Nine Cases of Conscience, Frontispiece – Imprimatur
NINE CASES OF Conscience: Occasionally Determined BY The late Reverend Father in god, ROBERT SANDERSON Lord Bishop of LINCOLN.
HEB. XI. 4.
He Being Dead, yet speaketh.
LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in St Paul's Church Yard 1679.
NINE CASES OF Conscience: Occasionally Determined BY The late Reverend Father in God, ROBERT SANDERSON Lord Bishop of LINCOLN.
HEB. xi. 4.
He being Dead, yet speaketh.
LONDON: Printed for H. Brome, J. Wright, and C. Wilkinson, and are to be sold at the Gun at the West-end of S. Pauls, the Crown upon Ludgate-hill, and the Black-boy in Fleet-street. 1678.
A LETTER from a Friend concerning the ensuing CASES.
SIR,
HAving perused the Papers you sent me, I can safely vouch them for Genuine, and not in the least Spurious, by that resemblance they wear of their Reverend Author; and therefore you need not fear to bring them to the Public Test, and let them look the Sun in the face.
'Tis true, their first Commission was but short, and long since expired, they being designed only to visit and respectively satisfie some private Friends; yet I cannot see what injury you will offer to his sacred ashes, if, by renewing that, you send them on a little farther Embassie for the common good.
Indeed the least remains of so matchless a Champion, so invincible an Advocate in foro Theologico, like the filings and fragments of Gold, ought not to be lost; and pity the world was not worthy many more of his learned Labours.
But—Praestat de Carthagine tacere quam pauca dicere, far be it from me to pinion the wings of his Fame, with any rude Letters of Commendation; or, by way of precarious Pedantry, to court any man into a belief of his worth, since that were to attempt Iliads after Homer, and spoil a piece done already to the life by his own Pencil, the works whereof do sufficiently praise him in the gates.
All I aim at is, to commend and promote your pious intention, to give the world security, by making these Papers public, that they shall never hereafter stand in need of any other hand to snatch them out of the first, a doom (you say) once written upon them.
I have no farther trouble to give you, but to thank you for these excellent Pieces of the same Hand and Stamp (as every intelligent Reader will easily discern) with which as an accession to this Edition, yourCare and Piety hath obliged the Publick: Only again let me be speak your vigilance over the Press; which by her dayly teeming and expertness, or (at least) negligence of the Midwife, is wont of late to spoil good births with monstrous deformities, and unpardonable Errata; so you will avoid a double guilt contracted by some without fear or wit, of abusing your critical Reader on the one hand, and your most judiciously exact Writer on the other; and (if that may contribute any thing more) very much gratifie the most unworthy of his Admirers.
The Eight Cases Determined.
I. Of Marrying with a Recusant 1
II. Of Unlawful Love 11
III. Of a Military Life 40
IV. Of Scandal 75
V. Of a Bond taken in the King's Name 82
VI. Of the Engagement 88
VII. Of a Rash Vow 114
VIII. Of the Sabbath 137
IX. Of the Liturgy 157
Imprimatur.
John Hall, R. P. D. Episc. Lond. à Sac. Domestic. May 30. 1665.