Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n
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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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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