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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	answer_n	letter_n	time_n	812	5	3.8899	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42271	A vindication of the conforming clergy from the unjust aspersions of heresie, &c. in answer to some part of Mr. Jenkyn's funeral sermon upon Dr. Seaman : with short reflexions on some passages in a sermon preached by Mr. J.S. upon 2 Cor. 5:20 : in a letter to a friend.	Grove, Robert, 1634-1696.	1676 (1676)	Wing G2161; ESTC R21762	47,478	87

A VINDICATION OF THE CONFORMING CLERGY FROM THE Unjust Aspersions of HERESIE c. IN ANSWER To some part of Mr JENKYN'S Funeral Sermon upon Dr SEAMAN With short REFLEXIONS On some Passages in a Sermon Preached by Mr J. S. upon 2 Cor. 5. 20. In a Letter to a Friend Guil. Jenkyn Conc. Lat. Deponamus Fratres aut Ministrorum nomina aut saltem Obtrectatorum Ingenia LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in S. Paul's Church-yard 1676. A VINDICATION OF THE Conforming CLERGY c. IN A LETTER to a FRIEND SIR I HAVE been some time considering with my self whether it might be convenient to return an Answer to those many dis-ingenuous Reflections and unhandsom Insinuations against the present Clergy of England which I find in a Sermon preached by Mr. Jenkyn upon occasion of Dr. Seaman 's Death It can be no pleasing Employment to any sober Person to have no better Argument to insist upon but only to expose a few opprobrious and passionate Expressions and it would be more for the Credit and common Interest of our Religion if such Rudenesses as these could be buried in silence But I fear they have taken too much air and been blown abroad too far already and that therefore the greatest innocency will not be able to protect us any longer for if we should continue to hear our selves reviled in such a manner without any Reply it would be imagined by some that we were really guilty of what has been so confidently laid to our charge Had he contented himself to have called us only a company of uncatechised Vpstarts poor Shrubs empty and unaccomplished Predicants with such other civilities wherewith he abounds I 'll assure you Sir all the importunity in the World should have never prevailed with me to have returned his Complement But since he has been pleased to tax us with nothing less than Heresie and other Crimes of the foulest nature I confess I have suffered my self to be byassed contrary to my inclination to attempt something by way of Answer I therefore now send you these Papers and if the same thing be not done before by some better hand I leave them wholly to your disposal either to suppress or make them publick as you shall see cause provided you discover nothing that may be justly scandalous or offensive in them I shall most studiously endeavour to avoid all manner of bitterness and passion though this Gentleman has treated us with so much insolence as might be enough to provoke the most patient man to some degree of resentment When I cast my eye upon some of the first Pages of the Sermon I was in good hopes that he would have dipped the Nail of Exhortation in the Oyl of love and sweetness but I quickly found my mistake here especially when I came towards the latter end I perceived plainly then that the angry man was resolved to drive us with many knocks and strokes and blows But we must bear all this severity as well as we can for my part I intend to preserve my self from all intemperate heats and not consider what such a one as he might possibly deserve to hear but what becomes me to speak There is no question but that he hath suffered very deeply in his reputation by this great imprudence amongst the more grave and moderate of our dissenting Brethren themselves and that he stands condemned in the opinion of all sober and unprejudiced persons of all perswasions For if he had no more conscience than to vent such Ribaldry amongst his Hearers yet it might be expected that at his age a Man should have been Master of more discretion than to expose all his Follies to the publick view When they were first delivered they might haply have escaped without a censure when the people were very attentive to catch every sentence and take all for Gospel that dropped from his lips but he must not therefore think that the rest of the World will be so easily imposed upon or so ready to believe him upon his bare word No those he talks of are Crimes of a higher nature than ever to be taken for granted upon trust without the least shew or offer of a proof He gives us a great many very hard words and that is all Now if his Blood had been inflamed to the highest pitch and that he had had never so great abundance of the poyson of Asps under his tongue and if Religion could not yet good Manners might have obliged him not to have spit it up in the Pulpit For what language may we expect from the poor People when he that calls himself their Pastor shall mingle so much of the very Spirit of Gall and Wormwood in that which they swallow down greedily as the Food of their Souls In his Epistle to that part of the Flock of Christ of the which the Reverend Dr. Seaman was the late vigilant OVERSEER he makes a very unseasonable Apology for his unpreparedness because of his multiplyed avocations and short warning Now besides the Doctors dying-request the time allowed him by the People was from Tuesday to Sunday And I am pretty confident that there are some of those unaccomplished Predicants which this Great Man mentions afterwards with so much scorn that bating but his railing would have made almost as good a discourse as his in less than half the time notwithstanding their multiplyed avocations But these excuses may give us to understand that if he had been blessed with leisure enough he could have made a most admirable piece and yet this was so well liked that there is no remedy but out it must with a black List about the Title and we must now be bespattered from the Press as we had been in the Pulpit before After this formal craving of Pardon where there was no need he proceeds in this manner Neither could my own beloved Flock says he some of whom were present at the time of my preaching find here any Exceedings unless in my Discourse concerning the Doctor above their constant Sabbath-days Provisions Well this is a mighty lucky Man at a Parenthesis and it was happy for him that he brought in this here For otherwise the people coming together in expectation of a Feast might have been like enough to have been a little peevish as hungry men many times are and they might have justly complained of unkindness What so many Strangers invited and no more respect shewn them Nothing beyond the constant Sabbath-days Provisions which he makes for his own Family No Exceedings upon such a solemn occasion This is not civil Therefore it is not said none at all but none Vnless in the Discourse concerning the Doctor And there you shall be sure to have something more than ordinary some delicate Fare purposely reserved for the second Course But really I cannot perceive what it should be besides the most contumelious and reproachful language that he prodigally throws away upon the Conforming

sentences such as you shall rarely meet with in Tully or Demosthenes or any good Orator but in this Author very frequently and they look most wondrous featly some of them you have had already and I shall bring three or four Examples more As How can you and I deny a short endeavour severally to bear our parts in bearing up his memory c. But wheresore was that wherefore put down The unkind world storms them do not you starve them Every Saint loves company to Glory he loves to be saved surely but not solitarily To lose such a Doctor is to lose if not your sight yet your Seer Here are some and many more such Elegances as these might be easily found if it were worth the while to be picking of straws But these are Accomplishments that a Man of ordinary Conforming Parts must never hope to arrive unto and truly I admire how this Gentleman retains them so fresh now he begins to grow old but you may perceive by him that his Fancy is as strong and youthful and unmanageable still as if he were but newly come from School Another Accomplishment which is worth your notice is his making use of the same conceits several times within the compass of a few leaves One there is amongst the rest that betrays it self like the Roman Senator by the very scent God says he will break the Box of a Godly Ministers body that so the fragrant Perfumes of his Ointments his Graces and Faith may breath out when the Box is broken And again The fragrancy of their Names like a precious Ointment breathes forth even after yea by the breaking the little Boxes of their bodies Not much after he has such another kind of similitude Service is that that makes us live when we are dead and makes the places where we lived like the Civet-box when the Civet is taken out of it to savour of our holy Endeavours when we our selves are gone from and out of them And once more about the beginning of his commendation of the Doctor speaking of the Mantle of his sweet memorial and that says he so richly perfumed that it must a little though but a little while perfume the Pulpit where now I stand c. And so you see that he pulls out his Civet-Boxes and such things so very often that a Man would imagine he intended by this to preserve his People from the infection of Heresie which he supposes to be the raging Disease of the Times And he seems so mightily delighted with Ointments and Perfumes that I wonder how he could endure the smell of very many of his own Expressions But still it might have been expected that one of such a large invention as he has approved himself to be in his Fictions concerning us should not have brought in the same or very like things three or four times in one Sermon But 't is an Accomplishment it seems that he has I shall trouble you but with one more and that is his most excellent Faculty of sticking a Parenthesis into a sentence which I have given you one Instance of before but he has a very great abundance of them In one place he gives the Pope a notable rub and makes shrewd Remarks upon the whole Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome and all this within a Parenthesis or two which would have cost another Man many Volumes Another time he writes Doctor Whataker's life pretty particularly and most of it is in one comprehensive Parenthesis again At another place he has a Character of Bishop Brownrig a witty saying of his about Dubbing of Doctors an Apology for some that had taken that Degree by Mandate and some other observables inclosed still within a Parenthesis Sometimes he has I know not how many little young sucking ones crept into the belly of one huge old over grown Parenthesis And they make the poor thing strut out so that it looks like a Spanish Gennet that is big with Foal by the Wind. And there is one of these which I think it had been more prudence to have left out it has given occasion of enquiry into some things where all the skill he has and a little more will scarce bring him off with a clear reputation It is where he mentions That sweet name and man of affection Love whose great love to me says he was matched with nothing more than my fidelity to him and then comes in the daring Parenthesis wadling along with another or two in its Womb and I would kiss even the feet though else I perfectly despise the tongue of Calumny would they be which yet they never durst be the bearers to me of the least proof to the contrary You may see that he talks here as if he were in a maze and almost bewildered in his own thoughts But certainly this Calumny is a thing for which the Man has a very strange respect for you know he is not wont to use so much courtship with other Folks And for ought I see he must be contented to kiss even the feet of this dear Friend of his For I have been told by some that they cannot esteem it any great fidelity to that sweet name and man of affection not to have acquainted him in due time That upon earnest seeking of God and diligently enquiring into his Will he was convinced that the alterations of Civil Government are ordered by and founded upon the wise and righteous Providence of God who removeth Kings and setteth up Rulers for the Kingdoms of Men and giveth them to whomsoever he will but notwithstanding these great discoveries to let him dye in such a Cause and such an opposing of the Government set up by the Soveraign Lord of Heaven and Earth as none could have peace either in acting or suffering for as the Petitioners own expressions are He must therefore either shew this concealing of his opinion to be fidelity or else kiss even the feet of Calumny which he seems as ready to do as any Man whatsoever But by this his ordinary way of a most tedious Parenthesis if I had no other arguments for it I should guess Mr. Jenkyn to be a Man of something a warm and unsettled head he does so often start and so eagerly pursue so many conceits so very little or nothing to the purpose which is another most rare Accomplishment for which we do not envy him at all But these empty and unaccomplished Predicants who must never think to attain to those wonderful perfections which he has been a great while Master of they do most feloniously preach the Sermons of their Non-Conforming Predecessors And I wish heartily they could be perswaded to preach none else for then sure we should not be pestered with any more of their Heretical Notions But alack aday 't is a hard case that he should tell them of this He knew well enough I suppose that they were able to make no