TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, AND MY MOST

HONOURED LORD,

GEORGE,

LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, AND METROPOLITAN, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.

MOST REVEREND FATHER, AND NO LESS HONOURED LORD:

IT was my desire and hope, to spend the residue of my time and thoughts, in sweet and sacred Contemplation. Satan, envying me this happiness, interrupts me by the malice of an importunate adversary.

Twelve years ago, I wrote a little Apologetical Letter for the Marriage of Persons Ecclesiastical: and now, thus late, when I had almost forgot that I had written it, a moody Mass-Priest drops out a tedious and virulent Refutation; through my sides striking at the most honourable and flourishing Clergy of the whole Christian world; labouring, not so much for my disgrace (what would that avail him?) as the dishonour and scorn of our holy profession, in the eyes of our people.

I could contemn it in silence, if the quarrel were only mine: now, my wrong cannot be distinguished from thousands. God and his Church are engaged in this cause, which, in my foil, could not but sustain loss: neither may I be now silent, with safety; without misconstruction. Let this hand and tongue be no longer mine, than they may serve my master in Heaven, and his Spouse on Earth.

That, which I wrote in some three hours, he hath answered in three quaternions of years; and, what I wrote in three leaves, he hath answered in no fewer pages than three hundred and eighty. Should I follow him in this proportion, he might, after some centuries of years, expect an answer in Tostatus-hides, whose first word should be Quis leget hæc? Or, if my patience would delay my reply to the just paces of his answer, this volume of his would perhaps

See Epistles: Decade ii. Epistle 3.-Vol. vii, pp. 149-155. of this edition. EDITOR.

be vanished into grocers' shops for waste paper, in thuris piperísve cucullos; and would no more need answer, than now it deserveth one. But, hearing of the insultation of some popishly affected, who gloried and triumphed in this Achilles pro Catholicis, I addressed myself to the work, with no little indignation, and no less speed; that my self-conceited adversary and his seduced abettors may see, how little a well-ordered marriage is guilty of deading our spirits, or slacking our hands.

At the beginning of this summer's progress, when it pleased his Sacred Majesty to take notice of this sorry libel, and to question with me concerning it, I had not so much as read it over; so newly was it come to my hands. Ere his happy return, be it spoken to the only glory of him that enabled me, I had not only finished this answer, but twice written it over with my own hand; and yet made this but the recreation of the weightier businesses of my calling, which now did more than ordinarily urge me.

It was my purpose to have answered, as beseemeth the person à quo not ad quem, mildly; according to my known disposition: but, upon better deliberation, I found the insolency of my Refuter such, that I could not favour him, and not be cruel to my cause. If, therefore, for many (it is his own art and word) "railative" pages, he receive from my unwilling and enforced pen, now and then, though not a "railative" to such an antecedent, yet, perhaps, some drop of sharper vinegar, than my ink useth to be tempered withal, he may forgive me, and must thank himself.

What needed this cause so furious an invective? as if the kingdom of heaven and all religion consisted in nothing, but maidenhead or marriage? Cardinal Bellarmin, when he speaks of the Greek Church, wherein a married Clergy is both allowed and required, shuts up moderately: That if this were all the difference betwixt them and the Roman Church, they should soon be at peace*. If my Refuter had so thought, this had not been his first controversy. Both estates meet in heaven. John, the virgin, rests in the bosom of married Abraham. This inordinate heat, therefore, of prosecution rises from faction; not from holy zeal.

Hence it was, that my adversary cunningly singled out this point from many others, ranged in my poor discourses; as that, wherein, by Bishop Jewell's confession, he might promise to himself the likeliest advantage of antiquity.

And how gloriously doth he vaunt himself, in the ostentation of Fathers and Councils! Which vain flourish, how little it avails him, the process shall shew: where it shall appear, upon what grounds no small piece of antiquity was partial to virginity, and over-harsh to marriage; as Beatus Rhenanus, a learned and ingenuous Papist confesseth +.

* Si errorem alium non haberent, facilè pax concederetur. Bell. de Cleric,

1. 1. c. 21.

B. Rhenan. Arg. lib. de Exhort. Castit. Tertull.

But this we may boldly say, that if those holy men had outlived the bloody times; and seen the fearful inconveniences, which would, after a settled peace, ensue upon the ambition or constraint of a denied continency; they had, doubtless, changed their note; and, with the moderate and wisest spirits of the later times, pleaded for that liberty which the Reformed Church now enjoyeth. The universal concession whereof, after the private suffrages of worthy authors* came to a public treaty in the Roman Church, amidst the throng of their late Tridentine Council: and it is worth the while to observe, on what grounds it received a repulse. "If priests should be allowed marriage," say those wily Italians, "it would follow that they would cast their affections on their wives and children; and, consequently, on their families and countries: whereupon would cease that strait dependance, which the Clergy hath upon the See Apostolic. Insomuch as, to grant their marriages, were as much as to destroy the hierarchy of the Church; and to reduce the Pope within the mere bounds of the Roman Bishopric."

This was the plea of the Clergy. Their thrifty Laity, together with them, enemies to the blessing, (or, as they construe it, the curse) of fruitfulness, are wont to plead, Troppo teste 1. Our Gregory Martin §, of old, computes the prejudicial increase, that might arise from these marriages to the commonwealth. It is not religion, but wit, that now lies in our way. Fond men, that dure thus offer to control the wisdom of their Maker, and will be tying the God of Heaven to their rules of state.

As it is, no Church in the whole world, except the Roman, stands upon this restraint: whereof the consequences have been so notoriously shameful, that we might well hope, experience would have wrought, if not redress of their courses, yet silence of ours. And, surely, if this man had not presumed, that, by reason of the long discontinuance of Popery, time had worn out of men's minds the memory of their odious filthinesses, he durst not thus boldly have pleaded for their abominable celibate. The question whereof, after all busy discussions and pretences of age, must be resolved into no other than this, How far the tradition of a particular Church is worthy to prevail against Scripture; yea, and against other Churches: a point, which a very weak judgment will be able to determine. In this return of my Defence, I do neither answer every idle

mus, &c.

Eneas Sylvius. Panormitan. Durandus. Peresius. Mantuanus. Eras+ Che Coll' introductione del matrimonio de' Preti si farebbe, che tutti voltassetto l'affetto ed amor loro alle moglie, a' figli, è per consequenza alla casa, ed alla patria; onde cesserebbe la dependenza stretta che l' Ordine Clericale ha con la Sede Apostolica, è tanto sarebbe Conceder il matrimonio a Preti, quanto distrugger la Hierarchia Ecclesiastica; et ridur il Pont. che non fosse piu che Vescovo di Roma. Histor. Concil. Trid. p. 662.

Troppo feste, troppo teste, troppo tempeste. Vid. Dallingt. Observ. upon Guicciard.

§ Doctor Mart. against Pet. Mart.

clause, nor omit any essential. This length of mine is no less forced, than my adversary's continency: wherein yet my reader shall not sigh under an irksome loquacity.

I presume to dedicate this unworthy labour to your Grace, whom this famous Church daily blesseth, as her wise, faithful, and vigilant overseer; as a renowned pattern of holy virginity, and patron of holy marriage. The God of Heaven, whose watch you carefully keep, preserve you long to his Church; and make us long happy in your Grace, and you ever happy in his plentiful blessings. Such shall ever be the prayers of,

JOSEPH HALL.

THE

ANSWER

TO THE

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE man begins with a threat: I may not but tremble.

He frights me with an universal detection of my errors. It is almost as easy to find faults, as to make them. Perhaps, the time had been as well spent, in tossing of his beads. How happy a man am I, that shall see all my oversights! My comfort is, that if my tree were fruitless there would be no stone thrown at it.

In the mean while, how well doth the title of a Detector become him, that hides himself! If he be not afraid or ashamed of his cause, let his name be known, that his victories may be recorded. It is an injurious and base advantage, to strike and hide; and, after a pitched duel, to gall a fixed adversary out of loop-holes. If his person be, upon some treasonable act, obnoxious; it is hard, if some of his names be not free.

But, if I must needs be matched with the shadow of a libeller, I will so take him, as he decyphers himself: C. E. Cavillator Egregius: and, under this true style of his, am ready to encounter him; and do here bid defiance to an insolent and unjust adversary.

And, first, let me tell my Caviller, this order is preposterous. If all my errors be at the mouth of the press, how is it that two or three of them are thus suffered to outrun their fellows? Was his malice so big with these, that it could not stay the time of the common delivery Needs must they be notorious falsehoods, that are thus singled out from the rest. Let them appear in their own shapes; ugly, doubtless, and prodigious. The first is, "That most shame. less assertion, that Bellarmin, under his own hand, acknowledges two hundred and thirty seven Contrarieties of Doctrine amongst Catholics." Could the man but have patience, he should find above three hundred †. What says my Detector to this? He hath not seen the severals; yet, like a brave man at arms, he professes to kill his enemy, ere he can appear: and tells us those two hundred and thirty seven Contrarieties, are nothing but two hundred and

* See Epistles: Decade iii. Ep. 5. Reckoned out of Pappus's Enumeration. + My "Peace of Rome," makes up 303.

his