a Presbyterian It is hard to imagine what should make a Man talk at such an extravagant rate If the Words be in the Paper as they are then they can be no Slander whatever they be And how can they ever make their Royal Author a Presbyterian when they expresly mention a superiority and subordination which directly overthrows the Presbyterian Party which is the very Life and Soul of that Government But if he please to inquire further into the matter I believe he will find that King Charles and Mr. Thorndike and the Dean too meant no more but that the Bishops retaining all their Antient Rights the Presbyters should be admitted of their Council whose Advice and concurrence might be had in some Cases This is very consistent with the Practice of the first Ages and this I take to be the same that is by Law established in our Church For in the Execution of some parts of the Episcopal Power the Assistance of Presbyters is required and the Canons and Constitutions by which the Bishops Govern are to be passed in both Houses of Convocation as well in the Lower where are none but Presbyters as in the Upper where the Bishops only have Right to sit And let this be as Mr. Lowth thinks from a particular Law of this Kingdom however it is Ours And Pag 74. if he had thought of it he might have made the Church of England Presbyterians upon the same reason that he pretends the Dean had done King Charles for that passage he cited from him This therefore is not yet Recanted but yielding too far in some other Points is And besides this in the very Epistle which occasion'd the Letter we are now considering there is an acknowledgment of Errors and Mistakes that were in it the Irenicum And we are