Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	see_v	write_v	year_n	3,146	5	4.6224	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30373	A letter occasioned by the second letter to Dr. Burnet, written to a friend	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1685 (1685)	Wing B5819; ESTC R7791	6,927	10

Scribblers have not thought fit to observe tho they could not but see it for it is in the same Page with the other Upon this some have hastily inserred that because Cranmer's Name is at Leightoun's Paper therefore he retracted his own Paper and subscribed to his Opinions I have by other clear and unexceptionable Evidences proved That Cranmer did indeed change his Opinion in those tender Points but as if there were a Spirit of Contradiction in some People they will not accept of this but will lay hold of this slight Colour of his signing Leighton's Paper on which I laid no weight and therefore tho I printed the Papers to a Tittle as I found them in the Manuscript yet I took no notice of this in my History so howsoever I might be accused for passing it over in my Discourse concerning it there was no reason to accuse me for Unfaithfulness in my Collections but that Part of my Book galls some People as giving a Credit to the whole History and therefore they must accuse my Fidelity in that upon which the Credit of the Book is founded otherwise there were no considerable Service done And it would give a specious Colour beyond-Sea to disparage that Work to say that Divines of or rather in the Church of England have detected my Unfaithfulness in publishing the Records for that strikes at all So a Man that was resolved to have a Coach and six Horses at any Rate at last found out a Journey-man to do this Piece of Work for him and he has very probably entred it into the particular of his Merits Cranmer's subscribing these Papers cannot be understood to be his assentting to all the Opinions contained in them for they differ in several particulars from one another and he could not subscribe Contradictions And tho he had assented to their Opinions it does not clear him of that for which the Presbyterians or the Erastians may vouch him for in the main Point that relates to Presbytery concerning Bishops and Priests being at first the same Office which Cranmer had asserted Leightoun saies nothing to it See Collect. p. 225. so Cranmer retracts nothing upon this Head and Robertson thinks that where a Bishop cannot be had a Priest may consecrate a Bishop which is also a main Point He likewise thinks that a Church-man ought not to use or exercise his Function without the Consent or Permission of the Magistrate which is all that most Erastians plead for so if this Subscription is a good Argument Cranmer is theirs still and both Robertson and Leightoun think that in Cases of Necessity Princes may make both Bishops and Priests and I know few Erastians that plead for more Thus it is plain that suppose it were granted that Cranmer had by signing these Papers subscribed to the Opinions contained in them he may still be cited both by Presbyterians and Erastians so that is it were not for the other Evidences that I gave of his changing his Mind which no person had ever observed before me he might still be cited by them notwithstanding these Subscriptions All that I can make of the Subseriptions is that he might according to a Rule that some Ministers of State have observ'd set his Hand to those Papers as a mark that they might not be altered and as to Leightoun's Paper there may be this particular reason for it that Leightoun not being in the Commission of which I take notice in my History p. 289. Cranmer who it seems ordered him to write Answers to those Queries might have set his hand to his Paper as a warrant to him for having writ them I confess these are but conjectures but to guess somewhat probably is all that can be done at this distance I have now opened this matter so particularly that I hope I have satisfied the desires of those who complained that the thing was left too much in the dark As for the method in which I published them I could make a short defence for it since it is well known that a very eminent Person took the direction of that whole Work into his particular care but since I am not so near him as to obtain his leave for naming him and that I will not do it without his leave I shall tell the reasons that were suggested for following the method in which I have published them The method in which they lie in the Manuscript is this first the Queries are set down then every Man's Paper comes first Arch-Bishop Cranmer's then the Arch-Bishop of York's and so forward according to the order in which they are under every Query All these Papers are Sign'd at the end of them except the Bishop of Rochester's but there is but one Signing for all and there are no special Subscriptions to any particular Articles as some have fancied so that the Subscription to the last Article belongs to the whole Paper and to every Article in it After these come two Papers the one in Latine and the other in English in which the agreement or disagreement of them all is marked Cranmer's only excepted so that it seems these were for his private use Now since every Paper relates to the Queries without repeating them the Queries must either have been repeated to every Paper or the Reader must have been always turning Leaves to find them out and if any Man had the curiosity to examine their agreement or disagreement he could find it out much readier in the way in which they are put than if I had followed the method in which they lie in the Manuscript and these Papers in which they are already compared come in more naturally at the end of every Query and can be more easily examined when one has under his eye at one view all their Opinion than if they had come in at the end of all after all the Papers had been set down so that this Method very well becomes the exactness and the true Judgment of him that advised it On the Margents every Man's Name is set over against every Article of his Paper so that if one will read a whole Paper in an entire Thread as it lies in the Original he has an easy work and is only to seek Canterbury York or any other all through the 17 Queries and he finds it without any confusion or difficulty And now what is to be said to all this Is there any thing here left out or mangled or disguised or any thing else done sufficiant to justify a small part of the Clamour that is raised The reflections made in this last Letter on the Dean of St. Pauls are too visible to be carried off with the good words that introduce them if he had writ his Book after my History it might have been pretended that I had misled him though these Gentlemen's Friends know to their Cost that he is not apt to mistake in his Quotations but he who writ his Book almost Twenty years before mine and had the

Manuscript so long in his hands saw it as it is and therefore all that is said from this against the Method that I took in publishing these Papers is meer fooling But the truth is the Dean saw well enough that there was nothing in all this matter that deserved to be taken notice of His Arguments such as they be is a Civility that he had no reason to expect from any on this side the Water A Man may differ from him both in Opinion and Argument and yet none but he that can Drawcansir like kill both Friend and Foe and arraign a whole Nation would treat a Man of his worth in so rude a manner but as the Devil is known by his Cloven-Foot so the attacking such Men is a little too early and too bare-fac'd If I was guilty of a mistake in my last Letter I will acknowledg it as soon as the Author of this gives himself a Name and if ever he on whom I laid it finds but half the reason to lay any Paper to my charge that I have here I will allow him all the liberty he shall be pleased to take but I will say nothing upon an Anonymous Paper I confess I acquit him freely of any accession to this for I believe though he would set about it he could not bring his stile so low nor write so ill I do not trouble my self to find out the Author Dull and pert are such common Characters that without a more particular mark I cannot trace him I confess a sit of kindness he falls into upon my naming the Blessed Martyr leads me a little nearer for I remember I saw a Dedication to the second Peer of England that began MY DEAR LORD upon which one askt if the Author was Married to him but if he will be as good as his Word and pay me the Ten Thousand Thanks in full tale for every time that he finds the Blessed Martyr in my Writings he will be very hoarse long before he gets through them As for his bringing himself off from that crude not to call it profane reflection on a whole Kingdom 't is ill nature in me to take notice of it since I hear all cry shame on him for it for his contracting what he laid indefinitely on a whole Kingdom to a few persons is a Figure well becoming his Wit and Candor His ranking me with a Man whose Face I do not so much as know is another of his Flowers he may perhaps hear more of him than I can tell him from one that Lodged so long at Nat. Thompson's if he happened to be in his House when he Printed the Appeal from the City to the Country in which I have been told Ferguson had a hand As for the Zeal that all this sort of Men pretend for the Crown the Book that is the foundation of this Stir is a good Indication of it which without any straining falls so evidently within a Praemunire as I hear an Honourable Person has observed that the Writer owes his not being questioned for it to His Mejesties Clemency and to the neglect that both he and his Book are under There is another Sect beside Presbytery that has first degraded Kings wholly from their Ecclesiastical Supremacy and after that point was gained made them reign at the Mercy of the Church and at the Pope's Courtesy It were too bold to attempt both at once and it is ingeniously enough done to seem to yield up the one wholly till the other is gain'd But in all this matter their Honest Mr. Lowth is quite forsaken since his false charging me for leaving out that passage of Leighton's is not so much as pretended to be justified it seems this Writer is very scant of Epithets or thinks there are few that can fit Mr. Lowth that he has no other for him in both his Letters but Honest so that one would think it is a part of his Christned Name Epithetes are chosen with relation to the matter in hand Now though he may be a very honest Man in all other things for ought I know yet I am sure he was neither Wise nor Honest in this particular but seems his Friends that set him on think they are bound in honour fetch him off I confess this Trifler is modester than he was for whereas he Sir Hubras like valued himself that the King of Israel was not to go out 〈◊〉 against a Flea this Writer more humbly compares his Letter to 〈◊〉 Flea in my Ear but how Fleas are so much in their favour I 〈◊〉 not know the last was a truer Figure for an Animal of a higher form had suffer'd by the comparison But with my Readers Pardon I will venture to take it a little lower and assure him it is as 〈◊〉 as if it had been shut up in a Microscope a Week I do not blame him 〈◊〉 rising a little higher in another Figure taken from the Marble it 〈◊〉 his top-flight and it were pity to see a whole Sheet without 〈◊〉 touch that can be calumniated with Wit So far have I complied with your desires in contradiction to my own Inclination I am 〈◊〉 this matter is at an end so let the whole Pack bark as long as 〈◊〉 will I will not write one word more on this subject I am with 〈◊〉 possible respect and duty Jan. 24. Sir Your most humble Servant G. Burnett LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwyn at the Old-Baily Corner 1685.