Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	know_v	speak_v	word_n	2,651	5	4.0464	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30637	Vindiciæ pædo-baptismi, or, A confirmation of an argument lately emitted for infants baptism in a letter to a reverend divine of the Church of England / by R.B. ...	Burthogge, Richard, 1638?-ca. 1700.	1685 (1685)	Wing B6157A; ESTC R40304	32,736	88

Vindiciae Poedo-Baptismi OR A CONFIRMATION OF AN ARGUMENT Lately Emitted for Infants Baptism IN A LETTER To a Reverend Divine OF The Church of England By R.B. M.D. LONDON Printed for Thomas Simmons at the Prince's Arms in Ludgate Street 1685. SIR I Was at the Point of making a Resolution before I receiv'd yours of June 9. wholly to neglect that Libellous Disputation as it is called between a Doctor and an Apothecary as a thing that doth not only betray the Unsincerity the Artifices the Impotent Passions of him that wrote It but that to a Prudent and Judicious Reader doth as is said of the Viper carry in its own Bowels Causes that in time will destroy it But seeing you Advise me that it may not be unfit that something be said to it and I know we ought not to have too good an Opinion of the World which generally being malicious and invidious is apter to take impression from a witty Calumny and Detraction than from the soundest and most solid Reasoning and Argument on these and the like considerations I now resolve to Reply But in doing so that I resemble not my Adversary whom not only I but many sober and indifferent Persons do condemn for Impertinence for Falsehood for Bitterness for Peremptoriness and Presumption and for such other Courses as to use the Expression of a Noble Person tend rather to Rumor and impression in the Vulgar sort than to the likelihood of any good Effect For this Reason I am determined in Replying to him to propose unto my self for my Example That wise and Religious Bishop of whom when he returned Answer to a Pamphlet much it seems of a nature like to this before me My Lord Bacon says That he remembred that a Fool must be Answered but not by becoming like unto him and considered the matter which he handled and not the Person with whom he dealt The Points therefore that I will go upon shall be only these First To shew nakedly and truly the Occasion of my engaging with my Adversary in this Controversy Secondly To shew the Unfairness of his Proceeding in the Publick Management of it together with the motives which as I suppose induced him to the Unfairness Thirdly To Note but as it were in passing and by the By the Undue Aspersions which he casts upon me in reference to my Argument together with the Malice is in them Fourthly Briefly again to state the Argument I made and to demonstrate That as it is not a Log as he calls it nor Vncouth so that he is still extreamly Affrighted at it for he dares not touch it and still hath cause to be so As for my Engaging with him the first Occasion as I have said already was purely Accidental and it was drawn on I scarce know how he says by the importunity of the Lady my readiness to comply with it and his unwariness and let it be so But a casual passing undesigned Discourse it was a Discourse that as it did begin so I thought it would have ended in the same place for my part I scarce had one Thought of it afterwards But as for any Insulting upon him of which he now complains and never before that I know of and with which he thinks to bespeak the Affections of his Readers for indeed he needs them and to excuse his own Acerbity he cannot produce one Witness of any I am sure by me I can many even of Persons that were present at the whole Discourse to Attest the Contrary But that he was Insulted upon and that in his own Terms his Sword was as it were broken over his Head and with Triumph you must believe it and yet all the while the Weapons on both sides They were but Words and you can hardly think He lost His THEN who still speaks Swords and Daggers But you will tell me Well All this hitherto was but a Transient Accidental Discourse such as might happen every day when Persons meet who are of different Perswasions and there is an End But how came it afterwards to be so Solemn and so Deliberate as from Words that are but Birds in the Air to become Writings which are as Bears at the Stake Truly as to this one would think by what my Adversary writes and by the Fashion in which he writes in his Epistle and in Pag. 16. 17. that nothing but Resentment on his part of the Insolence and Affront that then was offered Him and a motion of Vanity on mine to Answer his Challenge drew on this second Engagement Little else can be inferred from what he hath written concerning it But indeed on my part it was nothing less than so and nothing less on his neither Pretendedly for all was Conscience nothing but Conscience and enquiry after further Light with which in a Letter that he sent me above a year and half he calls it in his usual figure Sometime after he importuned my Answer and prevailed For who is there but would have believed as then I did that it was Conscience pure Conscience that Acted him if he had received from him as I had a Letter so concernedly Penn'd and with so much movement with so much importunity and so much seeming sincerity and if he knew him not any better than I did at that time for thus his Letter bearing Date Sept. 9. 1681. doth speak in so many words UPon this Occasion Honoured Sir and that Occasion was a motion he made me about Perfecting the Printing and Publishing of a Book of Dr. Worsley's I shall also take the boldness to remind you of a Conference you were pleased sometime since to entertain with my self upon the subject of Infants Baptism when you were pleased to insist upon the Covenant made with Abraham wherein God Promised to be a God to him and to his Seed after Him from whence you Argued that in as much as by Vertue of that Covenant both Abraham and his Seed after him were to receive the Sign of Circumcision and in as much as the Apostle doth expresly tell us that the Blessing of Abraham was to come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ it thence followed that the Believing Gentiles and their Posterity also as being the Spiritual Seed of Abraham had a Right to Baptism which is the Seal of the same Covenant under the New Testament Administration Having since that time therefore Revolv'd this Argument of yours in my Thoughts over and over I could not satisfie my Conscience till I could either come to some satisfactory clearness in my own mind concerning the Cogency thereof or otherwise till I had drawn up something or other in writing that might at least be a sufficient Justification unto my Self in the way of my present Practice And after many fervent Addresses and Petitions to Heaven that as I might not mistake my way so that I might not Oppose or neglect any part of the Heavenly Truth I have at length drawn up the Inclosed paper which I do

which is as true as that the whole Chapter of the first of Genesis is in the Contents of it he never giving but an imperfect summary and that too many times with a mixture of falshood in the Report he makes of what I did propose to be prov'd but he mentions not the very Proofs themselves of what I proposed This will appear most manifestly by but comparing his Pretended Disputation with my Printed Letters Had he only Printed His Letters some of his own Party Probably those of them that are Just and Prudent would have had recourse also to mine But now his Disputation speaking all on both sides they may think there is no need of that Thirdly it was done to hide the Advantage I had over him in the course of the Argument how I gained ground by what steps and with what Mediums as also to conceal that Tergiversation shifting and shuffling that declining the force of my Argument and that Insisting on little things that are by the by with other such like Artificies of which I accused him All this is hinted in my Letters and he was not ignorant it would be plain by his own Let him shew the Contrary else by Publishing them Half an eye may easily discern that the controversy was almost at an end before his fifth Letter was written which yet is the first he Publishes And surely what ever he says more was in it then a bare Respect and kindness to his Reader to whom as he tells us P. 66. he would not be burthensome Ay there was also some little mixture of kindness and Respect unto himself he knew the Burthening of his Reader for Burthened certainly he would be if judicious and Considerate with Verbosity without sence with Common placing without discretion with skirmishing about but words and with other such unseemly and Impertinent Artificies he knew such Burthening of his Reader in the Consequence would be a Renewing of that Vexation and Anguish which he had found so grievous and which he Bemoans so much both in his Epistle and in his book P. 17. And here seeing I dispair with all the Provocation I can give to succeed in my design of induciug him to print entirely and Bonâ cum fide the suppressed Letters which he sent me I will therefore take occasion from his Published Animadversions to make his other Readers sensible for you are so already both of the Credibility of the former Motives and of the truth of the charge Imployed in them by observing to them out of many Instances that do occur but one or two for a taste The first shall be of his Candour and sincerity the Second of his way and Method in Arguing The First which is of his Candour and sincerity shall be in the Repetition which he makes of the first Paragraph of my first Letter in which he purposedly but ungratefully omits that part of the Period that Relates to the Movement and Importunity with which he solicited and even compelled me into this business For instead of adding and so Importunate and Iterated Requests to give you the Result of my most cool and serious considerations of what you have done in it he knowing that a passage of that significancy would make it plain he was the first aggressor at least as to writing and that I came not in but on his great Solicitation and consequently as it would detect his great ingratitude so it would interfere with what he often insinuates about the Rise of the Controversy Therefore he Craftily Omits it and only drawes a Line which only notes that something is wanting but no body could Divine it was this the sense going on so smooth without it The former is one instance of his ingenuity and of his sincerity but we have another which do's much resemble it viz. that of publishing to the world his Reflections on those little Points for 〈◊〉 you may see them to be so in the first Edition of my Letter which my self had altered and amended in the second for though he knew I had Corrected and altered them yet he slily insinuates in the margen of his dispute P. 28 32 as if he had not known it and that the alterations are only in the Print whereas I printed nothing in my Letters but what I first sent him Except That in my Last of which I advertised the Reader and which I marked with an Asterisme This is so great an imposture on his Readers and so great an abuse that P. 65. even himself doth offer something that might pass for an Extenuation If this meanness of his proceeding should ever chance to be Noted But this is one of his arts still he kn●w that many would observe the wound he gives in the Margen that would not much regard the Balm he afterward applys for the healing it and the less because it is not applyed directly So much for his ingenuity and Candour As for his Method of Arguing besides a gift he has of telling and Applying of Tales and of Capping of verses he uses to pervert the words of his Adversary and in things of little moment to raise a dust and make great a doe either to blind the Eyes of those that shall consider him or to divert them from what is the main in the business for with this Especially if it be difficult he is but seldom used to meddle at all or if at all not closely To manifest this I but desire his Readers that after the perusall of the Title Page of my Book and of my Advertisement they would observe his Reflections upon them both as to the matter of them as to the manner of them and as to the design of them How that for the matter of them they are made upon words only and for the manner of them upon words distorted from the proper and Genuine sence of their Author and for the design of them that they are made to expose and abuse and inodiate and therefore some of them are often and most maliciously Inculcated and all this without the least consideration of what is materiall and substantial and in confirmation of the Argument For as he is Witty enough in little matters to pervert the sence of his adversary to raise a Calumny on him and to make things soberly said to pass for ridiculous so he is as wise in greater Matters to avoid any touch of them and that for fear of his Head which he well remembers Page 17 once already was in danger by having a Sword as it were broken over it This I say is a Truth and very manifest For in my Advertisement all that is done by way of Argument and that 's no Inconsiderable part of it the whole consisting of but Nine L●aves and Six of them are spent that way under four considerations all this he wholly skips over and as if it was not at all his business or in his design at all to reason and argue but only to Calumniate Expose