A LETTER FROM GILBERT BURNET, D. D. TO Mr. SIMON LOWTH, Vicar of Cosmus-Blene in the Diocese of Canterbury. Occasioned, by his late Book of the subject of Church-Power.  
Reverend Sir,  
I Know no other Address to you, but this of the Press, which I hope will find you out: you have forced me to deal so publicly with you, by your beginning with me; and, which is yet worse, by your refusing to give your own Eyes that Satisfaction which I desired a neighbouring Clergyman of yours to offer you.  
When I saw your Letters to the two Deans, in which you accused the Dean of St. Paul's for his copying out unfaithfully the Papers of Cranmer and the other Deans, which he had published, and added, that I had also printed them imperfect, and so had abused the House of Commons unto an approbation of my History of the Reformation, (where by the way, I cannot imagine why you left out the House of Lords, whose Approbation is printed with the other.) I confess, I wondered upon what you could found so heavy a Charge: I printed no Record in that Collection without comparing the Copies exactly with the Original, for I thought that too important a thing to trust it to any Person whatsoever: Therefore finding myself accused of a designed Fraud, which, if true, must needs shake the credit of my whole Book; I did what I could to prevent your bringing that Shame upon yourself, which I do now unwillingly lay on you, not so much for the support of my own Credit, as for maintaining the Reputation of that Work. I therefore desired your Neighbour to tell you, that I was sure I had printed all those Papers faithfully and exactly, without departing from the Originals in any thing but the spelling: I added, that if you thought fit to fall on any Discourse or Inference of mine, you might do as you pleased, but if you accused me of Unfaithfulness, in publishing any of the Papers that are in my Collection imperfect, I should be forced to justify myself, though to your cost: for in such Accusations a Man ought not to be over patient. I bid him also tell you, that as I had printed those Papers exactly, so if you had a mind to see the Originals themselves, I should procure them for you: this was done many Months ago. He brought me an Answer from you, that I could make nothing of; but now I see it in Print, and so I will examine it.  
You say that if you may believe the Dean of Windsor, Dr. Durel, there is among these Papers in Dr. Stillingfleet's MS. one of Dr. Leighton's, in which there are two Assertions contrary to Cranmers Opinion concerning Church-power, and that Cranmer signed Dr. Leighton's Paper; from which he infers that Cranmer changed his Mind, and subscribed to Leighton's Opinion; and of all this, you say I have given no account to the World, but have omitted it in two Impressions.  
I would willingly believe the best of every Man, and make the best of all things that I can, and therefore I should have imputed this to an extreme carelessness in you; but since you have charged me so severely for Unfaithfulness, and abusing the House of Commons in it, and since you refused to accept of the Satisfaction which I had offered you, I must crave leave to tell you (for it is a hard thing, and needs a Preface to soften it) that you have accused me both uncharitably as to the manner of it, and unjustly as to the matter: Since these very things that you say I have left out, are in my Collection, taken verbatim from the Original, which will appear by my setting down that which you cite from the Dean of Windsor, and that which is in my Collection, over against one another.  
There is indeed a variation in the Words, though none in the Sense: mine is exactly according to the Original: and the Variations of the Dean of Windsor from it, though they make no change in the Sense, yet are too many to be the Mistakes of a Transcriber: therefore I am apt to think that as Dr. Durel writ them out, he put them either in Latin or French, intending perhaps to make use of them in one of these Tongues, and that afterwards he translated them into his own English when the Manuscript might be perhaps no more in his power to copy them from the Original. The Reasonableness of this Conjecture will appear from a view of the Words themselves, as he and I have published them; for I have published all Leighton's Paper together with Cranmers Subscription at the end of it.  
The Words that you cite from the Dean of Windsor, pag. 485. of your Book, l. 24. are these. The Words I have, Hist. Reform. vol. 1. Coll. Rec. Book 3. pag. 227. l. 36. are these. I suppose a Bishop according to Scripture, to have Power from God as his Minister of creating a Presbyter; though he ought not to promote any to the Office of a Presbyter, or admit to any other Ecclesiastical Ministry in a Commonwealth, unless the leave of the Prince be first had. But that any other have Power according to Scripture I have neither read nor learned by Example. 2. I suppose Consecration to be necessary as by imposition of hands, for so we are taught by the Examples of the Apostles. I suppose that a Bishop hath Authority of God as his Minister by Scripture to make a Priest, but he aught not to admit any Man to be Priest, and consecrate him, or to appoint him to any Ministry in the Church without the Prince's Licence and Consent in a Christian Region. And that any other Man hath Authority to make a Priest by Scripture, I have not read, nor any Example thereof. And Pag. 230. l. 22. I suppose that there is a Consecration required as by imposition of Hands, for so we be taught by the Ensample of the Apostles.  
And Pag. 243. l. 3. from the bottom, where Dr. Leighton's Subscription is set down, there is set by it T. Cantuarien. Thus, Sir, you see you may believe the Dean of Windsor, and believe this further, that you have slandered me falsely: if there is any harshness in these Expressions, the things themselves draw them from me, and your unaccountable Behaviour in this matter has brought them on you. I wish that instead of reading any other Books, you would read the Gospels and Epistles more carefully; and before you venture to treat of such tender points as Church-power, that you will learn to practise the Rules of Justice and Christian Charity (not to speak of Prudence and common Discretion); and then the Advices of your Friends will prevail more with you than your own Heats: for though you flatter yourself so far as to fancy (as you began your Preface) that there was a huged in and noise, Panic almost and universal, raised in London and elsewhere, for two full Years and upwards, occasioned by your Treatise; I assure you I never heard of any; though none, after the two worthy Deans, were more concerned in it than I was; all that looked into it (for I spoke with none that had quite read it) said it could hurt no body but the Bookseller or yourself: though I have not heard that the Chancery ever gave Equity against an Author for an unsaleable Book. Many wished for the Church's sake, and for your own sake, that she might not suffer by so ill an Advocate, and that you would not discharge your Spleen on two such eminent Men, whose Works (as well as their Persons) will be had in Honour, long after both you and your Book will be forgotten. You are indeed proud of the Honour of assaulting two such Men, and tell the World that their Eminence was no small Motive to you to undertake this Work, and give this modest account of yourself (Preface, pag. 7. l. 22.) Doth the King of Israel go out as against a Flea? I confess this is a lofty Figure, and the Application of it to yourself is somewhat extraordinary. But there was a Roman Emperor that used to be shut up catching Flies, and I am afraid some will think that since you will borrow a Figure from a Crowned Head, this had become you better; but you have secured yourself by writing in a Style so unintelligible, that as I hear few read your Book, so I am confident no body can understand it, and so to be sure they will not answer it. Yet since you tell the World that here is a Course of Studies upon full Thoughts and a thorough Consideration: you had best do as another Roman Emperor did, write of yourself, and illustrate your Book with Annotations, and I suppose the Bookseller will take care that it shall only be to yourself. You tell us that your Book is born with a Beard, as the jews say Esau was: it is indeed hairy all over, and so rough is the shag, that it will not submit to the Discipline of a Comb. I shall only offer to your Consideration, one Passage which I hope you will not forget in your Annotations: it comes just after that humble comparing of yourself to the King of Israel, and I suppose your Spirits were a little exalted upon so glorious a figure, and so you have risen above my pitch. The words are remarkable: Nor do those of meaner Order and Qualily undertake that Authority which is in itself none, falls of itself to the ground, nor was ever influential upon any? This is but one of many, and is the shortest I could pick out. I suppose you had a meaning when you writ it, though perhaps in the two full Years and upwards in which it stuck so that it is over grown with Hair, you may have lost it. I shall conclude with two short Advices; the first is▪ That if you intent to write any more, you will learn first to write true English, and then to write good Sense: but I believe this will prove so very hard a Task, that the best and easiest Advice can b● given you, is, that you will write none at all, but se● about matters of a more close and comfortable Importance in which I wish you better success than you are like t● have by your Book, and am, notwithstanding th● freedom with you,  
Reverend Sir, Your most humble Servant. G. BURNET. London, December the 20 th', 1684.   

London: Printed for Richard Baldwin in the Old-Baily-Corner on Ludgate-Hill, 1685.