A26964:13
The nonconformists advocate
The nonconformists advocate, or, A farther account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written principally in vindication of A letter from a minister to a person of quality, showing some reasons for his nonconformity, modesty answering the exceptions of two violent opposers of the said reasons.The nonconformists advocate, or, A farther account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written principally in vindication of A letter from a minister to a person of quality, shewing some reasons for his nonconformity, modesty answering the exceptions of two violent opposers of the said reasons.
London: printed for Thomas Simmons, 1680
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Before you would confute me, you thought meet to defame me, in these words; Being lately in a Book sellers Shop, I met with a Letter pretended to be writ from a Minister to a Person of Quality, showing some Reasons of his Non-conformity. And you add,1 I have often observed this humour in some mean, but vain people, who dare not look upon Persons of Quality, when they are present, to talk of them with great familiarity, and as their peculiar Intimates and Confidants. But I answer; Why should you a Minister be so censorious and uncharitable, as to charge one who is styled a Minister, and I suppose utterly unknown to your self, with Pride and Lying at the first dash? with Pride, in a vain humour of aspiring unto acquaintance with Persons of Quality; with Lying, in pretending unto such a familiarity, when indeed there is no such matter. The Printer, or some other, affixed this Title, for my Copy had none at all; but yet it is altogether truth; though I have reason to blush, and crave pardon for being no more mannerly and Courtly in my Stile and Address to such a Person of Honour. By this, and what follows, I observe in you a strange Spirit, which I pray God convince you of, and deliver me from: a spirit haughty and scornful, bitter and revengeful, and yet elsewhere too too friendly and amicable.
BEfore you would confute me, you thought meet to defame me, in these words; Being lately in a Book sellers Shop, I met with a Letter pretended to be writ from a Minister to a Person of Quality, shewing some Reasons of his Non-conformity. And you add,1 I have often observed this humour in some mean, but vain people, who dare not look upon Persons of Quality, when they are present, to talk of them with great familiarity, and as their peculiar Intimates and Confidents. But I answer; Why should you a Minister be so censorious and uncharitable, as to charge one who is stiled a Minister, and I suppose utterly unknown to your self, with Pride and Lying at the first dash? with Pride, in a vain humour of aspiring unto acquaintance with Persons of Quality; with Lying, in pretending unto such a familiarity, when indeed there is no such matter. The Printer, or some other, affixed this Title, for my Copy had none at all; but yet it is altogether truth; though I have reason to blush, and crave pardon for being no more mannerly and Courtly in my Stile and Address to such a Person of Honour. By this, and what follows, I observe in you a strange Spirit, which I pray God convince you of, and deliver me from: a spirit haughty and scornful, bitter and revengeful, and yet elsewhere too too friendly and amicable.