Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	doctrine_n	england_n	6,989	5	6.3346	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42744	The history of the Athenian Society for the resolving all nice and curious questions / by a gentleman who got secret intelligence of thir whole proceedings ; to which are prefixed several poems, written by Mr. Tate, Mr. Motteux, Mr. Richardson, and others.	Gildon, Charles, 1665-1724.; R. L.	1691 (1691)	Wing G730; ESTC R35698	78,195	42

Impartiality in the World and constantly without omitting any thing worth taking notice of 't is no wonder that so few were found void so much of Sense as to buy their trifles the more pardonable indeed for being so very short when they might have a view of all that was valuable in them in the Athenian Mercury and that too with great Additions So may they thrive who interfere with an others design I must not here among the other Oppositions they have met with forget the Endeavours of their Enemies to cast an Imputation of Fanaticism on the Members of this SOCIETY But it is so evident from what they have writ that they are of the Church of England that blind Malice it self cannot deny it I shall trespass so much on ●…he patience of the Reader for once to prove that the Sun shines at noon day or that there is such a thing as Motion or at least that this Religion of this Society is of the Church of England as by Law establishd tho' out of many I will choose but two places the first ' Volume 3d. Number 28. and Quest. 4. The Query is this What Community in your opinion comes nearest to the Doctrine of our Blessed Saviour the Apostles and Primitive Fathers The Answer is Undoubtedly it is our Opinion that the Communion we our selves are of and hope to live and die in namely that of the Church of England is the best in the World and nearest to the Doctrine of our Saviour his Apostles and Primitive Fathers and unless we thought so we shou'd be very ill Men to continue in it I desire the Reader wou'd consult this place I have quoted where he will find evident beyond evasion the distinctive Medium betwixt Popery and other Protestant opinions particularly as to the Liturgy and Episcopacy c. at large set down which were too long for me to transcribe here Number 25. of the same Volume Quest. 4. is a farther Confirmation of this The Query is I desire your Opinion what Book you wou'd advise me to for my private Devotions as being a single Person Pray Reader mind well the Answer Answ. What so many great and good Men have been concern'd in the Composing of viz. The LITURGY of the Church of ENGLAND if the Labours of one Man then Dr. Taylor 's Composures The Whole Duty of Man This I am sure is enough to convince any reasonable Man of what Church the Members of this Society are 'T was no impollitic part how dishonest soever it were of their opposers to cast an Odium upon them in the Affairs of Religion since too many are carry'd away with a VIOLENT PREIUDICE against any thing that shall be offer'd by one of an other perswasion thinking to supply all their other defects by a blind and unreasonable Zeal But as the Oppositions this Noble design met with were many as appears from what I have said so were the Encouragements too from all parts of England Some parts beyond Sea and from great and learned Men as is evident from the Gentleman I lately mention'd who has join'd himself to them on the account of the Natural Rarities and that worthy Divine mention'd in the beginning of this last part so skilful in Rabinical Learning nor is that less which the Approbation of the ingenious Gentlemen of Received Wit and Reputation have given them in the Verses prefixt to this History nor must I omit the Judgment of a very ingenious Gentleman which he sent in a Letter to the ATHENIAN SOCIETY which being now in the Press I got a sight of It begins thus Gentlemen I happ●…n'd to read that sheet of your ATHENIAN MERCURY in which you resolv'd a Query concerning some Actions of ●…RUT ES that resemble Reason your Discourse there was so very acute and solid that it envited me to peruse divers others which without flattery gave me that esteem for you that I resolv'd to lend my best assistance to render your Endeavours beneficial to the World which I ought to suppose is the Mark you Aim at I look on your Undertaking as one of the most laudable Projects our Age has invented and if prudently manag'd the most conducing to improve Knowledge in the generality of Mankind according to their several Capacities after this he proceeds to some very good advice for which I refer you to the 12. Numbers which compleat the 6th Volume besides 〈◊〉 general and encreasing Applause of all the Nation all 〈◊〉 together has made them surmount all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impotent Endeavours of their past and present 〈◊〉 and fixt them beyond the power of those 〈◊〉 ●…OODING ENVT shall produce hereafter Having thus run through all the points I propos'd to my self upon my resolution of Writing of this History with a much greater brevity I confess than what the well handling a Subject of this extent 〈◊〉 I shall here conclude with a short View of what I have done In the first part I have represented the NOVELTY occasion and manner of its Invention the Advantages it afforded the World as the making that familiar to many which was before confin'd within too narrow a compass and recommending the beauty of Knowledge to them who were frightned from it by the Mercenary Schools whereas its easie Charms in the Athenian Dress will excite many to the study of Wisdom they at least whose necessary Business will not permit a more tedious Disquisition may gather good notions of things by a meer cursory reading of the weekly Mercuries which will be no small improvement of Civility and Conversation Farther I shew'd that it was unreasonable that they to whom Nature had given a noble Genius should be denied when grown up the improvement of it without the tedious Discipline of the School because their Parents had neglected or their Circumstances hinder'd it when young that they who naturally slight Learning will do so still since this Design is to improve not alter Nature that it were an Injustice that they who value it should be deprived of it because confin'd to Languages Nor is it reasonable that a Pedant should esteem himself above others for one without the other I shall only add here to these Considerations that whereas this was begun in War tho' Peace is generally the Mother of new Arts and Sciences so it has several Advantages proper to the Temper and Exigencies of such a hurrying and martial time when Arms and Stratagems take up too much of our hours to permit us to spend many in the Enquiries into Truth and all sorts of Learning by the perusal of voluminous Tracts Nor did I forget the Difficulties which presented themselves to the Members of the Society to hinder their engaging in this Affair first as to answering all Quaeries well and to the satisfaction of those that pretend to follow Reason for their Rule all Sciences being so very d●…iputable as also from the Envy and Malice of others and lastly from the different Humors of the Quaerists Nor

thy Garden grow Immortal Wit in Natures easiest dress A Paradice rais'd in a Wilderness Tho' harsh thy Subject Haggard and unkind And rough as bitter Blasts of Northern Wind Thy divine Spirit corrects each ruder sound And breaths delicious Zephirs all a-round Thus can our Kindred Art and Painters Care Make even Storms look beautiful and fair But whilst I praise I must accuse thee too When thou hadst done so much no more to do When to the brink of Boyne thy Hero came There to break off the Chase of Him and Fame Where had been Albion now had he thus stood But floating in another Sea of Blood To leave him when the Floods crept soft along And Silver Boyne listned to hear thy Song To hear the Naids sing what thou dost write As when she rose to see thy Hero fight See him all o're with Springing Laurels spread And all his Angel Guard around his Head This wields his flaming Sword the Rebels fly And That the fatal Ball puts gently by Which Brittains Mighty Genius shook to see And trembl'd at the danger more than He. This sweetest Bard hadst thou proceeding sung How had the Woods how had the Valleys rung And Pollio's learned Muse who sits above The Shepherd's admiration and their Love Had deign'd thee Smiles as all the World Esteem Which dares not sure dislike what pleases him What can be more fine and sweet than these Verses What more Poetīcal What more correct and if at any other time their Poetical answers come not up to these there are several reasons for it First because several Queries are sent in Verse which wou'd be more to the purpose in Prose for there are subjects not so proper for Verse 2dly Because they design'd 'em otherwise as for example Burlesque as the first Query of the 11th Number of the 5th Volume which in its kind is very witty and pleasant and the 6th of the same Mercury But then there are the Answer to the 4th Query and the Epithalamium very fine and Lastly when the subject is not so Noble as that of this which merited no less than the Society has said of it I cannot omit an Epigram I find in the 5th Number of the 7th Volume which is this Whatever Borrow'd Lines our Works have shown This We dare sware that thine are all thy own I find scarce one in Martial comparable to this except Pauper Cinna vult videri est pauper Martial too often playing upon words which tho' more tolerable in Latin than English yet I cannot bring my Palate to relish The Vertues of an Epigram are a dilucid Shortness and an Acumen which is the Soul Life and Spirit of an Epigram without which 't is flat and insipid nor can I endure a long Introduction to that which lies within the narrow compass of a word or two the Wit of these being not sufficient to recompence the tediousness of the other nor cou'd I 'till I saw this ever with patience admit of any thing of that kind in English Upon the whole I think that Character which Iulius Caesar Scaliger gives of Claudian is justly the due of the Poetical Member of this Society viz. That he is a great Poet only has sometimes the disadvantage of being oppress'd with an unpoetical Subject but even then supplies with his Wit the defect of the Matter he is Master of a happy daring and a good Iudgment his Ornaments agreeable his Language clear and expressive his Numbers smooth but not affected his Thoughts fall naturally in without force All I have to add in this point because I have not room for a long Critical discourse on Poetry is that they have not only attain'd all the Beauties of Verse but have also had in their eye the very end and aim of Poetry which Horace divides into three parts Pleasure Profit and both together But he concludes the last to be the best which comprizes both the pleasant and the profitable Some one of these ends if not all are observable in every Poetical Mercury I have yet seen In fine I think the opinion of one that was so much a Poet as to be Author of those Latin Verses in the 13th Numb of the 6th Vol. is a sufficient defence of their Abilities in Poetry since he that cou'd write so well must be a competent judge I shall conclude this second Part of this History with a defence of their Complesance for the Fair Sex in Answering their Queries which has been extreamly resented by the Wits and other Emulators of the Society who have themselves in the 13th Number of the 3d. Volume obviated the main Objections of these Sparks that hate the Fair Sex because they are their slaves I believe and 't is pitty they are not so generous to set their Names to their Queries that the Ladies might know their haters In the Mercury I mention'd there is this Query sent them Whether it does not weaken the Credit of the Athenian Mercury that the Authors of it descend to such a pittyful Employment as to take notice of Feminine Impertinences To which the Society answer That they are troubl'd with ten perhaps an hundred Masculine Impertinencies for one Feminine They might have added this Query to the Number Whereas on the other side they have Letters from the Ladies without the boasted advantages of Learning which are of so great concern and carry so much weight that they dare not without considerable Time and Thought attempt their Answer The Society proceeds farther in the same Mercury in this manner For meddling with Questions of Love Courtship and Marriage we might say we design'd thereby to mingle the Dulce and the Utile and a little farther But we scorn to excuse what needs it not but rather ought to be Gloried in since tho' some things of this nature may be pure Matters of Galantry yet there are very many Questions which not only have an influence on the happiness of particular Men and the peace of Families but ev'n the good and welfare of larger Societies and the whole Common-wealth which consists of Families and single Persons Tho' this is sufficient to justifie their answering the Ladies Queries to any moderate and considering opposer yet lest the rest shou'd imagine that I beg the Question and that I take that for granted which they deny I shall wave the Word of this Society that they have received several weighty Queries c. from them and prove by undeniable Examples both of the present and the past Ages that the Women have as Nice a sense of things and as good Judgments too as most Men. 'T is true that here in England the Women are kept from all Learning as the prophane Vulgar were of old from the Misteries of the Ancient Religions and therefore are not generally so agreeable in Conversation to Men of Parts and Sence because a new Dress Dance Play c. is all they can discourse of tho' this is far

from holding ev'n here in England through all for there are a great many who in spite of the Tyranny of Custom will steal some Minutes from the Needle to improve their Minds and this Society without doubt will with their performances envite a great many more to the same when they shall see the Beauties of Philosophy in so sweet and easie a Dress and then their Conversation would be far more agreeable to the wiser part of the World than the impertinent Chatt too many not by their own faults are now guilty of This is evident to any man that has ever been in France and convers'd with the Women of the better quality there whose Apprehensions are more quick and discourse upon any Subject or in any Science I will not except the most profound parts of Philosophy more à propos and ingenious than the Men their Wit and Notions are indeed extreamly surprizing I am confident by the acquaintance I have had the honor to have with some of the Refin'd of that Sex here that our English Women would not be inferior to them in any qualification of the Mind if they were but bless'd with as happy an Education Nay I am apt to think they would as far surpass the French Ladies in Knowledg as in Beauty The entertaining Notions of Philosophy are not the only Subjects of the Ladies Studies in France Madam de Maintenon will prove that the weighty movements of State-affairs are not above the direction of that Sex And she that writ the Memoirs of the Court of Spain shews that they are capable of making politic Observations on the nicest Occurrences Madam Dacier is an extraordinary Proof that the most crabbed Studies are not look'd into by them without the greatest success Her Endeavours on Plautus Terence and Horace shew that Women are capable of being as nice and critical Judges of Sence and Learning as Men nay those Essays I have mention'd of this French Lady excel all that has been done in that kind particularly all the Pedantic Labors of those plodding Iesuites who have publish'd Notes upon the Classic Authors for the use of the Dolphin I am not ignorant that some will urge that she was beholden to her Husband for those upon Horace yet these Gentlemen cannot deny that Plautus and Terence were publish'd when she was yet Madam la Fevre I cannot but mention the Lady Donna Oliva Sabuco reckoned amongst the greatest Scholars she advancing in her Studies c. to the end Spain and the whole World might receive some Advantage thereby she began a new and most ingenious method of Physic she wrote to the most august Philip II to obtain the establishing of her Followers as the Public Physicians and in her Treatise called The New Physic she learnedly Dialogue wise censures the Physic of the Ancients and most famous Authors have since laid claim to many things boasting themselves the first Discoverers of them whereof she had full knowledg and long before did publish them in her learned Books For a farther Proof of this point I shall in a few words touch upon some of the eminent Women of Antiquity I will pass over the Politic Semiramis the valiant and no less politic Thamyris Queen of Scythia who not only engaged Cyrus but overcame him by outwitting him destroying him by his own Stratagem Nor will I instance Sempronia mention'd by Salust in his Catiline's Conspiracy as learned and witty Nor will I particularize the fifteen eminent Women that taught in the School of Pythagoras All that will be necessary here will be a short enumeration of the Names of some of most Ages as Magalostrate a Mistriss worthy of Acman a Lyric Poet that flourish'd in the 27th Olympiade the often celebrated Sappho great in Lyric Elegy and all manner of Poetry in the 42d ' Olympiade with her Friend Erinna and contemporary Demophila Theano the Wife of Pythagoras both a Philosophress and Poetess in the 56th Olympiade Cleobulina about the 70th Olympiade Corinna Telestia Praxilla betwixt the Battel of Marathon and the Peace of Antalcidas Aspasia between that Peace and the taking of Athens by Lysander Cornificia among the Romans Sister to Cornificius the Poet in the second year of the 184th Olympiade Athenais afterward Eudoxia in the Reign of Theodosius the younger and Pulcheria Sister to the same Theodosius Among the modern Italians Angela Daughter to Anthony de Nugaroles Modesta Lucretia Marinella who writ a Poem on the Nobility of Womankind Olympia Clara Magdalena Acciaiolia Valeria Miainia Anna Maria Schurman a Flemming To these I might add of our own Nation in the time of Henry VIII Sir Thomas Moor's Daughter who translated several of her Father's Latin Works Mrs. Elizabeth Carew Mrs. Ann Asoue Mrs. Elizabeth Weston Nor must I forget Queen Elizabeth her self who was not only a politic but learned Princess and nearer our own times Mrs. Katherina Philips commended by the great Cowly and of my own knowledg Mrs. Behn who was not only an excellent Poetess but discoursed very refinedly on any Subject that came in her way I could name another that surpasses all these if I feared not to offend her Modesty by publishing her name This is enough to satisfie the World that the Society have advanced nothing but Truth in that Affirmation before quoted and therefore that their deference to the fair Sex merits not that Condemnation some of the moroser part of the Town are pleased to give them Nor is it at all derogatory to the Reputation of a Philosopher to meddle with Questions of Love c. since the contemplative and refin'd Plato and Socrates to omit other Philosophers have writ so many soft things on that Subject that Maximus Tyrius no small Admirer of Plato says That he is amaz'd to find Plato and Socrates banishing Homer out of their Cities for containing light and amorous things when they themselves have writ far more light and amorously Yet I find this not objected by any of the Opposers of these Philosophers as a Crime or Defect they being only here condemn'd by Tyrius because they forbid the reading of Homer for what they thought fit to mingle in their own Works This short View of their Performances makes it evident what Advantage the Public will reap from their Endeavours and how much Knowledg will be in a little time improv'd For as they very modestly express it a diffusing that Knowledg to many which is already familiar to the Learned is an improvement of it I will produce their own words being a very moderate and much too civil Answer which they give to a very conceited and impertinent Quaerist The Quaery is this Why you pretend to such strange things and yet in effect tell the World no more than what we all know already This Quaery so worthy of Contempt and Laughter deserv'd no other Answer than Silence but after they had wittily rally'd it they give a serious Return with a great deal of Ingenuity and Modesty even