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Advertisement to the Reader, or Direction to the Answerer. - James Harrington, The Oceana and Other Works [1656]

Edition used:

The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington, with an Account of His Life by John Toland (London: Becket and Cadell, 1771).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Advertisement to the Reader, or Direction to the Answerer.

THE answer of this book must ly in proving that the apostles, at the several times and places mention’d, introduc’d but one way of ordination, and that the same to which divines now pretend: or if the apostles divided, that is to say, introduc’d divers ways of ordination, then the people or magistrat may chuse.

I have taken the more leisure and pains to state, I think, all the cases of controversy that can arise out of the commonwealth of Oceana, as you have seen in these two books, to the end I may be no more oblig’d to write, and yet not omit writing on any occasion that shall be offer’d; for if my principles be overthrown (which when I see, I shall most ingenuously confess with thanks to the author) such an acknowlegement will ly in a little room; and this failing, I am deceiv’d if I shall not now be able to shew any writer against me that his answer is none, within the compass of three or four sheets.

This also will be the fittest way for boys-play, with which I am sure enough to be entertain’d by the quibling university-men; I mean a certain gang of ’em, who having publicly vanted that they would bring 40 examples against the balance, and since laid their caps together about it, have not produc’d one. These vants of theirs offering prejudice to truth and good principles, were the cause why they were indeed press’d to shew som of their skill; not that they were thought fit judges of these things, but first that they had declar’d themselves so, and next that they may know they are not.