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A42255
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An answer to Mr. Lowth's letter to Dr. Stillingfleet in another letter to a friend.
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Grove, Robert, 1634-1696.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing G2147; ESTC R31522
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34,417
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38
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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
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