An Apology to my Lord Treasurer

An Apology to my Lord Treasurer: touching a speech uttered unto his Lordship by my Lord of C.

M Y duty remembered to your Lordship. I received your Lordships answer: why your Lordships performed not your promise sent unto me, by Master D. Caesar: for that the Archbishop said: that I had written a book slanderous and erroneous. I must needs confess, that your exception is sage: while the Archbishop is not forced to alter his words. And I might be holden dull, if demanding recompense of twenty years travels, with the principal approbatiō of the best, & the best learned in the Realm, I would take my Lord's Graces speeches for a gracious recompense, and full reward: or think such dealings honorable: or my Lord to be such a scholar, that one of my leisure in study, should yield unto. Wherefore I must crave leave to call his Grace into judgment. And your Honors shall be my judges: I will seek no better. Thus I plead: His Grace denied to my agent, that he said, I had written erroneous: but said, that he said, I had written to the Queen untruly. So, if his Grace doeth not stand to his words, his testimony cannot in any honor be my hindrance. Judge, I pray your Lordship, whether I say true: or not. Now it remaineth, I answer for my writing to the Queen of his Graces determination, whether I can defend myself or not. First, this I hope will appear by writing: that I sent unto his Lordship (by Master Mulcaster ) a full declaration of the controversy betwixt D. R. and myself: that determining upon so much, the strife he should end. I laid down the controversies in three sequeles. The first was: Whether Judah was under Persia but an hundred and thirty years, or two hundred years. Now therein seeing D. R. and I agreed that after Zerobabel built the temple: the time to Alexander was not an hundred years: so the time betwixt Babels fall and the Temple building, was to be tried: whether it were two and thirty years, or 107. years, by both falling to new particulars: That, I clear by nine and forty thousand arguments at once. For, 49000. thousand returned, Esr. 2. and in Ezra 6. the returned built up the Temple. D. R. must prove howe many died: and if the greater half wholly had died, or almost all, yet two, only Zerubbabel and Joshua had been enough for me: both named returners & alive all the while. Thus much his Grace (I trow) could not choose but see. And all Oxford will grant that thus much overturneth my adversary. So reason would warrant me to write of his Grace, that which he could not omit without eternal shame. I hope her Majesty will not be angry with me, for speaking the best of her Archb. that which common entendement would require any man to hold true. By this your temporal Honors will see, that his spiritual Grace disgraceth not me: but his own grace, the Queens Majesty, & the majesty of God's grace: not acknowledging his goodness: which in 49000. Jews lives, in few words burns all Heathen Libraries. Although his Grace having received 50000. pounds of the Church, at the least, knew not of him self, howe the only life of Zerubbabel, or the only of Joshua, of Nehemiah, of Ezra, of Mordecai, of Aggai, of Zachari, overthrew all Heathen study-glory: yet when he saw that D. R. marked the sequel schollerlike: & was driven to invent new opinions against all the world and reason: I hope his Grace will not plead that he saw not which way the determination must pass: or seeing contemned his duty. And if he do, I trust her Majesty will tell him what it is to hold the place of an Archb. unable to perform that which is easy: that a Bachler of art would confidently judge. And thus I hope your Lordships will not think it reason that I should lose all that recompense, which for twenty years pains by the Queens honor of Gouernement should befall me: for commending one of your own order, and near the Church: that he was not far from God herein: but sharp-eyed, true, learned, and honorable. Truly, Syr, I thought it no great pains to afford a man of high place good words, with all advantage of warrant: for honoring such as her Majesty preferred, tendering the quietness of the Church. Although in my conscience I knew that his Grace had but small skill in difficulties about the Bible: as he showeth in complaing that he was commended. To countenance our common weal, I spoke that which his bodily eyes saw: though not the eyes of this mind: and had three reporters from him, to speak that commendation, which of humanity I would afford him. My adversary D. R. affordeth me as good words as any can bestow on any scholar. And if I did not confess that he was the first, that hazarded his fame to try: whether the millions of Christians, that followed Jews on the captivity books all saving Daniel: and on him followed Heathen vnreconciliable: must burn all their agreement, either with the Jews, or all their innumerable writings after the Heathē, if I give not him this high commendation, I should do him injury. All must confess that he shown learning that carried an whole University six years after him: & an Archb. to deny his own decree: and to be guilty of denying all ancient grauntes: and common reason, for the space of the Temples building, a most famous divinity story: & such as, of which a Church man could not with any honor be ignorant. The Pericles that so could lighten, thunder, & mingle Greece, as D. R. did, must needs be holden pericles and full of glory. As I must afford him all good speech: so I would have afforded unto his Grace: but that he doeth plague me for commending his learning, care of truth, and regard of his honor.

The second sequel, which followed upon the first: or, as the vser will, the first upon it, was for Daniel's Chronicle of four hundred and ninety years. Thus it fasteneth unto the other:

My adversary denied the assumption: for which I will tell a story howe he was brought to grant it. A modest learned man of Oxford came to me, with one Edward Phynees, a servant of my honorable Patron, whose reast is in Paradise, Henry the late Earl of Huntingdon: whom my pen must honor, for that he was so deep for judgment in the chief heads of all the Bible, so sincere for affection in the heart of Religion, that he is not like ever to be soon overmatched by any. But for my syllogism. A good scholar of Oxford came to be resolved in our controversy: telling that he marked howe I used mine adversary reuerentlie, and was no worse used by him. But said to the matter: Our D. hath turned all against you: all of all degrees. Then said I, Your self shall turn to me against them presently: if you will speak your conscience. God forbid (quoth he) that I should strive against the light. Then I: Mark the narration whence my demand shall arise. Daniel prayeth at three a clock: or Euening offering the ninth hour by Jews, Act. 4. when Gabriel fleeth to him: and promiseth to teach him wisdom: and saith: Seauentie sevens of years are pared out to bring in Eternal redemption. Herevpon followeth my demand: Speak before God and his Angels, whence must the beginning be taken: Doubtless, saith he, from Daniel's prayer: And where endeth it? Doubtless at our Lord's death. Then said I: Commende me to your D. and tell him from me, that when he hath weighed all, he will judge that he may as well deny all Religion, as make any other limites. Upon his speech the learned man saith in his lecture book: That by all arguments of Scripture, the time should begin from the first of Darius or Cyrus, as I taught: and Septuaginta septimanis cōpletis excisus est Christus. So your Lordship seeth that he granteth my assumption: and the whole controversy. My Lord's Grace hath seen his words in print: and may not plead ignorance. Now the D. considering what an infinite company of books he should condemn, all the West for two thousand years records: and not seeing the millions of Jews, and all Heathen in particulars to be with me, & all the Bibles frame: sought a kind of cure, and said: Restat confirmandum per septuaginta septimanas non posse intelligi annos quadringentos nonaginta: sed alium aliquem numerum incertum per certum. Upon this cometh a third sequel, which I was to fall into by the provocation of D. R. his denial. A chaining of years is from Adam to Cyrus: which showeth that thence it must be proper: as no wise goldsmith beginneth a chain but to make it up: and breaking off in any one place, disannulleth the use of all. Then said he: The time is not chayned thither, from Adams fall to Babels. Upon that I wrote a book, proving this proposition: He that denieth the Scripture to have a certain record of times from the creation to the redemption, may as well deny that the sun hath brightness. And that book I sent unto his Grace, which he saw, and sent me great thanks: with a promise that what so ever his word could further me, I should have it. Now your Lordship knoweth that duty required him to determine, whether I was deceived or not: and to have taught me better, if I had been deceived. And his Grace knoweth that I stand resolute to defend this: that if he say it is erroneous, in an Epistle to the Queen, he saw already a sharp reply. In which Epistle I write these words: If it please your Majesty to cause both your Archbishops and both Universities to determine: I dare assure your Highnes, that, while the sun shineth they will not deny (seeing what proof is brought) that God hath recorded the time certeinlie from the creation to the redemption. Here had been a place for his Grace to have foiled me, forever: if by learning he could show that I was deceived. But he saw that D.R. whom Oxford men think to be not his Graces inferior, (further comparison I will relinquish) would full quickly have tried, if learning could overmatch the position set down. Thus by the matter your Lordship seeth what his Grace must buckle with. And whether he forgot his determination, or three commenders of his learned censure, & honorable speeches towards me, mistoke him: that little forceth, for the Queen to know: neither is it trauersable, or matteriall for our state. This must be hold̄ the substance of the matter: whether if his Grace deny that God hath recorded in scripture the worlds age from the creation to the redemption. I may justly accuse him, for concluding against Christ his Religion. For every man's heart can tell, it is good that the record were in scripture. And seeing nothing is omitted in the perfect book which is good to be there: his Grace should think that there it was: though he cannot tell where. And although it is made easy now to see, and soon learned: yet to clear every parcel, it was not an easy matter. And I know a King, to whom if I had dedicated such a travel, I should have had thanks: and so I should have had of the Queen: but that the L. Chancelor and his Grace both disgraced the work which neither understood. Your Lordship promised me that you would cause his Grace to determine the controversy, betwixt D. R. and myself. But I was sure that you would be deceived. Likewise my Lord Keeper having seen the marrowe of all that which concerneth the bones of this strife, brought into an easy view and taste, promised that he also would cause his Grace to determine. And I knew that he should be no less deceived. The matter was brought past all color of strife: and confirmed for every joint by ancient unbelieving Jews testimony, which vnvincible truth forced to afford. And now if it please your Lordships both to urge his Grace to lay down in writing the contradictory to any position of mine: then, if I make it not as easy for him to reackon all the tyles in Lambeth, everyone, as the errors which will follow his Graces assertion: your Lordship’s may affirm, that I have not dew regard of truth: and, but small grace in study to mark sequelles and appendances in absurdities. This kind of speech his G. must warrant: by a narration which may here be fit. M. Mulcaster, who carried the declaration of D.R. his cause and mine, with a full anatomy of the matter: returned to the right worshipful M. Peter Osborne this message: how his G. had determined: with what honorable speeches: how he said: that he knew my studies earnest, then twenty years, in a path vntroden since the Apostles time: to clear the narrations of scripture: by time, place, & person: wherein he that crossed me once, would be caught in a thousand absurdities. They live yet in the family who heard him speak and do all this well remember. Thus I thought good to defend his Graces censure even against him self: as in my Epistle to the Queen I wrote as fearing no replier: That I refused not to abide all disgrace, if my pains were not found true for the story, and profitable for the quietness of the Realm. And thus your Honor may see, that I have not written of his G. slanderous, nor of the truth erroneous. Neither did I commend him to countenance my cause, by his authority in learning: but to countenance her Majesty's high preferred scholar: and to show that I envied not his lot, though he hath received fifty thousand pound more then one, whom fifty thousand think to have honored the original truth more then he with bare latin studies could do possibly.