A Case for the Spectacles, License – Dedication
LIbrum hunc, cui titulus (A Case for the Spectacles, &c.) cum nihil contineat Orthodoxae Fidei, bonisve moribus adversarium, sed multa egregiè docta, fructum{que} studiosis Lectoribus haud vulgarem allatura, dignum censeo, qui typis in publicum proferatur.
Decemb. 4. 1637. THO: WYKES R. P. Episc: Lond: Capell. domest.
A Case for the Spectacles, OR, A Defence of VIA TUTA, The Safe Way, By Sir HVMPHREY LYNDE Knight, In Answer to a Book written by J.R. called, A PAIRE OF SPECTACLES, Together with a Treatise Intituled, STRICTURAE IN LYNDOMASTYGEM, by way of Supplement to the Knights Answer, where he left off, prevented by Death. AND, A Sermon preached at his Funerall, at Cobham, Iune 14th 1636.
By DANIEL FEATLEY, D. D.
The way of the Lord is streight, and the just shall walke therein; but the wicked shall fall therein. Hos. 14.9.
Insanis veritas scandalum est, & caecis Doctoribus fit caligo quod lumen est. Leo Magn. Serm. 1. de Epiph.
LONDON, Printed by M. P. for Robert Milbourne, at the signe of the Vnicorne in Fleet-street, neere Fleet-Bridge. 1638.
TO THE RIGHT Reverend Father in God, THOMAS, By Divine Providence, Lord B. of DURESME, &c.
May it please your good Lordship;
AFTER I had taken a resolution to apologize for my departed friend, and make a kind of hedge to his Via tuta, I seriously bethought my selfe, who would maimtaine the fence, by one so made; and patronize this patronage of that his worthy worke. For though the cause in hand, be the truth of God; and the person whom I undertake to defend against the Calumniations of his Adversarie, be now foreign, out of the eye of(a)Horat. Od. 14. l. 3. Sublatum ex oculis quaerimus invidi. Ovid. l. 3. De Pont Pascitur in vivis livor post fata quiescit. Et Iuvenal. Sat. 1. Nulli gravus est p…rcussus Achilles, aut multum quaesitus Hylas. envie, and the reach of malice; yet I well know, that neither the consideration of the one, nor regard to the other, will prove any Amulet against the poyson of the(b)Aristoph. in Plut. foreign, id est, annulis medicinalis aut antidotus. Sycophants tooth, or venom of the Detracters tongue. Death I grant, which sets a period to all suits in Courts, should grant a Supersedeas of Course, against all Arrests and molestations of them who have taken Sanctuarie in the grave; and therefore(c)Brusonius facet et exemp. l. 1. Solon legem condidit, quâ prohibuit in desunctos maledicta consicere. Et Theodorus Chius censuit Pompeium in aegypt, admittendum addens Mortuos non mordere. Erasm. Apoph. p. 374. Selon enacted a Law, whereby, under a great penaltie, he prohibited any to cast any foule aspersion on the dead. And(d)Bruson. ibid. Asinius Pollio cum orationes condidisset in Plancum quas post mortem ejus legendas servabat audiit à Planco, cum mortuus non nisi larvas pugnare. Plancus sharply reproved the folly of Asinius Pollio (who threatned to stigmatize him after his death, by publishing his declamations against him) saying, None but Hobgoblins fight with ghosts. Notwithstanding this privilege granted to the dead, even by the Law of Nature; I cannot remember without horrour, nor expresse without griefe, what the Acts and Monuments of the Church, present to the view of all men, concerning Popish malice surviving life it selfe, and committing inhumane (not onelyonly unchristian) outrages on the corpes, and not lesse upon the workes of Orthodoxe Professors now with God. The blessed Martyr, Saint(e)Cypr. de lap. & Ep. l. 2. Saevitum est in plagas, saevitum est in vulnera: & in servis Dei non jam membra torquebantur sed vulnera: manabat pro fletibus sanguis, & pro laechrymū cruor…e semiustulatis visceribus defluebat. Cyprian, setting the cruelty of the heathen, as it were, upon the Racke, could straine no higher after hee had said, These Salvage Persecutors wreake their furie on the brused, and battered servants of Christ; and torture not so much their members as their wounds. Yet there is a Plus ultra in the enraged malice of our Romish Adversaries, Saevitum est in cadavera, saevitum est in ossa, saevitum est in cineres. For they(f)Vide hist. de mort. Spalatensis. M.S. Arraigne the dead, they sue against them an Ejection out of their long homes, and interre them in(g)Acts and Monuments, volume 3. pag. 778. The body of Peter Martyrs wife, at Oxford, was taken up by Doctor Marshall out of her grave, in the Church of Saint Frideswids, and buried in a dunghill. Lestals; nay they burne their(h)Acts and Monuments, vol. 1. p. 606. The body, and bones of Iohn Wickliffe, by the Decree of the Synod of Constance, were taken up & burned, 41. yeares after he was buried, in his owne Pa…ish at Lutterworth, and his ashes taken & throwne into the river; and so was hee resolved into three elements, Earth, Fire, and Water: thinking thereby, utterly to exstinguish and abolish both his name and Doctrine for ever. Acts & Monuments, volume 3. pag. 771. The Vicechancelior taking with him a publike Notarie, bound the Parishioners with an oath, to digge up Paulus Fargius his bones: and received the like oath of Roger Davis, and William Hazell, for doing the like with Martin Bucer, when they came to the place of execution, the Chests were set up an end, with the dead bodies in them, and fastened on both sides with stakes, and bound to the post with a long iron chaine, fire being forthwith put to, as soone as it began to flame round about, a great sort of bookes that were condemned with them, were cast into the same. bones, and strew their ashes on the rivers.
Tantene animis coelestibus irae?
Loe the bowels of them who most boast of workes of MercieMercy, towards the bodies of true Professors, whilome, Temples of the holy Ghost: yet their charitie to their soules, exceeds this; for these they peremptorily exclude out of heaven, and send them pell-mell, without Baile, or Mainprise, to the dungeon of hell; and there sentence them to more exquisite (k)Coccleus hist. Hussit. l. 2. Multo graviora esse crediderim Wicklefi tormenta quam sint apud inferos, vel sceleratissimorum hominum Iudae proditoris Christi, & Neronis Christianorum persecutoris.torments, than either Nero the monster of men, or Iudas the betrayer of Christ himselfe, indure. Of this(i)Edmund. Camp. rat. 10. Calvinum & hes principes unum coelum capere non potest. Et Fishers resp. to Doctor White, and Doctor Fearley. c. 2. p. 152. Out of the unity of the Romish Church, no salvation. Et Coster resp. ad resut. Osiander proposit. 8. wisheth himselfe damned with Lucifer, if ever my Lutheran were saved. straine is the Knights(l)Flood, Spect. c. 17. per tot. Papists dying in their Reliligion saved, Protestants damned. Alastor, with whom I am to deale; whose perfect character your Lordship may see in Sozimus, drawne to the life by Isidorus Pelusiota, foreign, as your Lordship may find likewise, an exact Emblem of his booke in Plinie his description of the(m)Plin. nat. hist. l. 9. c. 36. Beares whelpe, Jnformis caro sine oculis, sine pilis, ungues tantum prominent? In which consideration, I thought it most needfull to make choise of a Patron of eminent qualitie,(n)Ben. Syr. Apoph. foreign, Sapiens nutu stultus fuste, Drus. in Alph. vet. sap. foreign. who with his Authoritie, might stoppe the mouth of such railing Rabshakah's; and if need be, lend them a smart blow with his Crozure, as(o)Hom. Is. foreign. Ʋlisses did Thersites with his golden Scepter. Now, although the Knight vvanted not many Noble and vvorthie friends, and some of your Lordships Sacred order, who honoured him living, and would willingly have afforded him their protection being dead. Yet two reasons were prevalent with me, to dedicate this Apologie to your Lordship. First, because none of your Lordships ranke now living, to my knowledge hath so often entered into Lists with the Romish Adversaries, nor served so long in this sacred Leguer as your Lordship; in so much, that at my aboade in France, now 25. yeares agoe: where I saw the(p)Fitzg: Hector Romulidum cecidit sub Achille Iuello. Rhemensi Hannibali Scipio Fulcus erat. Tum cor papicolis Rainoldus fregit in Harto. Alba Stapletonum jugera deinde premunt: Ac cedes nostris pretium Deringe papyris. Nec gemmae Renues Annulus ire comes. Abfuit Ely siis tantum sua Laurea lucis. Te Deus in lu…os transtulit ergo suos. Armes of other Champions of the truth blazoned in a Latin Epigram, I descried your Lordships among them in an apposite Anagram, made by a renowned Pastor of the French Church.
THOMAS MORTONIVS homo Martis notus.
With this, or the like Euloge.
Quassanda est istâ Pelias hasta manu.
The other reason was, your Lordship in your last, no lesse unimitable, then unanswerable(q)Mort. institut. sacram. l. 3. c. 3. p. 158. Of Rom. Transub. This sentence I have seene lately canvased by a Iesuit against a judicious and religious Knight, falsly imputing unto him diverse falsities, &c. And l. 7. c. 7. pag. 545. Your Iesuit in his booke of Spectacles made in confutation of a judicious and religious Knight, among many other of his Paradoxes and Absurdities &c. masterpiece, held up your buckler over the Knight then living, more then once, and ward off the Iesuits blowes; and therefore I doubt not but that your Lordship will now bestride him being dead, and save him from all further injury. For my selfe, as nothing induced me to make this supplement to his Apologie, but the love of Gods truth, and the truth of my friends love: so I hope that all who love the truth in sincerity, upon the impartiall perusall hereof, will doe the Knight honour, and me right. For envie it selfe cannot denie that he hath much advantaged the common cause, both by convincing the Adversaries, in all the maine p…ints of difference betweene us, out of their owne mouthes, and discovering more at large then any the mystery of their Indices expurgatorij; wherein though they professe to correct onelyonly their owne writers, and that but from the yeare 1518. yet the Knight hath traced them upwards, and detected their corruption of all sorts of Writers in all former ages: whereby the judicious Reader may observe such indirect dealing in our Adversaries towards us, as(r)Melancth. orat. Tom 1. de Od Sophist. Cum triginta Tyranni legem tulissent, ne quis è suo Catalogo in dictâ causâ necaretur Critias tamen Therammenem collegam suum, cujus nomen in Catalogo scriptum erat, in dictâ causâ interfici jussit cumque Therammenes legis occiliū peteret, respondet, legem scriptam esse de iis quorum nomina sunt in Catalogo, se vero jam Therammenes nomen in Catalogo delevisse. Critias in the Athenian State practised against Therammenes: there being a law enacted in the time of the 30. Tyrants at Athens, that none of them should be put to death without a legall tryall, whose names were written in a certaine Catalogue, Critias bearing a spleene to Therammenes, first blots his name out of the Catalogue, and then proceeds to sentence him to death; and when Therammenes pleaded the priviledge of the law, as being one of the thirty Governours, whose name was set downe in the Catalogue; Critias answered, that the benefit of the law was restrained to those whose names were in the Catalogue; but that he had newly strucke out the name of Therammenes. Let any that hath a single eye, judge whether the proceedings of our Romish Adversaries against us, are not altogether as injurious as this of Critias towards his Collegue Therammenes. First, they raze out our Records, and burne our writings, and then nonsuit us for want of Evidence. Secondly, they blot and cut out by their Indices Expurgatorij, the most pregnant testimonies of Antiquity for us, and then charge us with false Allegations, because, forsooth, they agree not with their castrated Copies. I freely confesse that if any man shall search all the Knights quotations, especially out of the Romish Writers, in the latter corrected, or rather corrupted Editions of them, or looke upon him through the Iesuits Spectacles unrubbed, he will thinke him very foule in some Allegations at least: but let him in quire into the more Auncient and uncorrupted Copies, or looke upon the Knights writings without the Iesuits false glasses, and glosses, or even through those Spectacles he hath fitted for him in this last Pamphlet; as they are now wiped and clensed by me, he will finde him a most faire and ingenuous Writer.
There is no text of Scripture among many scores, no Allegation of Antiquity among many hundreths, vellicated by the Iesuit, which is not here vindicated: no argument seeming to be blunted, which is not sharpened, and a new edge set on it; no paint, colour, or varnish layed by the Iesuit on the rotten Pillars of Popery, which is not here scraped out, or washed away. And thus at the length the Case for the Spectacles begunne by the Knight is finished: on which I crave leave to imprint your Lordships Name and Armes; entreating your Lordship to accept this Dedication as an indication of my sincere love to my deceased friend, and withall an acknowledgment of that great debt of thankes I owe your Lordship for your Lordships many undeserved favours, which I am able no other wayes to discharge, then by underwriting my selfe,
Your Lordships most humbly and affectionatly Devoted, DA. FEATLEY.