Of Divorce for Adultery, Note to the reader
AN OTHER NOTE FOR THE Reader.
THis former Treatice being thus finished, yet is there one thing more (gentle Reader) that farther I am by late occasion, to impart vntounto thee: nothing at all appertaining to the matter before; but only for that it lighteth on the time of the publishing of it. The matter is no more, but this.
I hauehave already divers times heard, that certaine of the favorites of R. P. (the supposed Author of the Resolution) would not beleeue that I had made any answere vntounto him for such matters, as hee, in the preface of his second edition of the same (which was, 1585) had charged me withall. And for these, I contented me selfe to let thē vnderstand, that I had answered him many yeeres before: as it is knowne wel enough I had done (so far as an whole Impression might serue to witnes it) now about twentie yeeres since.
But now of late I perceiue, that himselfe also doth not take with his Answere, or will not be acknowne of it: & this doe I gather, for that nowe (a fewe daies since) I finde, that having set forth that Book again, but about two yeeres past (namely, 1607) and having altered it againe from that it was before (but the first, it may be, will ever proue the best) he nevertheles chargeth me a fresh, with many of those stale matters, answered so manie yeeres past already; but maketh no mention of that mine Answere.
Seeing therfore I came to the knowledge hereof, when this other was yet vnderunder the Presse, I thought it good herewithall to wish this to be marked, that seeing that answer of mine was given forth and published, in the yeere of our Lord 1589; & that since I never heard any thing frō him of the same, & that now he wrāgleth a fresh about some of those his stale matters again, and so grosly (though warily enough on his own behalfe) dissembleth mine Answere to them and the rest: that all good & orderly dealing (of such a kind) was thē somwhat far to seeke in him.
I make no doubt, but that there (in that mine Answere) he noted much more to be obiected, than any way hee was able well to answere (especially, the great vncleannes of all that crew generally; their bad dealing with the Fathers; and so many slips of his owne withall:) and that therefore he would rather see, if, for a flourish, he could not cull out something of his former matters to gibe at againe, to be in lew or steed of some iust Reply, so long expected. But plaine dealing is ever the meetest for all those that stand for the truth and so base shifting, much more sutable to the desperate weaknesse of the cause that he hath in hand.
And if any man shall lay therevnto his bold promise of those other two parts, of that which now he calleth his Directorie, & therein how many yeeres he hath beene hammering about it, & yet could never get out of the first part neither, and the seconde time made it worse than before (even in the iudgement of his owne favourits:) the lesse that this third time also he hath nowe againe answered their expectation, the more may such a man see, what hope he may nourish in himselfe, as touching those others. But me selfe conceived long since (and so did reasonable plainely tell him) that it was not in him to doe, as then he did beare the world in hand: namely, to frame such other two parts, as should be of that argument, and yet sutable to that, which hee had elsewhere borrowed to the first part of it.
An other there is, one Radford by name, a fowle of that feather, who in certaine discourses of his of other matters, published in the yeere 1599, hath beene something chattering against me likewise, in the quarrell of his fellow R. P. before: & yet none otherwise but like to himselfe. Of whō notwithstanding I hauehave alreadie said something▪ somewhat more specially, in a larger Discourse of mine, which now (God willing) next vntounto this, & so but a few daies hence, I trust, is to come to the Presse: and so saie I no more of that matter now. Yet that no man deceiue his expectation therein, both it is but towardes the end of that larger Treatice: and, as hee, in those his other discourses doth no more, but as it were, by the way, take his pleasure on me; so I likewise, following the suit, or, in such like manner, doe giuegive him his answere.
So now againe (gentle Reader) I commend thee to God.
Oxford, Iune, 22. 1610. EDM. BVNNY.