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. It is true, their first commission was but short, and long since expired, they being designed only to visit and respectively satisfy 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 further embassy 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 fire, ‡ a doom, you say, once written upon them. Nor do I less approve your ingenious prudence in determining to prefix no Name, it being as laudable not to speak all the truth sometimes, as to forbear telling a lie for advantage. 'Tis, I confess, the mode of late to hang jewels of gold in a swine's snout: I mean, to stamp every impertinent Pamphlet with * Prefixed to the Five Cases, published in 1666. † De Carthagine silere melius puto, quam parum dicere. Sallust. Jugurth. xix. Quoted by Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ii. 13. De Carthagine tacere satius puto, quam parum dicere.' fire.' So in a MS. of the Case of Marrying with a Recusant, belonging to the late Sir J. E. Dolben, the correcter readings of which Dr. Routh noted some years ago on the margin of his own Copy. The printed books exhibit first.' 4 some great name or voluminous title, to make it vend the betterLaudat venales qui vult extrudere merces—at which the gulled Reader, repenting his prodigality of time and patience, is forced to cry out all along, Beaucoup de bruit, peu de fruit, and in the end sums up its just character in a few words, Nil nisi magni nominis umbra. But yours is the only method to deal with wise and rational men, who are not so easily taken with chaff, (the multitude or greatness of words and names,) as with the true weight and worth of things. Yet let me tell you that whoever is not a mere stranger to your learned Author's former Tractates, must needs spell his name in every page of this without any other monitor. I have no further trouble to give you, * unless I should bespeak your vigilance over the Press, which, by her daily teeming and inexpertness, † 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 gratify the most unworthy of his Admirers. In subsequent Editions, when the number of the Cases was increased from Five to Eight, the four preceding paragraphs were omitted; and the opening of this was altered to, I have no further trouble to give you, but to thank you for these excellent pieces of the same hand and stamp, as every intelli gent Reader will easily discern; with which, as an accession to this Edition, your care and piety hath obliged the Public. Only again let me bespeak your vigilance over the Press,' &c. +'inexpertness' Dolben MS. The printed Books, 'expertness.' THE CASE OF THE SABBATH.* To my very loving Friend, Mr. Tho. Sa. at S. B. Nottingh. March 28, 1634. SIR, WHEN by your former Letter you desired my present Resolution in two Questions therein proposed concerning the Sabbath, although I might not then satisfy your whole desire, being loath to give in my opinion before I had well weighed it, *First printed, anonymously, in 1636, with this Title-page: A Sovereign Antidote against Sabbatarian Errours, or a Decision of the Chief Doubts and Difficulties touching the Sabbath. Wherein these three Questions (beside others coincident) are clearly and succinctly determined, viz.' [as in the body of the Case, p. 7.] By a reverend, religious, and judicious Divine. London, Printed by Tho. Harper for Benjamin Fisher, and are to be sold at his shop in Aldersgate Street at the Signe of the Talbot, 1636:' with this Imprimatur at the end of the Tract, 'Perlegi brevem hunc Tractatum de Sabbato, in quo nihil reperio sanae fidei, aut bonis moribus contrarium. Tho. Weekes, R. P. Ep. Lond. Cap. Domest.' And with the following Address to the Reader prefixed. 'It is a matter of great use and necessity to have now in remembrance the admonition of the Apostle and Teacher of the Gentiles, Remember them which have the rule over you: obey them, and submit yourselves, Heb. xiii. 7, 17. and esteem them very highly in love for their works sake, I Thess. v. 13. And it is not without reason; because in the House of God, which is the Church of the living God, they work the work of the Lord, and they watch for our sake as they that must give account, 1 Tim. iii. 15. I Cor. xvi. 10. Heb. xiii. 17. Whose office is so honourable, that God Himself not only hath given a charge, that every man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the Priest, the man shall be put away from Israel, but hath also severally this inobediency punished. The wrath of the Lord arose against His people, and gave them into the hands of the King of Chaldees, because they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words and misused His Prophets. Deut. xvii. 12, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16. Yet this is the contumacy and madness of some boasters, and some unthankful men, which no_otherwise, but as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, 2 Tim. iii. 8, so they them, whom Divine Oracle hath adjudged to be worthy of double honour, 1 Tim. v. 17, saying in effect to them as Korah did (with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes) to Moses and Aaron; Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them: wherefore then lift you up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? Num. xvi. 3. The experiment of these things gives every day our England, in the yet that I might not seem altogether to decline the task imposed on me by you, I engaged myself by promise, within short time, to send you what upon further consideration I should conceive thereof. Which promise, so far as my many distractions and occasions* would permit, I endeavoured to perform by perusing the books you sent me, in the one whereof I found, written on the spare paper with your hand, a note moving a third Question, about the Name of the Sabbath also; and by looking up and reviewing such scattered notes as I had touching that subject. But then I met with difficulties so many and great, whereof the more I considered, the more still I found them to increase, that I saw it would be a long work, and take up far more time than I could spare, to digest and enlarge what seemed needful to be said in the three Questions, in such sort as was requisite to give any tolerable satisfaction either to myself or others. Wherefore I was eftsoons minded to have excused myself, by Letter to you, from further meddling with these Questions, and to have remitted you over for better satisfaction to those men, that have both better leisure to go about such a business, and better abilities to go through with it than I have. For to Questions of importance, better business of the Sabbatarians, who, "Therefore, to avoid this confusion, |