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Fulke, William, 1538-1589. Confutation of the Rhemish Testament
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CONFUTATION
RHEMISH TESTAMENT.
BY WILLLIAM'FULKE, D.D.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ;
INCLUDING A
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR,
COMPLETE TOPICAL AND TEXTUAL INDEX.
NEW-YORK:
LEAVITT, LORD AND CO.
182 Broadway. BOSTON : CROCICER AND BREWSTER,
47 Washington-street.
1834.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1834, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.
JOIIN H. TURKEY S STEREOTYPE.
PREFACE.
BY THE EDITOR.
Among " the signs of tlie times," few events more remarkable and impressive can be cited than the republication by American Protestants, M the original edition of the Rhemish Testament. When that volume was iirst issued in 1582, it excited in Britain indescribable alarm. " It was considered as a book of very dangerous tendency ; being designed to pro- mote the errors, superstitions, and impurities of Popery." In the preface to his " Defence of the English translations of the Bible, Fulke remarks — " The adversaries of our Lord who ' willeth the holy scriptures to be searched,' perceiving that they cannot prevail to bring in that darkness and ignorance of God's most sacred word and will therein contained, whereby their blind devotion, the daughter of ignorance, as they themselves profess, was wont to make them rulers of the world, they also at last are become translators of the New Testament into English. In whicli, they leave the pure fountain of the original verity to follow the crooked stream of their barbarous Latin translation, and which beside other manifest corruptions, is pestered with many annotations both false and undutiful, by which they seek to infect the minds of credulous readers with heretical and superstitious opinions."
Not one permanent settlement of Europeans, except in Mexico, then existed on this Northern continent. Neither Popery nor Protestantism was known to the aboriginal Indians. Now, the emissaries of Rome are prowling about with all craftiness, and in all the agility and ferocity of the " BeasV to which the Dragon of Hell gave " his power, seat, and great authority." Revelation xiii. 2. That book which Protestants, two hundred and fifty years ago, dreaded as the pestilential " smoke of the bottomless pit," has been republished under the sanction of a:i offiripnt portion of Reformed Christians, expressly that it may TESTIFY OF ITSELF. No greater proof of the change which has taken place in reference to Popery, between the days when the impious tyranny of Pope Gregory XIII. raged, and the present era, when the no less insolent assumptions of Gregory XVI. are so openly avowed, can possibly be cited, than these two facts ; that the commentary by which it was confidently hoped " the bright and blissful Reformation" would be obliterated, the modern Jesuits dare not print: and that Protestants have published that volume, confident that no rellecting citizen who reads the exhibition of the doctrines and practices of Romanism by the Jesuits of Rheims, will ever become a Papist.
Notwithstanding this conviction, it is a duty to avail ours 'Ives of that wisdom and erudition and piety, which have effectually demonstrated the falsifications, ignorance, and wickedness of the Rliemists who so openly perverted the word of God. At the period when the New Testament, so called by the Jesuits of Rheims, appeared in 15S2, " it was the opinions
of the learned, that both the trnnshition and the notes ought to be answered by the ablest pen that could be procured ; and no man in Britain was thought so well quahiied lor the undertaking, as Thomas Cartwright. Lei- cester, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, and Walsingham who was accounted xhe very mouth and hand of the queen, made particular application to him, and earnestly entreated him to engage in this important service for the church of God. The ministers and scholars of London, Suffolk, and Cam- bridge also combined their aflectionate and pressing invitations. Thus encouraged, he laboured with all diligence during nearly four years, when Archbishop Whitgift, who was called the Pope of Lambeth, authoritatively forbade him to proceed any further in the work !"
In consequence of this arbitrary display of antichristian intolerance and ecclesiastical despotism, Fulke, a very intimate friend of Cartwright, and a determined adversar}' to the modern Babylon, commenced the arduous task. He died almost immediately after he had completed his design ; and although it was finished in 1589, yet twenty-eight years elapsed before the volume appeared from the press. Such was the manifest preference for Popery among those who directed the governmental affairs, during the Utter part of ihe reign of Elizabeth, and the first years of James I., that a license for printing the confutations of the Rhemish Testament by Fulke and Cartwright, could not be obtained. To that noble friend of civil and religious liberty, Archbishop Abbot, are the world indebted for the dissemi- nation of the two most instructive and convincing works which have ever been published in the English language respecting the Papal controversy.
Before we analyze the ensuing " Confutation of the Rhemish Testament," it may gratify the student to know something of the author. The follow- ing concise biographical narrative has been compiled 'from Brook's Lives, Middleton's Biographia Evangelica, and Brook's History of Religious Liberty, which contain the most minute and authentic account extant.
William Fulke was born in London, but in what year is not known. He was chosen fellow of John's college, Cambridge, in 1564; and as he was so resolute and daring a Protestant, he must have been too young to have atracted notice during the reign of Queen Mary, a " woman literally drunk with the blood of the saints,, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Revelation xvii. 6. In compliance with paternal desire, he dedicated some time to the acquisition of jurisprudence. But disgusted with that profes- sion, he resumed studies more congenial to his own inclination ; upon which liis father was so ofTinided, that be withdrew from him necessary support. Fulke, however, persevered ; and became so celebrated in the university for his mental endowments and superior scholarship in the various departments of learning, that he attained his fellowship without any adventitious patronage, by the mere force of his eminent claims in literature.
As a preacher, he became extensively known in the year 1565, in con- sequence of his uncompromising and bold remonstrances against the Popish habits and ceremonies incorporated with the ecclesiastical establishment. For this dislike and contempt of the Babylonish vestments which the priests wore, " Bomish rags," as they were then disdainfully denomiuated, he
PREFACE. 3
suffered considerable persecution, and finally was expelled from his college. He continued however to reside in Cambridge, and supported himself by the delivery of public lectures. Strype's Parker. 197, 280. Middleton' s Biographia. Vol. 2. page 262.
Notwithstanding this ungodly oppression exercised toward him, he speedily obtained a reputation so distinguished and honourable, that in 1569, he would have been elected master of the college in which he held his fellowship, had not Archbishop Parker directly interposed his authority, and hindered the election. As a compensation for this obstruc- tion to his usefulness, the Earl of Leicester, who witli all his faults was the inflexible friend of those ministers who were stanch Protestants, and inclined to Puritanism, received him into his house, and appointed Fulke his domestic chaplain. But in consequence of the persecutions which he was called to endure, and some odious charges which were alleged against him by his malignant competitors, he resigned his fellowship. The in- quiry into the truth of the imputations cast upon him having proved that the whole tale was merely a groundless calumny, fabricated through envy, his college, immediately re-elected him to his former endowment.
In the year 1573, Fulke was chosen master of Pembroke Hall, and Margaret Professor of Divinity, in the University of Cambridge ; from which latter office, his friend Thomas Carlwright had been ejected by the wicked artifices and oppression of the semi-Popish prelates, who dreaded his influence and unbounded popularity. Notwithstanding Cartwright's illegal expulsion from his lecture and fellowship, the sameness of their duties, with their congeniality of character, temper, theological opinions, and detes- tation of the Romish idolatry, cemented Fulke and Cartwright in the most harmonious intimacy and brotherhood. Fulke was greatly instrumental in persuading Cartwright to accede to the solicitations which were made to him for his answer to the Rhemish Testaments : " but when he found that by the tyrannical prohibition of Archbishop Whitgift, Cartwright was forbidden to proceed, he undertook to answer it himself. This work was entitled "yl Confutation of the Rhemish Testament;'''' in which he gave notice that the reader might some time be favoured with a more complete answer from Cartwright. That which occasioned the publication of the Rhemish Testament was as follows. — " The English Papists in the seminary at Rheims perceiving, as Fuller quaintly observes, that they could no longer blindfold the laity from the scriptures, resolved to fit them with false spec- tacles ; and set forth the Rhemish translation in opposition to the Protestant versions." Piercers Vindication. Page 103. " Fulke undertook, and suc- cessfully accomplished an entire refutation of the Popish version and commen- tary. The late James Hervey passed a very just encomium on this noble performance. He styles it, " a valuable piece of ancient controversy and criticism, full of sound divinity, weighty arguments, and important observa- tions. Would the young student be taught to discover the very sinews of Popery, and be enabled to give an efiectual blow to that complication of error ; I know scarcely a treatise better calculated for that purpose." Topladyh Historic Proof. Vol. 2. Pages 196, 197. Jn the year 1582, Fulke, Goad, and several other ministers were engaged
in a public disputation with some Papists, among whom was that Master- Jesuit Campion. This emissary of Rome, with others, was appointed by the Pope, expressly to murder Queen Elizabeth, and to subvert the Pro- testant government. Tliey were eventually apprehended, and besides the gross idolatries and other corruptions of Romanism, they maintained that the Pope possessed authority over the queen, and as she was lawfully deposed by the Pope, they were justified in endeavouring to excite rebel- lion. For tills treason, Campion and his traitorous associates were condemned to death. Du Sloulbi's Vindication of Protestantism, Page 198.
Although Fulke held a prominent station in the university of Cam- bridge, and among the theologians of that spirit-stirring age of profound inquiry, yet his opinions of the ecclesiastical state establishment, and of the necessity of conforming to its claims, were very puritanical. In his " Petition of Prelates examined,'''' page 15, he thus delivers his Judg- ment, which proves that in his views of the evangelical ceremonies and discipline, he was substantially consonant with Cartwright. " In the scrip- ture a bisl)op and elder is of one order and authority. There ought to be in every church or congregation an eldership, which ought to have the hearing, examination, and determination of all matters pertaining to the discipline and government of that congregation. Many speak of the sign of the cross, but they speak beside the book of God ; and therefore their reasons should be rejected. For men must not compare or join the cross with the king's stamp ; for he appointed no such thing whereby his servants mi.^ht be known, but only baptism." Zion's Plea. Page 99.
Ai"tcr a life of great usefulness and labour in the church of God, this eminent servant of Christ was released from his warfare, August, 1589. He was interred in the clmrch at Kedington, of which he was minister. The religious character of Fulke may easily be ascertained from the first clause of his last will and testament. " I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God my Saviour and Redeemer, yielding most humble and hearty thanks unto his majesty for all his mercies bestowed upon me, most vile and unworthy wretch, but especially for his mercy showed unto me in Jesus Christ, in whom I believe to have remission of my sins, and to be justified by his blood, ^ly body f commit to the earth, whence it was taken, in steadfast hope of a glorious resurrection unto life everlasting, through the mercy and merits of the same Lord Jesus Christ."
The greater part of Fiilkn's writings arc volumes against the Papists. Some of them were only of temporary reference. But his, " Defence of the translation of the Holy Scriptjires in English,^'' should be republished. It contains not only the marrow of the Popish controversy, and a vast fund of profound biblical criticism, but it is replete with the most important literary and historical intelligence respecting the period of the Reformation. " The Confutation of the Rhemish Testament" richly deserves all the eulogy appended to it by Ilervey, the celebrated author of the meditations. It is full of critical erudition, sound theology, historical facts, and irresistible arguments.
In modern times, and according to the aspect of the present controversy
with the Romanists ; the grand points which the Jesuits urge in defence of Popery are connected with the antiquity of tiie Papal claims, the uniform consent of all ages to those assumptions, and the universal testimony of the early fathers in corroboration of the more recent assertions of the un- changeablcness and infallibility which they say ever have characterized the dogmas, rites, and practices enforced by the triple crowned Pontiff of Rome, No one of all the " strong delusions" with which the " all deceiva- bleness of unrighteousness" is maintained, is more imposing in its lofty pretensions, more bewildering to those who are not versed in " the working of Satan," and whose opportunities of research have not been sufficient to draw truth from the fountains of knowledge, and more pernicious as it regards the direful bondage in which it cliains those deluded votaries who become entangled in the net and labyrinth of this " mystery of iniquity," than the Roman claim of priority, antiquity, and universality.
The boasted principle of antiquity among the Romanists is tlie grand incentive to all their indignation, whenever their ungodly system is assailed. During a recent public disputation, the Papists became so audaciously obstreperous, that all the order and comfort of the meeting were destroyed. Inquiry was afterward made of an avowed Romanist in a respectable con- dition of life ; " what is the reason of the different behaviour among the Protestants and Papists at religious discussions when the relative authority of their respective systems is canvassed 1 We sit as quiet as children vvlien your priests pour forth their malignity, falsehoods, and calumny respecting the Reformers or the modern champions of our faith ; but whenever a Pro- testant stands up to portray the character and acts of' the 3Ian of Sin, and the Mother of Harlots ;'' instantly the Papists are in a commotion and uproar as if Bedlam at once had let loose all its pitiable tenants in the midst of the Assembly, What is the cause of this astonishing contradiction 1" The Papist very candidly replied — " You Protestants have no right to say a word against our church. We are the ancient and the only true religion, and you upstart heretics ought to be hindered from slandering our holy religion ; and if we had it in our power, we would soon silence you !" This was as honest and true an avowal, as it was malignant and characteristic of the Popish temper and desires.
One of the most insidious wiles of the annotations to the Rhemish Tes- tament is this : they constantly and chiefly aim to convince the reader that Romanism in all its parts is derived from the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. To sustain tliis position, there is a continual parade of pretended citations from the writings of the primitive authors in the Christian church ; all of whom are adduced as witnesses to demonstrate, that in every age from the apostolic era, the cardinal doctrines, rites, and practices of the Papacy were the general and authoritative opposition of Christianity : that the Lord himself conferred upon Peter alone, as his earthly vicegerent, the uncontrolled supremacy of the church militant, and also invested him with the godlike attribute of infallibility ; and that the apostle Peter was directed by Christ to delegate the same mysterious power and jurisdiction to his successors, the Popes of Rome throughout all ages. To corroborate this usurped claim, a large number of the most ingenious and corrupt partizans
of the Papacy were long and successively employed to forge public trea- ties, and acts of councils, and decretal epistles, with similar records. From these they pretended to demonstrate that in the apostolic age, and from that period during ten centuries, without interruption, the Popes had always been clothed with the same supreme spiritual majesty, as that in which they were decorated during the dark ages. With most ostentatious triumph, these fictitious writings were adduced ; and esj^ecially the fabricated pro- ceedings and decisions and canons of a suppositious council which never existed, but which was reported to have been held during the fourth century, tended in a high degree to enrich and aggrandize the Papal Hierarchy. Fnlke on Revelation, xvii. 4. Indescribable mischiefs have resulted from the deceptions thus practised by the Papal writers, and from this system of turpitude which they had consecrated. They not only forged legendary tales and constitutions, laws and canons, in the name of the apostles, dis- ciples, martyrs, and their immediate successors of the earliest Christian antiquity ; but as far as was necessary to sanction their traditions, idola- trous rites, and impure and dissolute lives ; they also cancelled, mutilated, altered and vitiated the various works of the earlier Christian writers, the copies of which they pretended to issue from the dark recesses of their mo- nasteries. Hence, one of the most evil effects of their treachery is tliis ; it is often extremely difficult, and sometimes totally impossible to decide what is genuine unadulterated truth, and to distinguish it from the spurious Monkish fables.
Conscious of the facility with which the unlettered portion of the people may be puzzled by a parade of quotations from a century of autliors, and by references to half a thousand more ; the Roman controvertists have always resorted to this subterfuge to ensnare their victims. Not less con- vinced of the fruitless toil in exploring the antiquated and musty volumes which have experienced the metamorpiiosis wrought by those forgers and counterfeiters in the literary productions of tiiem who published their writings, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen hundreds of years ago ; their works are glutted with simulated extracts from tiie most renowned and estimated cham|)ions of the gospel ; especially those who lived prior to the days of the Emperor Theodosius ; expressly to turn off Protestants from the real topics in controversy. Nothing is more easy to a book compiler than this summary method of enforcing conviction, not by the power of argument or an array of facts, but by a deceitful reference to non-existent authorities, to whicli an opponent may not have access, and the searcli after which, he is previously apprized will repay him neither for his labour nor time.
None of the Papists or of their allies scarcely ever resort to the gospel for a sanction to tiieir doctrines — and for a plain reason — neither Popery in its unrestricted demands, nor any modification of it however attenuated, derives any sanction from tiie oracles of God. Consequently, while it is factitiously based upon that foundation, it is discovered tliat the airv edi- fice rocks to its centre ; and the dissembling castle-builders are obliged to support their tottering superstructure, by collecting every species of mate^ rials out of which they may be able to raise a buttress to prop up the falling
Babylon. They abandon thoicfore, Peter, Paul, James, John, Matthew, Jude, Mark, and Luke ; and summon as witnesses, Tertullian, Cyprian, Eusebius, Jeron)e, Chrysostoni, Augustin, NazianzxMi, Ambrose, &-c. ; all of whom in diflerent proportions were muddled in their judgments, and infected with the tendency to that grand apostacy of whicli Paul had prophesied, 2 Thessalonians 2 ; and which by the concuss-ion of the Roman empire was rapidly attaining its full evolution.
The translation and notes by the Jesuits of Rheims, commonly called the Rhemish Testament, are a perfect specimen of the diversified corruptions and falsifications with which the Roman controvertists attempt to per[)lex and confound the weak and the uninformed. Probably one half of the annotations are quotations from nearly two hundred diflerent authors; whose works are extremely rare, and of course totally inaccessible to the incalculable majority of readers — and even could they be examined, the time necessary for an accurate research would preclude nine stud^-nts out of ten, from such a laborious and unprofitable investigation. Nevertheless if the factors of the man of sin promulge " lying wonders," and if " that wicked" disseminate " the lie," Christians must in duty publish the truth, as an antidote to their soul destroying fallacies. Fulke and Cartwright in their confutations of the Rhemish Testament have executed in this respect a most noble and essential duty. Exclusive of all the overpowering argu- ments with which they have demolished the modern Babylon the Great at the bar of reason — and setting aside the numerous facts from ecclesiastical annals which are incorporated in their volumes — their works are invaluable to every person who is desirous to understand the genuine opinions of the most renowned writers of antiquity, upon all the prominent doctrines and duties revealed in the gospel of Christ. These volumes comprise an au- thentic and an extensive selection of the most interesting passages from the ancient authors upon the various topics discussed; and of their value and importance, all persons can judge merely by a reference to the index. They include almost every prominent controversy which has ever disturbed the nominal church; and especially all those which advert to Popery in its paramount characters and influence. These confutations completely exhibit the principles which were held by those men of whom the Papists so tauntingly boast : and from the survey, it is evident, that all the Fathers, as they are called, either doubted, disapproved, or denied every peculiarly distinctive attribute and observance of Popery. Thus, as the title to Cartwright's refutation justly apprises us, the " manifest impieties, heresies, idolatries, superstitions, profaneness, treasons, slanders, absurdities, falsehoods and other evils, hy occasion ichereof the true sense, scope, and doctrine of the scripture and human authors loere ahusecV " by the Jesuits of Rheims, are exposed in a masterly manner. Both the Protestants unfold a controversial dexterity and a fund of erudition not less admira- ble than instructive.
The false quotations of the ancient writers announced by the Jesuits ; their deceitful contrivances to make the original authors sustain the Papal corrupt traditions ; their impudent perversions of the plain meaning of the early ecclesiastical historians and theologians ; and their wicked contra-
dictions of the most easily comprehended passages of scripture, expressly that the truth may be concealed, and the most antichristian heresies may be sanctioned, are illustrated on every page. Of the numerous examples which might be specified, three instances are singularly remarkable.
1. The apostle Paul, in 1 Timothy 2: 5, proclaims that Christ Jesus is the " one Mediator between God and man ;" and the apostle John, 1 Epistle 2: 1, asserts, that "Jesus Christ the righteous" is our " Advocate with the Father ;" and from the strict and only correct inter- pretation of the language, it is directly implied that Jesus Christ is the sole Mediator and Advocate. If a controvertist wished in the most compre- hensive form to terminate all debate upon the subject of the exclusive mediation and advocacy of Immanuel ; he could not possibly select from the sacred canon, two passages more brief and decisive. Yet these same texts, as if in the very spirit of perverse contradiction, the Jesuits have selected on which to append not only their own lengthened and contradic- tory notes, but also references to Augustin and Cyril ; thereby to induce the unwary reader to suppose that these writers supported their senseless idolatry of praying to the saints ; when it is demonstrable, that Cyril and Augustin both repudiated that pagan superstition. The acumen and eru- dition and sound didactic theology of Fulke and Cartwright most lucidly appear in their replies to the Rhemish annotations upon those verses.
2. Excepting the first and second commandments, probably, a more terse and authoritative mandate against all the forms of image-worship cannot be quoted from the holy scriptures, especially when we consider the then existing state of the world, than the injunction of the beloved Disciple, 1 John 5: 21, "keep yourselves from idols." Notwithstanding, the Jesuits have annotated upon this prohibition in such a manner, that it is transformed into a direct sanction of idolatry — and Eusebius, Augustin, and Gregory are introduced as testimonies in behalf of this strange perversion of the fundamental article in all rational religion. The second Nicene council is also cited — and ])ersons who know nothing of the Nicene council but as they have indistinctly heard of them as being mentioned at the head of the confession of faith, bearing the title of " the Nicene creed," may thereby suppose that the council of Nice whose creed is adopted by so many Protestants, and found in their standard books, were supporters of that gross form of idolatry, the worship of statues, images, crucifixes, &.c. This wickedness and Jesuitism are portrajed in all their hideousness by the defenders of the Protestant faith ; and the iniquitous dissimulation which impelled and directed all the course of the Rhemists in their blind transla- tion, is justly exposed to merited execration.
3. The apostle Paul, 1 Timothy 3: 2. Titus 1: 6, describing the qualifications of a minister, pronounces that he must be " the hxishand of one f«t/e," which every person of common judgment rightly understands. At that period, bigamy, polygamy, and promiscuous concubinage were not only tolerated, but in many particulars were essentially combined with the prevalent idolatry, and consequently the whole multitude of the people were contaminated with the most loathsome pollution. Paul therefore enjoined that a Christian minister should have one wife, and but one ;
according to the original divine appointmcMit in Paradise. Tlie Jesuits however iiave inculcated in their note upon those words, that the marriage of priests is ungodly and unlawful, and have introduced a great show of the early ecclesiastical writers to justify tlicir abhorrent celibacy, which is not less impure than it is unnatural. The replies by Fulke and Cartwright upon this topic, probably equal in value any disquisitions in their whole volumes. They lay the axe to the root of the corrupt tree ; and if piety, learning, argument and gospel truth could have prostrated the system of monkery ! that direful source of uncleanness, infanticide, and all their con- con)itant crimes, would long since have been banished to " the bottomless pit," in which they originated. McGavin's Protestant, volume II. pages 80, and 85. Hartford edition.
It will consequently be perceived that the volumes of Fulke and Cart- wright are an extensive spiritual armoury, in which are deposited a great variety of weapons for the use of those assailants who are desirous to over- turn that " habitation of devils, the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird, Babylon the great." Revelation 18 : 2. To contrast the various excellencies or deficiencies of those two anti- Popish wariors would be equally useless and absurd. " They rest from their labours and their tvorks dofolloio them," Their immortal volumes in defence of our common Christianity survive them ; and are now faithfully presented to all American Protestants.
We do not approve of every sentiment contained in these confutations of the. Rhemish Testament; and if Fulke and Cartwright could now revise their volumes, doubtless, they would erase some passages ; but we did not feel disposed to reject " a measure of wheat" because a grain of cockle is mixed with it. The most unsatisfactory jjart of these works is their at- tempted illustrations of the Apocalypse. The evolution of the grand pre- dict'ons respecting the remarkable period of 1260 years was at too great a distance in futurity to be accurately discerned. Even at this period, after 250 years have elapsed, many passages in the prophecies of Daniel and John are profoundly inexplicable. But this unavoidable defect is amply compensated by their other pre-eminent recommendations ; for in addition to an invaluable and triumphant refutation of Popery, and a condensed sum- mary of the works of the primitive Christians, these volumes by Fulke and Cartwright contain a rich treasury of pure didactic theology, blended with a deep mine of spirituality, devotional fervour, and practical piety; so that by the attentive perusal of them, the conscience and heart experience as much benefit, as the understanding realizes light and expansion.
As a specimen and proof of the ([ualifications of those renowned colle- gians to accomplish the arduous labour assigned them ; the letter, written it is said by Fulke, to incite his " most celebrated" brother to the magnifi- cent work of silencing the Jesuits of Rheims, is hero subjoined.
LETTER TO THOMAS CARTWRIGHT-
NuNQUAM a te, venerande Cartwkighte, plus opera exigeremus, quam quod in minis- terio publico consumitur ; nisi Ecclesiae nostrse rationes ot frequentes hostium incur- siones vehementer flagitarent. Cum vero templum Domini extruere iam nobis satis non
2
10 ' PREl-'ACi;.
sit, sed altera etiam pugnandum manu contra frequentes haereticorum exercitus, non a'gr': feres, si te Ecclesis nostrae alumnum ad certaminis hujus societatcm provocemus. Non te fugit quanto cum impetu, ct quam fiirenter Papistarum cohortes, et Jesuitaruin examina involarint in nostras Ecclesias. Quicquid apertae impressiones, occultae insidis, clandestina consilia efficerc potuerunt, experti sumus ; nullum defuit accrbitalis virus, quo vel re- ligionis dignitas obfuscari poterat, vel optinii cujusque fama violari. Atque cum hactenus semper in religionis certamine illorum vires acriter satis repulerimuB, verbi divini presidiis communiti : novam illi nuper rationem iniverunt, quo a suis partibus stare divinas voces, et coelestia oracula, hominibus imperitis persuaderent. Quid enim aliud student novi federis translatione, et putidis, quas adjunxerunt, annotatiunculis, quibus quasi circum- foranei prsstigiatores rebus clarissimis tenebras offundunt, quam ut hominum mentibus opinio inhereat, sacras scripturas turpiter a nobis contaminari, et quicquid est in eis vere solideque expressum, id illorum sententias firmissime corroborare, nostras penitCis con- vellere I Quanta hinc malorum nascatur Ilias, tibi facile est conjectura assequi. Nam licet pauci quidam c doctioribus videant, omnia ccecis tenebris et densa caligine ab eis obrui ; tamen infirmorum mentibus multipliccs intenduntur insidiae, et hominum in rc- ligione nutantium animi variis dubitationum fluctibus concutiuntur. A te igitiir contendi- mus, venerande Cartwp.ighte, ut sceleratorum hominum impuris his conatibus velis obsistere, vel integrum librum refutando, vel ejus partem aliquam. Non cujusvis est c vulgo artificis affabre conficere Tabernaculum Dei, sed Bczalielis et Alwliahi. Nee quivis in bella Domini temerc intrudendus, fed e fortibus Davidis diligendi duces. Qualem cum te agnoscimus ex superioribus praeliis pro civitatis nostra, id est, Ecclesiaemuris susceptis ; non dubitamus, si hoc certaraen inire velis, debes certe pro ea, qua es in patriam et re- ligionem pietate, quin pro aris, et focis, pro ipso Templi intimo sacrario dimicaturus, JebusQBorum vires, qui in arcem Davidis convolare student, possis pessundare. Accedit hue, quod mirifice facit ad animum exacuendum, quod non tibi jam cum fratre aliquo et ejusdem religionis socio dimicandum sit, quod languidius solet certamen efficere, sed cum EcclesiiE Christi insensissimis hostihus, Philistceis quibusque, et Ammonitis, multo diriori- bus. Non dubitamus quin Madianitarum instar tandem se mutuis perfodiant vulneribus ; cum nostr e rai/oTrXias vel strepitum inaudiverint. Vides ad quam honorificam te invitamus contentionem, Christi negotium suscipietur, contra Satanae satellites. Excitamus ad bella Domini, ubi certa victoria, quam triumphus et applausus Angelorum consequetur. Nostra? preces tibi nunquam deerunt ; aderit, procul dubio, Christus, cujus causa defenditur. Dominus Jesus tibi animum et vires adaugeat, et incolumem ad Ecciesiae bonum diutissime custodiat. Vale.
Toi in Christo amantissimi firatres.
ROGERUS GOADE. Jo. FlELDUS.
GuLiELMUs Whitaker. Nicholaus Cranbs.
Thomas Crocus. Egidius Seintler.
Johannes Fretonus. R. Gardiner.
GULIELMUS FULCO. GlJLI. ChARCUS.
TRANSLATION.
" We never would require of you, highly revered Cartwright, any fiirther endeavour than that which is spent in the public ministry, did not the respects of our church state, and the oft incursions of our enemies, vehemently urge us. But since it is not now sufficient for us to build up the temple of the Lord : but we must also with the other hand fight against the frequent armies of heretics : you will not take it ill that we provoke you as a foslerchild of our church unto the fellowship of this conflict. You are not ignorant with how great force and fury the bands of papists and swarms of Jesuits have flown upon our churches. We have felt whatsoever open hostility, secret stratagems, and privy plot- tings could effect. There hath wanted no poison of bitterness, whereby the dignity of religion might have been darkened, or the character of every excellent person debased. And whereas hitherto, being every way fortified by the power of the divine Word, in the conflicts for religion, we have always boldly repelled their forces ; they have of late enter- prised a new course, by which they might persuade unskilful men, that the divine scrip •
PREFACE.
11
tures and heavenly oracles stand on their side. For what else do they project by the translation of the New Testament, and their adjoined unsavoury silly annotations, where- by, like runagate jugglers, they cast mists on most clear things, than that a conceit might stick in men's minds, that the holy scriptures are by us basely contaminated, and that whatsoever is in them truly and soundly expressed, the same most firmly strengthen- eth their opinions and utterly eradicates our interpretation. It is easy for you to conjecture what a mass of evils thence may flow. For though a few of the Icarneder sort see that all things are by them overwhelmed with blind darkness and thick mists : yet there are mani- fold snares laid for weak minds, and the wavering in religion are beaten upon by divers waves of doubt. With you therefore are we earnest, most revered Cartwright, that you would set yourself agamst the unhallowed endeavours of mischievous men, either by refuting the whole book, or at least some part thereof It is not for every man, workman- like to frame God's tabernacle, but for Bezaleel and Aholiab : neither is every one to be rashly thrust forth into the Lord's battles ; but the captains are to be chosen from among David's worthies ; of which we acknowledge you to be, by your former battles undergone for the walls of our city, the church. We doubt not, if you will enter into this war, which truly you ought according to the zeal and piety you bear to your country and reli- gion, but that fighting for your conscience and your country, yea even for the very inmost holy place of the temple, you will be able to tread under foot the forces of the Jebusites, who set themselves to assault the tower of David. Moreover, and it marvellously serveth to the sharpening of your courage, you are not now to fight with any brother or fellow of the same religion, which would make the conflict more faint, but with the most inveterate enemies of the church of Christ, far more cruel than ever was any Philistine or Ammonite. We doubt not but Midianite like they will at length deadly wound each other, so soon as they hear but the rattling of your complete armour. You see to what an honourable fight we invite you. Christ's business shall be undertaken against Satan's champions. We stir you up to fight the battles of our Lord, where the victory is certain, and to which the triumph and applause of angels will ensue. Our prayers shall never be wanting to you. Christ, without doubt, whose cause is defended, will be present with you. The Lord Jesus increase your courage and strength, and keep you very long in safety for the good of his church ! Farewell.
Your most loving brethren in Christ.
Roger Goad. John Field.
William Whitaker. Nicholas Crane.
Thomas Crooke. Giles Seintler.
John Ireton. Richard Gardiner.
William Fulke. William Charke.
Notwithstanding this peerless testimony ; such was the dread of ecclesi- astical malignity in Britain in the year 1618, when Cartwright's volume was first published, and when the pioneer congregation of Puritans were preparing to migrate from Europe to the American wilds, that the names of the other ministers who had subscribed the preceding document were concealed from the public, because they were then living, and there- fore exposed to Laud's persecution ; merely for having persuaded the Master Theologian of his age and country to compose an efficient antidote to that destructive " working of Satan," artfully disseminated by the Jesuits under the name of the New Testament. Thanks be to God ! that intole- rance and despotism over the press have been banished from America and Brhain ; and the " Confutations of the Rhemish TestamenV by Fulke and Cartwriglit shall yet expose the devices and ungodliness of Popery, to all who are willing to comprehend its ^'■damnable heresies !" which bring upon men " swift destruction!" 2 Peter 2 : 1. The volume by Cartwright will also speedily be printed : and as it may be said of him and
12 PREFACK
of Fulkc, in the lancjuage of the gracious Redeemer concerning his forerun- ner John : — They were burning and shining lights : O that all American citizens may rejoice in thoir light ! John 5 : 35. When these replies to the Jesuits of ilheims shall have been completed, the Churches of Christ in the United States may be thankful and rejoice, that the Lord has graciously permitted them to obtain at such a low price, this edifying and unanswer- able refutation of Romanism.
If the doctrine of our immortal Poet he true, and who can doubt it? in an inconceivably more seraphic sense than mortal strains can chant : —
" The Saints on earth and all the dead
But one communion make ; All join in Christ, their living head,
And of his grace
Then the spirits of those "just men made perfect," Fulke and Cart- wright, must exult in Paradise at the grateful intelligence wafted there by some ministering angel ; that being dead, by their " Confutation of the Rhemish Testament," they yet speak — and speak to whom? To a people, to churches, and to Christians residing in a country, which, when they were pilgrims on earth, was one vast unexplored continuity of wilderness, and by civilized beings uninhabited.
From this ancient solitary place, now blossoming as the rose ; to the New Jerusalem, those who have been chiefly instrumental in procuring the repub- lication of this series of volumes to counteract the progress of Popery in this republic, would themselves not only aspire, but they pray that all their Chris- tian Brethren also would soar to that amplitude of knowledge and sanctity, which by divine grace shall enable them to contend earnestly " for the faith which was once delivered to the saints," and qualify them eventually to par- ticipate in the beatitudes of those exalted champions of gospel truth, whose " memory is blessed ;" so that when the time of their departure is at hand, they may exult with the conviction and fervour pf our apostolic exemplar, Paul : " I have fought a good fight — I have finished my course — I have kept the faith — Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- ness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at his appearing V
New- York, April, 1834.
CONFUTATION
THE RHEMISTS' PREFACE.
1. If the whole Bible had been translated by you, and tliat long since, into the Endish tongue, it is marvel, that it has lain so lotig by you, for lack of good means to publish it. You have published books of as great charge, and much less importance, within these eight and twenty years; but such, indeed, by which you had more hope to win unto your credit and cause, than you have by the holy Bible, though you perverted it with never so partial translation, and poisoned it with never so he- retical and blasphemous annotations, as you have done your edition of the New Testa- ment. You were wont to boast of the zeal of popes, cardinals, and other great prelates of j the Romish sect, for the conversion of our nation unto their obedience. Were they also so straight laced, that none of them can find in their purses, to bear the charges of print- ing a work so necessary, or at leastwise pro- 1 fiiable, as you hold the translation of the | scriptures to be, for the maintenance of the Ca- 1 tholic religion ? Or do you not rather, as the j family of love used to do, for their works, craftily beg of your favourers in England, larger exhibition, upon colour of printing vour translation of the Bible ? when it is not hard to gather, that if you were purposed indeed to set it forth, and would use such means as you may, in those parts, the forbearing of the money, though your printer took it upon in- terest, might be paid for in the sale of one impression, although it so might happen, that a number of them were confiscated, or mis- carried in the ways, as chanced to some of these your books. But who so seeth what unnecessary charge you have put yourselves unto, in printing this your translation of so large a volume : may easily perceive you set it not forth for poor men's profit, and that by so excessive price, of so small a part of the whole Bible, you mean to discourage your friends from waiting for all the rest : what advantage you have in this part, for deciding the doubts of these days, we shall examine in the several places, where you pretend to take it.
2. You are afraid, to give over your old impu- dent proposition, that ignorance of the Scrip- tures, is the mother of Popish devotion. And therefore you hold it an erroneous opinion, " That the holy Scriptures should be always in our mother tongue, or that they ought, or
were ordained by God, to be read indifTerently of all. Whereas it is certain, that the holy Scripture of the Old Testament was by God's ordinance first written in the mother-tongue of the Jews, and the New Testament in the Greek tongue, which was the mother-tongue to a great part of the world, and that language, which was most generally understood among the Gentiles, tmto whom the Gospel was preached. Our Saviour Christ commandeth, not only a readmg, as you yourselves con- fess, but also a deep search of the Scriptures, unto all the Jews indifferently. Paul com- mendeth the education of Timothy, in know- ledge of the Scriptures from his infancy. Wliich authorities prove, that the holy Scrip- tures were ordained by God, to be read and knownindifferently of all, and therefore ought to be translated into the mother tongues of all nations, that all may read and know them. Another erroneous opinion they account it, to think, that the Scriptures can be easily un- derstood of every one that readethqr heareth them in a known language, which if it were admitted, yet it foUoweth not, that the Scrip- tures ought not to be in a known language, because they cannot be easily understood of every one that readeth or heareth them, but rather, that every one that readeth or heareth them, ought more diligently to study and ex- ercise himself in them, more often hear and read them, and more fervently pray to God for aid of his Spirit, that he may understand them. And yet it is certain, that albeit some places of the Scripture are not easy to be un- derstood of all men, yet there are many parts of them, and so many, as are able to instruct us unto salvation, so plain and easy, as they may be understood of every one that readeth or heareth them. And of this judgment is Augustine, answering this objection of the obscurity of the Scriptures : " Therefore hath the Holy Ghost magnifically and whole- somely so tempered the holy Scriptures, that by plain and open places, he might prevail against famine : by dark places, he might wipe away loathsomeness. For no- thing almost, is gathered out of those ob- scurities, which IS not found most plainly uttered in some other place." — De doct. Christ, lib. 2, cap. 6. And in the chapter immediately before, he showeth, that by reason of the di- versity of languages, the same sound of
14
PREFACE.
words, not serving all nations, the Scriptures were translated into divers tongues, that they might be generally known. " Wliereof it is come to pass, that even the holy Scriptures, by which so great diseases of men's wits are helped, being proceeded Ironi one tongue, which iniglit conveniently spread overall the world, through divers languages of the inter- preters, being dispersed tar and wide, might become known ol the nations to their salva- tion." By both oi Which places, it is evident that Augustine deemed it more convenient in itself, and more agreeable to God's word, honour, and edification of the faithful, to have the Scripture turned into vulgar tongues, than t(J be kept and studied in any learned language whatsoever. Now why you should account any one tongue, more than other, to be ecclesiastical, you are able to give no sound reason, seeing God hath called his Church of all tongues and nations, and sanc- tified them all, to the preaching of the Gospel, and praise of his name. As for the Latin tongue, which you would most willingly have to be counted an ecclesiastical tongue, it was for many hundred years after Christ, the com- mon vulgar and popular tongue, in most jiart of the west Churches, of those nations that were subject to the Roman empire. And why it is now ecclesiastical, that then was vulgar, I know no cause, but that Antichrist, whose tongue it is, blasphemously challenging to be the head of the Church hath chosen and au- thorized it to be ecclesiastical, in contumely of all other languages, which the Holy Ghost, descending upon the Apostles, in cloven tongues, hath consecrated to the preaching of Christ Jesus, and to the magnifying and setting forth of the great praises of God. That through man's malice, or infirmity, the Scriptures are often made pernicious and hurtful to many, it is no greater reason to keep them from the knowledge of most men, than it were to deprive all men from meat and drink, because many do abuse them, to the destruction of both their bodies and souls. As for the .special consideration, that pro- cured this edition, when you express it, we may better judge of it. In the meantime, we can conceive none others, but that which is the practice of many heretics, when you could not altogether suppress the knowledge of the holy Scriptures, whereby your errors are dis- covered;' you thought it the next way for your purpose, by your partial translations, as much as you could, to obscure them ; and by your heretical annotations, to pervert them ; that the one should make them unprofitable, and the other hurtful.
3. The wisdom of the Popish Synagogue, and the governors tiicreof, is the wisdom of the old serpent, and of the children of this world, who are often wiser in their kind than the children of light, with whom it is a high point of prudence to provide for themselves, by any unjust means whatsoever. So have the Popish Clergy always endeavoured, by depriving the common people of the reading of holy Scrip' tures, and following their predecessors the
Jewish lawyers, have taken away the key of knowledge, of the same pohcy, that they did, lest their wickedness being commonly dis- covered by the light, they should lose that estimation, which through blind ignorance they have commonly obtained. Tfiey who have made claim for the common people in this case, whom, of your charity, you call the populace and their seditious leaders, of godly zeal and true simplicity, not of curiosity, pride and disobedience, have both made it, and jus- tified it, with better reasons than all the proud Papists in the world are able to avoid. For what greater reasons can be alleged, than the authority of God in the Old Testament, and of Christ, our Saviour and his Apostles iri the New, and the practice of the primitive church, and the consent of the most ancient and approved Fathers of the same, which have been brought to prove that the holy Scriptures ought to be known of all Chris- tians ? But the Governors of the Popish Anti- christian Church, arrogating to themselves the name and dignity of the dispensing of God's mysteries and treasures, among which, as you confess, the holy Scriptures are no small store ; by maintaining that ignorance is the mother of devotion, declare, if they could, that they would williiigly abolish all know- ledge of the holy Scriptures from the com- mon people's hearts. And whereas you say, " that of old, they have not ever condemned all vulgar versions of the Scripture, nor ge- nerally forbidden the faithful to read them ;" let the registers of Bishops be searclied, where it will appear, that many have been accused and condemned as heretics, for hav- ing, reading, or hearing the holy Scriptures in the Engfish tongue, without any exception taken against the truth of the translation. And that' the Governors of the Popish Church " have not by public authority prescribed, commanded, or authentically ever recom- mended any interpretation of Scripture into the vulgar tongue to be indifferently used of all men ;" they have declared sufficiently thereby, that they were not the ministers of God and Christ, nor successors of his Apos- tles, nor of the ancient fathers of the primitive church ; all of whom, by public and lawful authority, always prescribed, commanded, and authentically recommended, as the holy Bible and the writings of the Fathers are most plentiful witnesses, the holy Scriptures of God, to be known, read and understood of all Christians indiflerentlv, and without ex- ception of any ; which of necessity implieth the translation of the same, into all vulgar languages, witlnnit which, it is not possible for all sorts of Christians to read them, know them, and understand them.
4. Seeing the Armenians were converted to the faith, long before Chrysostom went among them ; it is not to be doubted, but that they had the whole scriptures in their vulgar tongue long before this time. And their confession lately set forth, doth [ilainly argue, that they have the whole Bible in their own language at this day. To justify that the Sclavoniana
PREFACE.
15
say of Hieronyin's translation into their tongue, his own words are these : " 1 say not this that 1 would bite my predecessors, or think that any thing is to be detracted trom them, whose iranshition being most diligently corrected, I have given long ago to the men of my language." Now the Slavonians were the men of Hieronym's language, or mother- tongue, as he testiiieth himself of the place of his nativity, in calalogo ; for whose use he might translaie the vulgar Latin Bible, which was according to the Septuagint, after he had most diligently corrected it. But if this place prove it not sulliuienlly, at least he sailh plainly, that the Scriptures were translated into the tongues of many nations. Pre/at. ad Damasum in emngelia. Besides these, the Syrians, Arabians, and Ethiopians, had of ancient time the holy Scriptures in their se- veral lairguages. The Spaniards of ancient time had the Old Testament translated into their mother tongue. Walafridus tesiifieth, that the Dutch tongue is the s-i'ii'\ v,-';:rh was the language of the Goth- If. ' ~, into which, since the days ol' i , , . :.\- whom they were first converii'', --i n- \>!~r man of that nation translated the holy Scrip- ture. De reb. eccles. cap. 7 In our own country, not only the Saxon translations of divers parts of the holy Scriptures, but the testimony of Bede, whom you quote and cite most impudently, doth prove that vulgar trans- lations of the holy Scriptures in his time were commonly used and occupied by the multi- tude. His words are these : " This island at this present, according to the number of books in which the law of God is written, doth search out and confess, one and the self-same know- ledge of the highest truth, and of the true height in five tongues ; namely, of the Angles, Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins, which in meditation of the Scripture is made common to all the rest." He meaneth that men of all the four nations, studied the Scriptures by help of the Latin tongue, and such commen- taries and treatises of the elder Fathers as were written therein. But he saith expressly, that the knowledge of the highest truth, which is not to be found but in the holy Scriptures, and according thereunto was both searched out, and confessed in the mother tongue of the other four nations, by whom he meaneth the Christians unlearned in the Latin tongue. That the Scriptures were current in Eng- lish, both before and after Wicliff's time, and not of his translation, beside your conjecture out of Lynwood, is manifestly proved, by many ancient written copies of the English Bible, differing in translation, yet to be showed, of which Wicliff's translation coirfd be but one. Notwithstanding that the Phari- saical clergy condemned the reading of them for heresy, let the acts of public writings re- maining in the Registers testify. And of what devilish policy, they kept the laws of God in secrecy and silence, which he com- manded to be uttered in all places and times, to the edifying of all sorts of Christians, how-
soever you seek to smooth and cover it, God'a children do plainly espy it.
5. How pernicious heretical translations of the Scriptures are, which poison the people under colour of divine authority: if we had not learned sufficiently by the corrujjtions of old heretics, this translation of yours doth give plentiful testimony, which being helped torward with ht-.retical annotations, as it were with stints, to make way for the poison to enter, liuih no small force to deceive the sim- ple. But the best is, we are assured that they shall not prevail finally, but in them whom the Lord acknowledgeth not for his. In the meantime, not only the remedy of true and sincere translation, out of the fountain and original text, is to be opposed, but also the fraud of the adversary, as occasion serveth, to be discovered and laid open.
6. The Popish Church arrogating to herself divine wisdom, in restraming that which God hath left to be most free and general, de- clareth that she is the Babylonical harlot, the spouse of Antichrist, who exalteth himself above all divine authority, and controlleth the wisdom of God in every thing, that is con- trary to his devilish presumption : as in the use of images, of the cup in the Lord's Sup- per, of marriage in the Church Ministers, of meats in times made by him more religious, and such other. The true Church of God teacheth the true use of the Scriptures, even out of the Scriptures themselves, and dis- courageth not men from reading of them, as it were from a dangerous discourse, whereby they are like to take harm, knowing that none but spiders can suck poison out of wholesome flowers, which poison yet is not in the good flowers, but in the evil nature of the spider. The holy Scriptures, learned even from a man's infancy, are able to make him wise unto salvation, and being well studied of the man of God, are able to make him per- fect and ready unto all good works, and to execute every part of nis office. — 2 Tim. 3. 15. <Src.
7 That the Governors of the Popish Church have taken straighter order for readers and translators of the Scriptures, than the Fathers of the Primitive Cliurch of Christ did .- it is not to preserve the word of God from profanation, or to bridle the proud curiosity of the conten- tious, as it is pretended, but to suppress the light of truth, which displayeth their gross and palpable abuses, both in doctrine and conversation.
But where you say, that the holy Scriptures were never read of all persons indifferently, it is a most impudent assertion,set down without any show of proof, and contrary to most ma- nifest arguments of antiquity. We acknow- ledge, the Fathers of the ancient Church were careful to keep the holy treasure of God's word from abuses ; but that they did not, by prohibiting or restraining the reading of it, but by diligent teachitig and exhorting of men to the right use of it. Therefore where you say, "We must not imagine, that in the
Ifi
PREFx\.CE.
Primitive Church, every one who under- stood the Scriptures in the learned tongues, wherein they were written, or in other lan- guages, into which they were translated, iriight without rei)rehension, read, reason, dispute, turn, and toss the Scriptures :" it is utterly false : for with reverence of God's mysteries, and to the end they were given, every man might not only, without reprehen- sion, but vviih^ood liking and commendation of the godly Fatliers, read, reason, dispute, and search, which is to turn and toss the books ot the Scriptures. It is recorded ge- nerally of all the faithful in Bercea, that they daily searched the Scriptures, even to ex- amine the doctrines of the Apostles, by them, Acts 17. 11. Ireneus saith. Lib. 2. cap. 35. " That all the Scriptures, both of the Pro- phets, and of the Gospels, may be alike heard of all men." Chrysostom exhorteth all men indifferently to read the Scriptures, " and to call their neighbours to the hearing of them." Gen. Horn. 7. Also he taketh away the vain excuses of them, which alleged, that they were worldly men, had wife, children, and household to look unto, and prayeth, that they would not deceive themselves, saying, " That they which are entangled with such cares, have more need to seeli remedy, by reading ot the holy Scriptures." Gen. Horn. '2\. And ]L.,m. 2. Comment, in Matt, he saith, " The rending of the Scriptures is more necessary for laymen, than for the monks." And Horn. 5. he saith, " The people ought as soon as they come at home from the Church, to turn over the holy books, and to call their wives and children together to the conference of those things which are said. It is no excuse to say, I have not read what Paul saith, but a fault." Epist. ad Heb. Horn. 17. Further, where you say, we must not imagine, that our forefathers suffered every school-master, scholar, or grammarian, that had a little Greek or Latin, straight to take in hand the holy Testament, Augustin is plainly against you, for he saith, " That they which turned the Scriptures out of the Hebrew tongue, into the Greek tongue, may be num- bered, but the Latin interpreters cannot be numbered. For in those first times of the faith, as the Greek book came into any man's hands, which seemed to himself to have some skill in both the tongues, he was bold to trans- late it." De Doctrin. Christ, lib. 2. cap. 11. That the translated Bibles were in the hands and godly use of all sorts of men, women, children, how base soever their degree and calling was, is partly showed already : and more particularly Hieronym saith, that in the country of Bethelcm, the husbandman, the ploughman, the shepherd, the reaper, the vine-dresser, did sing the Psalms of David, and made none other noise. Paul and Eus- toch. ad Marcel. Chrysostom saith, the know- ledge of the Scripture is most necessary for children, Fueris, boys and girls, because you so term them, and exhorteth their parents to cause them from their tender years to be ex-
ercised in the reading of the holy Scriptures, Epist. ad Ephes. Horn. 20. That the Scrip- tures may be read at the table, he showvlh. Gen. Hum. 10. And that players, rhymers, and jesters, instead of their lewd practices, should be commanded, in recompense of their entertainment, to read the holy Scriptures, whereby the servants, apprentices, slaves, and drudges of the house may be made equal with Angels. Com. in Matt. Horn. 49. Au- gustin also exhorteth the people to read the Scripture at the table, and meats. De Temp. 56. As for boats and barges, which serve for men's travel, seeing God commanded his laws to be spoken of in journeys, and Christ himself preached out of boats and barges, there is no cause why his holy Scriptures may not be read in them also. JMeither did the ancient Fathers account any true Chris- tian, or comi)any of Christians, to be a pro- fane person, or company, but rather a com- pany of profane persons, by diligent reading of the Scriptures, to be made a holy Church of God. Chrysostom in Matt. Horn. 49. And although there was not so easy means, before printing was invented, to disperse the copies of the Bible into every man's hand, yet by the continual labour of the stationers, notaries, or book-writers, which in those times siappjied the want of printers, there was a sufficient number of copies for every man thai would buy them : or else Chrysostom should in vain have exhorted all the laymen of his time to buy them Bibles, or at least the New Testa- ment. " Hear, I pray you, all ye laymen. Pro- vide you Bibles, which are the medicine of the soul : if you will nothing else, at least get the New Testament, the Apostles, the Acts, the Gospels, continual and diligent teachers." Epist. ad Coloss. Horn. 9. It is a frivolous pretence therefore, of the scarcity of copies: for whatsoever will be commonly sold, and well paid for, by diligence of workmen will soon be made plentiful.
8. They were in all men's hands that were desirous to read them, and were to be bought of common stationers, or booksellers, as ap- peareth by the saying of Chrysostom, cited before : not only in libraries, monasteries, &c., and some devout principal laymen's houses and hands. And as devout laymen did use them well then, so do such men use them well now, learning out of them such things as be necessary and profitable for them to know, and leaving higher rnysteries and hard places to the discussing of the learned. That the husbandmen of whom Hieronym speaketh, sang the Psalms in an unknown tongue, which they could neither read nor know the sense, meaning, or mysteries of them, is boldlv affirmed, and impossible to be proved. Such singing of Psalms with the lips, not understood with the heart, no godly wise man would have allowed, much less commended, as he doth, calling them their songs of love, the shepherds' whistles, the instruments of tillage. And as those holy persons of both sexes, to whom Hieronym
PREFACE.
It
^^of»moncleXkl the reading and ninditation of the Scripture, used them to the glory of God, and the building up ot their souls in faith and godliness. So God be thanked, at these days, many ihousands of faithful Christians, with like zeal, reverence, humility, and all other virtues requisite, do read the holy Scriptures in their mother tongue, and by daily reading, do greatly profit in piety and charity, as well virgins as married folk, parents and children, princes and subjects, pastors and people.
9 There were in those times some arrogant and presumptuous abusers of the holy Scrip- tures, and will be in all times, as of all other good gifts of God : whose misbehaviour, as it was sharply and justly reprehended by the godly Fathers, so was it not thought any cause to restrain the multitude from the lawful and necessary use of God's books, as it is now pretended by the Papists. For that as some swelled in jiride, and vanished in curiosity, so many profited in humility, and all other virtues necessary unto true Christianity. And even so the case standeth at this time : some, unlearned and ungodly, pervert the Scriptures to their own condemnation, yet many use them wholesomely, to their comfort and edification.
10. Every word of this section being granted to be as true as the Gospel, it cannot be in- ferred that therefore it is not convenient, that the holy Scriptures should be in the mo- ther tongue, that they may be read of all sorts of Christians, without exception of any. For the holy Scriptures teach that moderation which Nazianzen requireth, that measure and discretion which Augustin commendeth, and reprehend that arrogance reproved by Gre- gory, and the rashness and intemperance de- tested by Augustin. So that by diligent reading of thelioly Scriptures, the Christian may learn to embrace the virtues, and to abhor the vices.
11. Although there be many things in the Scriprurfes unmeet for all men's capacities, because of the difficulty of them, yet is there nothing unmeet to be read of any man, neither are there any mysteries of holy writ unmeet for Christian men to know and understand, as you seem to iYiSinuate. The eunuch did read the prophecy of Esay, which he did not understand, yet was he not in danger to take any hurt by it ; and God sending him an inter- preter, showed, as Chrysostom saith, " That it is impossible, that he which with great study and fervent desire is occupied in the holy Scriptures, should always be neglected, but although the instruction of man be want- ing unto us, the Lord himself entering into our hearts from above, doth lighten our mind, spreadeth his beams into our reason, openeth things hidden, and becometh teacher of those things which we know not, &c. Ge7i. Horn. 35. and Luc. cap. 16. After most vehement e.xhortation unfo the people, to read the Scriptures, which if they neglect, he saith, it is not possible for them to attain to salva- tion, ho addeth, " Yea, specially, although thou dost not understand such things as are
3
hidden in them, yet of the very reading much holiness growelh." Therefore Gregory Na- zianzen wisheth not to have the Jews' tradi- tion, for not reading of the Scriptures or any part thereof ; but a like order, to restrain young men from being too bold in exposition, and contentious in disputing of the mysteries of the holy Scriptures. Nevertheless David, wiser than all the authors of that tradition, asking whereby a young man shall cleanse his ways, answereth, by study, meditation, and keeping of the law of God. Psal. 119. Neither doth Hieronym commend the tradi- tion of the Jews, which permitteth not the beginning of Genesis, the Canticles of Solo- mon, and the beginning and end of the Pro- phet Ezechiel, to be read of young men, being under thirty years of age, but only saith, that the difficulty of the prophecy of Ezechiel is proved by that tradition.
12. No true Christian will be loth to be or- dered by the pastors, doctors, prophets, ex- pounders, teachers, and the preachers of the Church, which Christ hath given unto us, that we should take the law and instruction of faith at their mouths. And although faith come not principally by only reading of the Scrip- tures, but by hearing of the preachers law- fully sent, yet you must give them leave, to search the Scriptures daily, as the Rerceans did, to see whether those things which their pastors, preachers and teachers do deliver, be even so. ActsYl.W. Seeing also you confess, that reading in order and humility, doth much confirm and advance our faith. That the book of Scripture, is called of Am- brose Liber Sacerdotalis, you must give us a better quotation than Lib. 2. ad Grat. not so much for the term, but for that you infer thereof, that we must take and use it at the hands and disposition of priests. Ambrose wrote five books de fide, ad Gralianurn, and three de spititu sanclo. Your note book de- ceived you-
13. That the Scriptures were made for all Christian men's instruction, when you have wrangled as much as can, you are driven in the end to confess. That Popish priests, not only of envy, but also of devilish policy, lest their false doctrine and wicked life might be removed, have kept that holy book from the people, though you will not acknow- ledge ; yet the children of God, whose eves he hath opened, do plainly see and perceive. Your comparison unto the devil's suggestion, will then seem to be like, when you can show God's prohibition from reading the Scrip- ture, as our parents could, for eating of the tree of knowledge. But when Christ saith expressly to all Christians, search the Scrip, tures, your cavilling is like the serpent's sug- gestion, which contrary to the express word of God, said, you shall not die, but God knoweth, &c. So you would bear men in hand, that albeit God command them to search the Scriptures, yet there is great danger in reading of them, and therefore they were better not to read them. Yea, your pre- decessors h:ivc condemned for heretics, such
18
PREFACE.
as did read them, thougii now you go about to excuse the matter, and say that you meant nothing, but that the people should beware ot blind presumpiion, and learn to be wise unto sobriety : as thougli these lessons are not better learned by reading theni in the book of God, than by your restraining them from reading them at all, or not but at your plea- sure. But let us consider, why the Popish Church permitteth not every one at their pleasure, to read the Scripture. She knoweth, .paith you, the " Scriptures be ordained for every state, as meat, elements, fire, water, candle, knives, sword and the like." We know by the Scriptures the word of God to be ordained, as meat and other things most necessary and comfortable, but not as fire, water, candles, knives, swords, and like mat- ters of danger, whereof men should be rather afraid to meddle with them, except it were for necessity. And yet there is as great ne- cessity of the holy Scriptures, as of any thing you have named, and in them, as Chrysostom saith, Ge7i. Horn. 9, we may not suspect any danger to be, as in fire, water, candles, knives, swords and such like. All the danger is in the affection of him that abuscth them to his own condemnation ; whereas, fire, water, sword, knives, cannot always be so governed by the wisest, but that they prove hurtful sometimes to the occupiers of them.
Whereas, you say, the Popish Church for- biddeth not the readmg of the holy Scrip- tures in any language, it is false. For what- soever she doth now, certain it is that iier ministers have forbidden it in times past, and imm.ediately before, you show reasons, why she doth not permit every one to read the Scriptures, so soon you have forgot yoiirself. Except perhaps you will say, she forbiddeth not such as understand them in Latin, to read them also in Engli.sh, which is a poor permis- sion: but if she envieth no mans commodity, why doth she not permit all men, to take that commodity wliich they may receive by reading of them ? You answer, " She giveth order how to do it to edification, and not to destruc- tion." It were well if she did so, for that care were seemly for the spouse of Christ. But as yon affirm before in the sixth section, she hath taken order, " That the holy .Scripture though truly translated into vulvar "tongues, yet may not be indiflerently read of all men, nor of any other than such as have express license thereunto, of their lawful ordinaries, with good testimony from their curates or confessors, that thevbe humble, discreet, and devout persons, and like to take much good and no harm thereby." By which order it appcareth, that they which have most need to read the Scriptures, are utterly debarred : many other by the difficulty of obtaining li- cense discouraged, and especially, none but rank and obstinate Papi.sts, may be allowed, for those only of the Popish curaies, confes- sors and ordmnries, shall be counted humble, discreet, and devout persons. Let all godly wise men judge, therefore, whether the Popish Church, although you profess that she
envieth no man's commodity, yet by this order, hindereth not as much as in her lieth the profit of all men. But you answer, that carnal men and heretics, be hogs and dogs, to whom pearls and holy things, such as the Scriptures be, are not to be cast ; which if it were a right interpretation of our Saviour's commandment, it were not lawful to attempt the conversion of heretics, by preaching the truth, nor to procure the repentance of carnal men, by exhorting them to the love of hea- venly things. But as by preaching and ex- hortation, so by diligent reading and medita- tion of the holy Scriptures, many heretics are made catholics, many carnal men are made spiritual. Therefore not all that be carnally minded or infected with error, but only des- perate, profane and malicious contemners of the truth, are those hogs and dogs, to whom the precious holy mysteries of the Gospel are not to be any more ofTered, when they have plainly declared themselves to be such. Chrysostom, whom you cite, speaketh expressly of such, and not of all carnal men. For in the next section, you describe the people of Constantinople, whom he exhorted to the reading of the Scriptures, to be very carnal men, and so they were indeed, yet he judgeth the reading of the Scripture, most necessary for them. And Horn. ex. Luc. cap. 16, after a most vehement exhortation to read the Scriptures, he addeth, " The reading of the Scripture, is a great defence against sin, the ignorance of the Scriptures is a great downfall and a deep dungeon, it is a great loss of salvation, to know nothing of God's laws, this thing hath both brecf heresies, and brought in corrupt life, this hath turned all things out of order upside down." But even that ignorance, which he so detesteth, is of you Papists, counted good Catholic de- votion, or the mother thereof. And what other was the state of the most, in the blind days of Popery, but even a ^ross ignorance of all the lioly Scripiures ? Where the people might not know what they believed, what they prayed, what God commanded, or any thing pertaining to Christian religion, but either of dumb images, or of dumb priests, except once in seven years, perhaps, of some prating friar or other "Popish preacher, which rather turned them from Christ, than showed the right way to God by him.
You add further, that you would have he- retics quite discharged, from all occupying and possession of the holy Testament. It must first be proved who be heretics, and which be the true Church that hath right and interest in the Scriptures: for neither your challeriging of the name of the Church, will be sufficient to prove you ,«o indeed, nor the terming of any other to be heretics, except you be able out of the word of God, to con- vince them to be such.
Finally, for the.right use of the holy Scrip- tures, the pastors of the true Church of Christ, do diligently instruct their sheep, out of the holy Scriptures, with what modera- tion, humility reverence, desire to profit by
PREFACE.
them, and invocation of God's spirit, they ought to read them, how carefully they must avoid all presumption, curiosity, rashness, profaneness, and such like vices, whicii may not only hinder their profit in iho Scrip- tures, but also cause all their travel in them to turn to their utter destruction. These things the true pastors and governors of the Church can teach, without arrogating unto themselves any presumptuous authority, to restrain or permit according to their judg- ment, that which our Saviour Christ hath left generally to all the members of his mystical body, wliich is his holy Church, and to every one of them.
14. Chrysostom not in respect of such va- riety of circumstances, as you speak of, but absolutely, and most vehemently, commend- eth, not only the lawfulness, but also the necessity oi reading the holy Scriptures by the laymen, as appeareth in many places out of his homilies, and many other, which are omitted, seeing the matter by you is partly confessed. Yet one or two, shall not be amiss. First, he doth not only exhort the peo- 1 pie of Constantinople, which were so worldly- 1 minded, as you write, but also the people ofj Antioch, whom he greatly commended for their virtue and godliness, he calleth upon i very earnestly to be diligent in reading of the holy Scriptures ; ad Pop. Antioch. Horn. 22, 42, <yc. Again, for the necessity of study- ing the Scriptures, he saitli, "They that will attain to salvation, let them exercise them- selves in the Scriptures." Epist. ad. 1 Cor. Horn. 6. Where you think it requisite in these times, for a popish Catholic to be skU- ful in the Scriptures, I would many of them were of your mind, for then I would cot doubt but some of them, by God's grace, would be- come Christian Cathohcs.
15. AH that Chrysostom saith, to this pur- pose, is wiped away with this reproachful gloss, that he spake, " Not as a teacher in school, making exact and general rules to be observed in all places and times, but as a pulpit man agreeable to that audience and his people's default." Belike, pulpit men, with you, do more regard their creed before a few captious scholars in their school, than they do reverence the presence of Christ, be- fore whom they should prepare to speak, when they preach in the Church of God. And therefore, albeit in fimires, and phrases, and manner of handling, there is some difference, between a preacher before the people, and a reader before the learned, yet no learned godly man, such as Chrysostom, will so advi- sedly, so vehemently, so oftentimes as he did, utter any thing in the pulpit, before the ignorant, the truth whereof he is not able to justify in the schools before the best learned. Beside that your restriction of his rules unto his audience, and peo- ple's default of Constantinople, is before proved to be both frivolous and false, seeing he commendeth the study and reading of the holy Scriptures, no less generally to the people of Antioch, which were not a little
more spiritually affected, than they of Con- stantinople. And to that you say, " He maketh il not a thing absolutely needful, tor every poor artificer to read or study Scripture, as some perversely gather of his words ;" let his own words testily for him. Epi^t ad. Col. Horn. 9. " Hear all ye that be secular or lay- men, and have the government of wives and children, how the apostle commandeth you specially, to read the Scriptures, and that not simply, nor as it were by occasion, but with great diligence." Doth not oinnes mundani, all secular men, include as well every poor artificer, as every merchant, or gentleman ? Or is it not a thing absolutely needful, which the Holy Ghost commandeth all men to do? I might add hereunto, that he saith in another place, Luke 2. 16, " It cannot possibly be, that any man can attain to salvation, except he be continually conversant in spiritual reading." But here you would quarrel, that he maketh no exact rule, because many men attain to salvation, which cannot read at all- Yet his meaning is plain, and his words agreeable, that none can be saved, but by that knowledge which is gotten by continual reading of the Scriptures, whether a man read them him- self, or hear others. That he favoureth not presumptious, curious and contentious jang- ling, and searching of God's secrets, it is true, no more do we, and much less the pride and madness of them, that will be teachers, controllers and judges of doctors, church. Scriptures and all.
Ceesarius Arelatensis, Horn. 13, exhorting the ignorant people to repeat among them- selves what they have learned in the sermon, saith, "Qui novit literas, Scripturam Divi- nam student legere : qui vero non novit, quaerat sibi et roget qui ill debeat praecepta relegere, ut quod legerit, possit Deo adju- rante complere.
Neither are you ever able to prove, that every artificer among us, readeth the deepest and hardest questions of holy Scripture, ra- ther than the moral part, albeit that seeing whatsoever is written, is written for our learning, that through patience and comfort of the holy Scriptures, we might have hope : no simple artificer among us, is forbidden reverently to read any question of the Jcrip- tures, which is either necessary, or profitable for him to know. If there were not in the Aposdes' time, vain minded men that lan- guished about questions, and perverted the Scriptures to their own destruction, it is no marvel though there be some such in these days. But as the Apostles never restrained or forbade the reading of the holy Scrip- tures, for the misbehaviour of such as abused the same, no more do we. And surely this arsument of yours, although it came from Rheims, taken of men's abuse, will carry less weight in the schools, against the general liberty for all men to read the Scriptures, than the authority of Chrysostom* though he in your judgment were but a pulpit man, for the contrary Where you accou:it only fuiili, and fiduce
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PREFACE.
to be. new phrases and figures, the one faith .only, may be showed by twenty authorities, to nave been used, more than twelve hundred years ago, by writers ol' the Church, both ^Greeks and Latins: the other, fiduce, is a new phrase of your own framing • as for the Latin word fiducia, and that which it signifi- eth, trust and confidence, 1 doubt not, but they which are meanly read in the Scriptures do kiiow them to be both ancient and usual. 16. There hath been ever some schismati- cal heads, which have fantasied, that they could interpret the Scriptures by their own wits, without other ordinary means of learn- ing, or the grace of God's Holy Spirit : against whom this same may be applied which you write. But that every artificer among us, that readeth the holy Scriptures, is thus pre- isumptuously afli'ected, it is a most impudent slander. For many thousands, with due rev- erence of the word of God and true humility of heart, do read to their infinite commodity, comfort, and increase of godliness. Where you say, they delight in none more, than in the Epistle to the Jtomans; I marvel why you should mislike them that do so, seeing that the true faith of the church at Rome, whereof you would seem to be so great maintainers, in no part of Scripture, is more plainly set forth, than in that Epistle, which the Doctor and Apostle of the Gentiles, did write unto the Romans to be read, heard and understood, of every simple artificer among them, as well as of the rich and learned, even all that were in Rome, beloved of God and called to be Saints.
As for the Cantica Canticorum, I think all the brazen faces, that conspired to write this preface, cannot name three simple artificers in England, that delight more in that book, ' than any other of the Scriptures. Neitlirr i.s there any treatise of the holy Scripture, which is generally less studied, either of the learned, or unlearned. But because it is a continual allegory, the difficulties thereof served well, to make a show of your slander, betbre them whom you have enchanted to believe every lie, that your impudent mouth is not ashamed to pronounce. 'I'he Apocalypse also, though it be hard to understand, and be full of mys- teries, yet may it be read as other (larts of holy Scriptures, and there are mnnv things in it, that are plain and easy to be understood of every artificer. But perhaps you are more unwilling, they should read the Apocalypse, because it doth describe the whore of Baby- lon, the ciiy of Rome, so plainly, and the Epis- tle to tlie Romans likcth you not, because it is ao plain for justification by fiiitli without works. The rest that you say, of the diffi- culty of some part of the Scriptures, the sim- ple and godly artificers amon^ us, do acknow- ledge and either seek the interpretation of them at the mouth of their learned pastor, or else arc content to be ignorant in the exposi- tion of them, knowing as they are taught by Aui^ustin, that in those places which are plainly set down in the Scripture, are found [all those things which concern faith and good
living. De. doct.f Christ, lib. ■ 2- capt 9. which is as much as is necessary, for every Chria- tian man to learn for his salvation.
The example of Basil and Gregory, in stu- dying the Scriptures thirteen years, before they expoianded them, pertaineth not to every simple artificer, but to the pastors and teach- ers of the church. And God be thanked, our church hath many godly learned teachers, that have studied more than fourteen years before they have openly expounded the Scrip- tures, and Vvhich. follow the understanding of them, not out of their own presumption, but out of tfie writings and authority of the ancients ur elders; which are the words of Ruffmus, whorn you quote, who speaketh not one wonl of uniform consent or Apostolic tradition. If you allege, that all our preachers, are not of so many years' study, 1 answer, their example maketh no law, especially where the necessity of the Church requireth men of less time, yet sufficient to teach the truth. Neither are the most of your Seminary Priests, whom you send over to disturb the govern- ment, as well as the peace of our Church, of thirteen years study in the Scripture, seeing we know some of them, but the other day, runagate unlearned boys from our Univer- sities ; but being come to you, they are suddenly become great clerks, mid profound teachers ; whoreish impudence serving them instead of all learning.
17. God's name be praised, a great num- ber of our ministers, have had as good cogi- tation and care as is meet for that calling, and thereby have brought our country into that flourishing state in religion, that virtue and good life in them that diligently read the holy Scriptures translated into the mother tongue, never more shined in any age, than it hath done since the light of the gospel hath driven away the clouds of Popish ignorance, as all that be indifferent, and know the expe- rience of both times, cannot but confess. Think you, the manners oi the most perfect in the Popish times, are so forgotten, that you may with honesty, abide the comparison, with the common sort of Christians in this time? But your drift is to deceive young heads, of whom through your traitorous conspira- cies you have sent a great number to London Bridge, tliat nxivcr knew the former days and manners, and see indeed much wickedness in this time, yet punished where it is detest- ed, in all sorts of men, and not openly per- mitted, as Stews be in Popery.
18. We yield humble thanks unto God, that although the fruits of the gospel, be not so plentiful, as it were meet after so long teaching : yet the word of God hath not been preached and read in vain, but that great and notable effects thereof do appear, in the life and conversation of the faithful. And that all sorts and degrees of men, women, and cliildren, which be ddigent in readine, and liearing the word of God, be reformed in all virtue and godly behaviour. And that there is more religion, fear of God, faith, and con- scieficc, in all such persons, than was in any
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superstitious hypocrite, that lived in the dark days of Papistry. Neither do women teach their husbands, children their parents, young men the old, sohohirs their master, and sheep their shepherd, except perhaps, where there is greater iinowledgc in the woman than in the man, in the cliild than in the parent, in the young than in the old, in the scholar than m the master, in the people than in him that oc- cupieth the place ot the pastor ; in which case, it is not against God's ordinance, that the in- terior should instruct the superior. David saith, that he had more understanding than his elders, because he studied the law ot God, that he became wiser than all his teachers, because his meditation was in the Lord's tes- timonies. But where the husbands, parents, old men, masters, and pastors, as they ought to be, are better learned in the holy scriptures than their inferiors, there is no such disorder among us, as you speak of. Neither are the sentences of God's holy word, by any of us, abused into mirth, and mockery, and such other wickedness, but either by rapists, or profane unreligious persons, which have brought that horrible profanation of the Scrip- tures, from the common practice in Popery. Neither make we or allow we any such rhymes, tunes, or translations, as may give just occasion to increase such impiety.
19. These Papists, are able to follow no argument against us, with any appearance of truth, but that which is grounded on petition or begging of principles. For who will grant thern, the fall of good life and profaning the divine mysteries, in and by them, which use to read the holy Scriptures among us, as they are taught by us to read them ! yet they say, every bodi/ seeth. And as for that which they call the sreat corruption and decay of faith, indeed, is the true instruction, confirma- tioti, and increase of faith. That heretics which seek nothing in the Scriptures, but the confirmation of their error, must needs abuse them to their damnation, is confessed on our part. But both heretics and evil men, seek- mg to know the will of God in the Scripture.?, by the promise of Christ, are assured to find it. And the sense of the Church and of the Doc- tors, if it be the true sense of the Scriptures, is taken out of the Scriptures themselves. Therefore even in the Scriptures with the as- sistance of God's Spirit, may bp found that true sense of the holy Church, and the Doctors thereof. But tliatthe ignorant and unlearned, which know and follow nothing but their pri- vate fantasy, may easily be seduced, and that heretics, wolves, and (he devils themselves, pretend the holy Scriptures, it needed not so many authorities to prove, because it is ac- knowledged of all men that have but mean knowledge. Yet it followeth not which you conclude, that the vulgar or common people, in these days of general disputes, cannot but be in extreme danger of error, by reading the Scriptures truly translated, but rather by reading of them, may be preserved from dan-
fers ot error, if in humbleness of heart, and csire to know the truth, they seek, knock and
pray to him which hath promised tliat they shall find enter, and receive.
20. You slander the Protestants, in saying they walk in deceitfulness, and abuse men by false translations, corru.jting, adding, detract- ing, &LC. the particulars whereof, as they oc- cur in these annotations, shall receive their answer to your shame. And as tor that book wherein they are set forth more at large, by which you mean, Martin's Discovery, the author did well to term it a handmaid to thia great gentlewoman, the gloss of your annota- tions, specially in respect ol her modesty, that being once rebuked of her sauciness, she holdeth her peace, and doth not reply. So that these five or six years having none amon" you, that dare set pen to paper, to defend her after the death of her father, she hath kept silence to the shame of all Papists. Therefore for a large and particular confuta- tion of all those slanders, I refer the reader to a book set forth in confutation of that disco- very, called " A defence of the sincere and true translation of the holy Scriptures into the English tongue, &,c." And that which you write specially against Beza, is confuted in the answer to Martin's Preface, Section 18, 19,20,21,22.
The last quarrel against our translation, is, for adding whole sentences to the Psalms in metre, and even to the Creed in rhyme. By as good reason you might have brought out all books that we write in English, to prove that our translations of the Bible are faulty. For all reasonable men know, that the turn- ing of the Psalms into metre, is no transla- tion, neither is the Creed any part of the text of the holy Scripture, although good re- gard should be had as well in the one, as in the other, that nothing be added to the sense. Where you say the poor deceived people say and sing those metres, as though they were God's own word, you measure their understanding by the blindness of your igno- rant Papists. But assure yourself, our peo- ple are not so ignorant, but they can distin- guish the very lextof the Scripture translated ii.to English, from the paraphrase of the Psalms brought into metre, knowing that this latter must be consonant in sense unto the former, or else it is not the divine Scrip- ture, no not although it be agreeable unto it. That our translation maketh of God's word the Devil's word, it is a railing sentence grounded upon no truth, nor argument sound- ing like truth.
21. All these quarrels and false accusations, are answered sufficiently in the book before remembered, and as they are touched in these annotations they shall here also be confuted. That Calvin, the Church of Zurich, and other, coinplainofthe translation of Castalio, showcth indeed, that we approve none, but that is sincere and true, although without proof yen accuse ours to be as bad or worse. If Luther misliked the Tigurine translation, it is not sufficient to discredit it, seeing truth, and not the opinion or authority of men, is to be followed in such matters.
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Tlio glosses, prayers, and confessions, though Uiey be printed, and bound in the same volume witii the Bible, yet they be not privileged and authorized to be so joined with the Bible, as part of it, or yet so wholly corisonant unto it, but that they are to be ex- amined according to the text of the Scrip- ture, and not otherwise to be received, than so far forth as they are agreeable thereunto. Unless perhaps you thuik, that we usurp such lordship over men's faith, as you do practise, which require all these your slan- ders, contained in your preface, and all other errors comprehended in your annotations, to be taken for articles of faith, wholly conso- nant to the Catholic religion. The contra- diction that you note in the fourth article of the Creed in metre, with the confession of our faith denying Limbus patrum, if you were not malicious enemies, might be avoided, by acknowledging that the author of that metre is to be understood so, as his words may agree with the article of the confession.
22. These forty or fifty years being void of compassion, you have suffered the people to be without a Popish translation, while you had any hope to persuade the world, that ig- norance of the holy Scriptures is more mete for them, than knowledge in the same. But being beaten from that most impudent asser- tion by shame, and the conscience of all Pa- pists that are of any equity or indifl'erent judgment crying out against it, and seeing that you laboured in vain to brmg in blind ignorance : you have yielded by obscure trarislation, partly to dim the light of the Scripture, and by heretical annotations, to pervert the sense of the Holy Ghost, to the upholding of the kingdom of Antichrist. That our true and sincere translations, out of the original tongues, being laid aside, your mists of dark speeches, and wicked observations might come m place. What you profess and protest of your care and sincerity, may be credited of them that be devote unto you ; but all rea- sonable men may take a taste of your credit by this. In the answer to Hfiirthi's book called the Discovery, &c., you were adino- nished of manifest corruptions, and false translations, even of your vulgar Latin text, but where is the promise of reformation these five or six years ? Your hke fidelity in citing and applying the sayings of the an- cient Fathers, shall God willing be laid open in this answer to your annotations ; but as for the humble acknowledging of your errors, and the corrections of the same, we have small hope to see. For so long as your heads be occupied in contriving most horrible conspiracies, treason and murder of your sovereign, and the overthrow of your own country, we cannot be persuaded that any heavenly wisdom can enter into so malicious souls, or that there is any fear of God, regard, honour, or love of his truth, that moveth you to any thing, whatsoever yoti pretend. But even as the book you lately wrote against the mur- dering of princes, had no other purpose of the setters forth, but to make our Queen and her
counsel secure of your devilish practices, wliile you intended nothing so carefully, as the most cruel and unnatural slaughter ot her person, and of all her faithful counsellors and trusty subjects, by that hellish and satanical conspiracy of Savage, Ballard, Babington, and the rest, by Giflord and Allen, principal pillars of your Seminary of Rheims, en- chanted and confirmed thereunto, openly tes- tified by their own confessions, at their arraignments. That in translation of the Scriptures, the very words must be kept, as near as it is possible, and the phrase of the tongue into which we translate will bear, we do acknowledge with Hier. ad Pammach. That which you cite out of Augustin, is not to be found in the place by you quoted ; but wheresoever it is written, it seemeth to be intended of terms usual in the Church, against heretics, rather than of translation. That the ancient doctors refused not the barbarisms and solecisins of the vulgar Latin translation, which they then had, was be- cause they did write in Latin, to be under- stood of the common people, to whom the Latin tongue was vulgar, and that translation familiar : not that those barbarisms and sole- cisms by long use became venerable, or that it is any example for you, to bring in Latin and Greek words into the English text, neither used before, nor understood now of the English people. Although the place you cite out of Ambrose, is by him defended to be a commendable phrase, by authority of those which made choice of words and elo- quent speeches, of which one said. Loco edi- tiore quam victoribus decebat. Neither doth Hierom in the epistle to Damasus say, that he keepeth relic;iously these and such like barbarous speeches, although he use some of them in his commentaries, for the cause before alleged, but rather he showeth, that recourse must be had to the original truth of the Greek text. Nevertheless he saith, he hath so tempered his pen, that those things oidy being corrected that might seem to change the sense, he suffered the rest to remain as they were.
Neither had Augustin any religion in false or barbarous Latin, although he did bear with it, and was willing to use it where it was best understood, or did best express the original Greek. For in the first place by you quoted, he would have the original tongues, out of which the interpretation is made, to be looked unto, and that which is barbarous and obscure, to be corrected by it, as instead of vitulamina, he would have pluntationes : that which is commonly understood to be borne with, if it cannot be amended, and giveth an example of. " That which now we cannot take away from the mouth of the people that sing, upon him shall my sanctifi- caiion flourish, where the barbarous word florid, doth nothing hinder the sense : yet a cunning hearer had rather have it corrected, that it might be suit!, not floriet, but florehit And nothing doth hinder the correction, but the custom of the singers. But these thincfs
I'RhFACE.
23
may be easily contemned." Lo ihis is the most religious care, that he hath to keep bar- barisms and solecisms, this is the special pride and inlirmity that he counteth in them that would have ihem corrected.
In the second place by you noted, for avoiding of ambiguity, he saiih, ho had ra- ther speak barbarously thanpundy : as where the text is, Non ext. abscornliluin a le. os jiieiim, because ossignifieth a mouth and a bone, the certainty must be learned out of the Greek tongue, " Wherefore many times, the vulgar custom of speaking is more profitable jbr signification of things, than the learned purity. For 1 had rather it be said with barbarism. Nun est abscoiiditum a te osiam meant, than that it should be theretore less plain, because it is more Latm like." His meaning is, he had rather have a barbarous word used, that is imderstood of the common people, than a imre Latin word, either not understood, or uncertain how it should be understood.
In the third place, he saith, that sanguines in the plural, is no good Latin word, yet be- cause It is the plural number in the Greek, the interpreter did choose rather to express the truth according to the sound of words, though he spake not so pure Latin, according to the grammarians, for if he had spoken in the singular number, he had not expressed the Apostle's meaning, " Therefore let us speak, and not be afraid of the grammarian's palmer, so that we may come to the sound and more certain truth."
These things 1 have examined particularly, though the matter be not weighty, that the reader may see how soundly and sincerely, you gather out of the Fathers, where no great need enforceth you, that he may the rather suspect your dealing with them in matters of great importance.
23. Although the text be not truly translated by you, yet ye are not able by it to disprove the truth of our doctrine, nor to defend your own heresies. Whatsoever in your annotations you have observed to charge us with here- tical corruptions of false deductions, hath been sufficiently confuted already. As for the old brag of Apostolic tradition, exposition of Fathers, decrees of Church and Councils, shall now be declared to be as vain as ever it was. And whosoever, with diligence, sin- cerity, and indifference will vouchsafe to read, as well your annotations, as our an- swer to the same, I doubt not but they shall acknowledge more to be performed conccrn- mg this matter in the end, than we promise in the beginning. As for the wilful blind, that will be led by none other, but by your blind Pharisaical guides, we must let tnem alone, to fall together with you, into the pit of everlasting destruction.
24. We may see, there is no small account made of these your annotations, that you promise the reader such satisfaction and con- tentment in them, as he could not find in all the Popish treatises, that have been set forth these thirty years. Well, the trial is all. For my part, by the assistance of God's
grace, I nothing doubt, but as I have in twenty other of your treatises, laid open the weakness of your part, with the lewd means you use to uphold it, in such sort you have no list to reply : so in this work, 1 shall per- form the lilu>, I hat the saying of Augustin, by you .~r I (Imwii, -Imll be found most true. " That tip r,Mii!:i'ih;ion of Papists, as of all oiher lilu' li'icii, , is the occasion, that the true meaning of the Scripture by diligent search is better understood, than it were like to have been, if no such heresy had arisen, and that the true Catholics be better discern- ed from the arrogant heretics, according to the saying of the Apostle. There must be heresies, that tiiey which are approved may be made manifest." So the malice of Satan, the taiher of lies, is by the invincible power ot God, converted to the avouching of the truth, and to the benefit of the Church, which by heresies the Devil seeketh to over- throw.
25. Your application of Augustin's place, is as true as your quotation: for you quote cap. 13, iiislead of the 33 vujk And he speak- eth not of points of doctrine, that indeed are not decided by Scripture, for of the point of doctrine in controversy between him and the Donatists, that such as were baptized by he- retics, might not be rebaptized, he saith in the chapter going before, " Truly we follow in this thing'also, the most certain authority of the canonical Scriptures." And a little before, he had alleged for the same question among other authorities of Scriptures, the saying of our Saviour Christ to Peter. He that is once washed, need not to be washed again. But the matter that was not to be found in the Scripture, was an example of one baptized by heretics, received by the Church without rebaplisni. For he had also before alleged the same exainple of the Sa- maritans, who being circmncisetl in schism and heresy, were not circumcised again, when they were converted to the true reli- gion of the Jews : which proveth the point o doctrine invincibly. But the contentious he- retic would still urge the like example to be showed of baptism, whereupon Augustin saith, " Therefore, although indeed, an example be not brought forth of this thing, out of the canonical Scriptures, yet in the same things also the truth of the same Scriptures is holden of us, when we do that which hath now pleased the whole Church, whom the authorities of the Scriptures themselves doth commend, that for as much as the holy Scripture cannot deceive, whosoever feareth to be deceived with the obscurity of this question, let him ask counsel of the same Church, which the holy Scriptures without all ambiguity, doth demonstrate or set out." The obscurity of this question grew by the contrary judgment and practice of Cyprian's time, which the whole Church, by the autho- rity of the Scriptures, had reformed in Au- gustin]s time. He saith not therefore, "that of points not decided by Scriptures, the Church must be consulted," but where ques-
34
PREFACE:
tion of contrary judgment and practice doth arise, the judgment of the whole Church must be inquired, what is agreeable to the holy Scriptures, and preferred before the particular opinions and practices of any other, though otherwise godly and learned, as Cy- prian was.
The Church therefore hath wisdom to de- cide questions by Scripture, not authority to determine of points of doctrine, not decided by the Scriptures, for there are not such neces- sary for God's people, to know or practise.
26. You translate the vulgar Latm text, and not the original Greek text, for ten causes. The first is the antiquity, that it was in use in the Church of God, above 1,300 years ago. This is more boldly affirmed, than can be soundly proved : for it appeareth not by the fathers of those times, that any oue transla- tion was generally used. Ausnistin sailh, " There was an infinite variety of Latin trans- lations." Hieronym in effect saith as much. Pre/at. ad Danasum in 4, Evang. Yea, it will be ihard f )r you to name any one P'ather of the Latin Church, that used it more than 1,300 years ago.
Tertullian used it not, as appeareth by a hundred texts that he citeth, differing from it : for example. Your vulgar Latin hath Alter alteritis otieru portate. Tertullian citeth it, Oiiera vextra inuicem. suslinete. Your text hath, prudentiamprudenlium reprobaho. Tertullian's text was, irritam facium. Your text hath, Non enim eruhesco Eoangelium. Tertullian's text was, Non enim mepudet Evangelii.
Cyprian used it not, as ap])eareth by infi- nite texts, which he citeth in his books of testimonies ad Quirlnum, and throughout his works, whereof 1 will show a few examples, Your text hath Matt. 3, Non sumidignus cah:eamenta portare. Cyprian's text had, iVon sum doneu.^, ad (iuirinum, lib. 1, num. 12, Luke 1. Your text hath. Quia visitavit et fecit re- demplionempUhissu'B. Cyprian's text was. Quia prospexit redemptionem populo sua, lib. 2, num. 7. Your text .Tohn 1, hath, in principio erat verbiim. Cyprian's text had, fn vrincipio erat Sermo, lib. 2. num. 6. Your text Rom. 2. hath. An divitias bonitalis ejus et patientim, et long animitatis contemnis ? Cyprian's translation had. An nunquid opulentiam bonilatis ejus et sastinenliaih et patientiam contemnis ? lib. 3. num. 35.- The Clergy of Rome in Cyprian's time used not your vulgar Latin text as ap- peareth by divers texts cited in their Epis- tle.s. As for example, your text hath. Mat. 18, Onine debilunl dimisi tibi quoninm rogasti me. The Romans' text had, Donavi lihiomne dehitum quia me rogasti. Cler. Rom. Epist. 31. Your text hath, Rom. I, Quia fides vestra annunciatur in unvierso niundo. Their text had, Quia fides vestra prwdicatur in tolo mundo.
Ireneus, or he that translated him into Latin, w-hich is very ancient, followed another translation than your vulgar Latin. I for- bear examples, which are many, beca'ise it is not certain of what time the translator of Ireneus lived, who is thought to have written in Greek.
Amobius, an ancient writer, used not vour text, as impeareth by divers places which he citeth. For example, your text hath, 1 John 2, Filioli novissirna hora est. Arnobius read, Fucri novissirna hora, <^c. Your text, Luke 22, hath, Saianas expelivit vos ut cribraret. Arnobius did read, ventilet. Your text saith, Ego autem rogavi. Amobius saith, Ego au- tem intercessi.
Hilary used not your vulgar Latin text, as appeareth through all his commentary upon Matthew, whereof take these examples. Your text hath. Matt. 7, In quo enim judicio judicaveritis indicabimini. Hilary saith, Judi- cabitur de vobis.
Cap. 15, your text hath, Arundinem vento agitatam. Hilary readeth, vento moveri. Your Latin text hath, Matt. 26, Extendens manum exemit gladium suum et percutiens servum principis sacerdolum amputavit auriculum ejus. flilary aaith, gladium exercns serno principis sacerdotum aurem abscidit.
Ambrose, you confessed before, used a more ancient translation than your vulgar Latin, and lest the unlearned reader should think it were in that one only place, 1 will give a fiew examples, whereby it may appear Fhat he used not your vulgar Latin in his whole commentary upon Luke. In the An- gel's salutation, Luke 1, your text hath, m mulieribus. Ambrose saith, inter mulieres. In the answer of Mary, your text hath fiat mild. Ambrose saith, contingat mihi. In the 12th chapter, where your text hath a^er, Am- brose hath possessio. Yours hath Quid indua- mini, Ambrose hath, quid vestiamini.
Pacianus used it not, as Ep. 1. Luk. Dignus ft«< mercennrius. Your text is, Operarius. 2 Cor. 2. Non enim versuiias ejus ignoramus. Yours, Non enim ignoramus cogitationes ejus.
.Ttilius Firmicus, tra. 1. Qui aufert. Vulg. Qui tollit. Apo. 5. Prostraverunt se. Vulg. Ce- ciderunt.
Victorinus Col. 1. sedes, Vulg. tlironi. Condi- ta, Vulg. creata. 1 Tim, 3. mysterium, Vulg. sacramentum. Receptum, Vulg. assumplum.
Gaudenrius Brixianus used it not, as it ap- peareth Ep. ad Genninium, v^here he rehear- seth the whole parable of the unjust steward out of another translation.
Seeing none of the Fathers of those times, used your vulgar Latin text, I pray you tell us in good earnest, what Fathers you mean ? for these are the chief, and almost all those works remain of those times. A^ain, where you say it is most ancient, you ibrget what you said before, that Ambrose followed an older translation than the vulgar Latin trans- lation.
The places by you quoted, do show, that Hieronym did correct a vulgar Latin text, that was much used before his time, at the request of Dimasus, but the common received opinion of Papists, which call it Hieronym's translation, is no good argument to prove it to be the ancient vulgar text of his correction. All probability, is but your own authority. For it is against all probability, th^t Hiero- nym who corrected it, according to the Greek,
PREFACE.
Bs he professeth, would have left so many places that are not warranted by any Greek copy.
Again, there are in it, some of those faults which Hicronym did correct, as in Mark the first, the name of Esay, which he thinkeUi to be the fault of the writers. Com. in Matt, ap. 3. The like is in some copies of the vul- gar Latin, Judma Jtukc. Matl. 2, and cap. f> he correcteth the word ei-^e/v/jtVio/i?, which re- maineth in your vulgar Latin te-xt.
Also c. 16. 4. it appeareth that Hieronym's text was vade relro me, yours is vade post me.
In the Epistle to the Lialat. c. 1. where your vulgar h&nn\iKl\\ cxpugnahani iUam, liiero- nyni in his commentary, rehearseth the text, et devastabam illam. Likewise for acquivi in the same chapter, he correcteth conltdi ac- cording to the Greeks. Again, upon the third chapter he saith expressly : In some books it is read, who hath bewitched you not to believe the truth ? but because it is notfound in the co- pies of Origen, we have omitted it. But those words which he saith he hath omitted, your vulgar text hath. Therefore with greater probability, may I say, that your vulgar text is not that which Hieronym corrected, but rather the same text uncorrected, than you can affirm, that by all probability, it is that which he corrected.
The antecedent being proved false, the consequent cannot be true. Augustin com- mendeth Hieronym's labour and diligence in that correction of the vulgar Latin, but we have declared before, this is not that which he corrected, therefore it is not the same which Augustin so commcndeth. Neither doth Augustin use your vulgar Latin text, as 1 might show by five hundred examples, but a few shall suffice.
In the ninth of John, your vulgar latin text hath,/ec<< lulum ex sptUo, et linivtt lutum super oculos ejus. Augustin's translation was de saliva sua lutum fecit et injiinxil oculos cmci. Tract, ill Joan. 44. Also Jolri 13, your vul- gar Latin hath posi buccellam. Augusiin's book had, post panem, or post panejn intinctum. In the first chapter of John's first Epistle, your vulgar Latin text hath, et testamur et annuncia- mus vobis vita7n ueternam, quce erat apud jyalrem et apparuit nobis. Augustin's text had, et tes- tes sumus, et amiunciamus vobis vitam aiernavi, quce erat apud pat rem, et manifesta est in nobis. Also in the second chapter, to the fifth verse he addeth these words, si in illo perfecti fueri- mus, which are not in your vulgar Latin text. In the same phce, he readeth dilectio DA. where your text hath charitas. In the f.unih chapter of the same Epistle, your text hath omnis smritus qui solvit Jesum. Augustin's text had omnis spiritus, qui non conftetur Jesum in came venisse, ^c. By these it is manifest that Augustin followed not your vulgar Latin text, which it is like he would }iave done, if it had been the same which Hieronym cor- rected, and which he so commended and allowed.
Y9U are not able to prove your Church service to be so ancient as Augustin's time, 4
for many of your Church lessons are taken out of Bcda, and other writers, who lived many hundred years after Augustin's age. And such parts of the Scripture, as seem to have been of most ancient time used in the Church of Rome, are not taken out of your vulgar Latin text. In the Lord's prayer, it is jianem nostrum quotidiunum, in your vulgar Latin text supcrsubstanliahin, likewise iur glo- riam in e.ccclsi.':, your vulgar Latin hath gloria in (il/issi/iii.--. So out (iT Matthew 21, your Cliiircli strviii; iiaili Hint diclus qui venit in nomine Dcinini. Imsanmi ui CJ:celsis, your vulgar Latin halh m nl/i.s,m,s.
That It liaihii'ii lirtii ever since Hieronym's time allfLjcil, aial iiiuiiiroted in the writings and cominentaiK -^ nl 11. ( ancu'iit l-'athers of the Latin Clninli .-hall a;'|ic ai li\ ihese testi- monies foUouum. 'Vnur w xi lialii Matt. 16, portCB inferi tieu pnrulcbunt. Opla/iis Mileviia- nus, allegeth portce inferoiinii, non vincent. Matt. 7, your vulgar Latin hath conyersi di- rumpant vos. Optalus read, co7iversi elidant vos. Luke l^^ in your vulgar Latin it is thus written, dixit uutem et ad quosd'Ani qui in se con- fidebant tanquam jusii, et aspernabantur cceteros. rtptaius t^aiih it"is written, Dicebat Jesus hanc siinUiliijlini in propter^eos qui se saiictos putant, it (iinliinnuiitccr.teros.
Fuigeniiiis, another ancient father of the Latin Church, alleged not always your Latin text, as appearelh. Ad Trasimundum lib. 1. c. 5. Uinnis spiritus qui noii conjitetur Jesum Christum in came v&nisse, ex Deo non est Your text hath, qui solvit Jesum. 1 John 4. lib. 2. c. 18, his text had cunfonne corpori, where your text halh lon/ii^uni'lani. Pliil. 3.
Priiuasius, aiiuldlaili. 1 mIiIi, i .;,iin Church, in his Conuiientary uihju ihi lijii.-tle to the Hebrews cap. 1. li'atli Ultu luUiliu prce consor- libus, where your text hath, oleo_ exultationis pr<B participibus. Cap. 3. ad Gal. in his expo- sition he followeth that, which he saith was the Latin text, Quihus ud horam cessimus : whereas the Latin now is negatively neque adhoram. And although the writers or prin- ters have prefixed the vulgar Latin before his commentaries, yet it appeareth by many places of his commentaries, that he followed another text.
Prosper Aguitanicus somewhat elder than he, allegeth Scripture, out of another transla- tion, than your vulgar Latin : as de promiss, part 3. pro. 1. out of John 1. die, ut haheamus renunciare ?tis, your text is, tit responsum demus. In the same place, vox clamantis in enuin, paraie viom, ^c , your text is, in deserto, ffin^iie. Out of the Acts 13, he citeth this tL .\t, Cum impleretur cursus Joannes, dixit, quern, i.ie suspiciamini esse, non sum ego, sed ecce venit post me, de cujus pedibus non sum dignus solvere corrigiam calceamentorum ejus. Your text is, cu7n impleret autem Joan nes cursum suurn dicebat, quem me arbitramini esse non sum ego, ecce venit post me cujus non sum dignus calceamenta pedum solvere. It were folly to add more examples, in a case so manifest.
Leo, Bishop of Rome, expounded not your vulgar Latin text, and therefore it is not like
26
PREFACE.
to be that which liieronym corrected : for in his Horn, infest, omn. sanctorum, interpret- ing the beginning of Matthew's (jospel : next after Beati pauperes, he placeth Beali (jui lugent, as it is in the Greek. " After the coi/i- mendation of this nuist happy poverty, our Lord added, saying, blessed are they that viourn. Your vulgar text" placeth, heati miles, quoniam ipsi possidebimt terrain. And' Leo, when iie Com- eth to that third beatitude, readeth hareditate possidebunt terrain, more expressing the Greek word. Gregory indeed, who was three hun- dred years after the time by you before named used your vulgar Latin text, and that so precisely, that where there is a manifest corrupiion, not of the translator, but of the writers, Luke 15, evertit domum, for everrit, he nevertheless expoundeth the text according to that corruption, although he confcsseth that in another translation it was ciimndat, which is more agreeable to the Greek. But this error of Gregory, you are content to give over, for in your translation you say, she doth sweep the house, according to the truth of the original Greek, being ashamed to follow the gross error of the best Bishop of Rome, of all the number that followed him.
Vigilius, an ancient Father, used not your translation, as appeareth in many places : Lib. 2. he citeth the text thus, Luk. 2. Puer autem crescebat et confortahatur, repletus sopien- tia, et gratia Dei super eum. Your text hath, plenus sapientia, et gratia Dei erat in Ulo. Again this text Heb. 2, he citeth, nam paulo minus minoratum vidimus Jesum, ^c. Your text is, eum autem qui modicequam angeli minoratus est. In the same place alter some Greek copies, Vigilius readeth, sine Deo, where your text is, gratia Dei.
Gildas, our countryman, Matt. 5. 16. magni- ficent patrem vestrum. Vulg. glorificait. Matt. 7. 3. trabein in oculo tuo non consideras. Vulg. non vides. 1 Tim. 3. si quis episcopatum cupil, honnm opus cupil. Vulg. desiderat.
The profane particular chapter of Trent, hath no authority to prefer any tran.slation, much less one so corrupt and depraved as that is, before the original text of the Apos- tles' and Pjvangclists' own inditing ; nor to for- bid any man to reject that which is found disagreeing from the original verity. No council althouirh it were ge^ieral, which your good lords and masters of the Popish French Church, will not acknowledge the Tridentine to be, have any authority against the truth, but only for it, as Paul saith of himself, and other Apostles.
In gravity, sincerity, and majesty, it is not to be cornnared with the authentical Greek text, beside that in many places it is ridi- culous, insincere, untrue, and consequently of no authoriiy, much less majesty. And al- though the translator was not partial in re- spect of the controversies of our time, yet this unant translation sometime is abused of you, to the maintenance of your errors, as in answering your annotations will appear.
Tlie transhitor indeed according to his knowledge, did purpose to translate exactly,
both words and phrases : but bemg nei- ther very good Grecian nor good Latinist, beside that he erred in many places from the true sense, he hatli translated many places barbarously, as is confessed by Lindanus, Isidorus, Clarius, and others of judgment among you. What hurt is it then, if by learned men of these times, which have ex- act judgment in both the tongues, that rude- ness be amended. Is the Scripture of more credit in false Latin or in barbarous Latin, than in true and clean Latin ? No, verily, but that you prefer old errors, belore old truth newly restored. If that vulgar transla- tion follow the truth more exactly than ours, I would wish ours were reformed according to the Greek. Concerning the examples vou bring, I answer your yrffessc doth not tollow the Greek more exactly, than our words, to maintain, or to show forth. For Trpoiorao-yat doth signify as well that which we translate, as that which your vulgar text hath. We translate it also to excel, as Beza doth say, Prceslantes esse: and the Greek signifieth all three indifferently, as every man that is learned therein will confess, and the Lexi- cons bear witness. The word dedicated, as Beza translateth it, had been more proper, than prepared : yet, because the word signi- fieth, to renew, and mention is made before of the new way, it is no hurt to the sense, to say. He prepared a new way. As for the words, Justijicaliones, Traditiones, Idola, we expound truly according to the Greek, as is declared at large, in the book of the defence of our translations, unto which I refer the reader.
Beza preferred it before the translations of Castalion, lUyricus, and such like ; and it is not to be denied, that the old interpreter of the New Testament, according to his know- ledge, and after that copy which he followed,^ translated religiously: yet partly for want of knowledge, partly for lack of conference of other copies, or judgment to discern them, he hath translated many things obscurely, many things untruly, some things ambigu- ou.sly, and oftentimes barbarously.
The dissension of interpreters must be de- cided by the original Greek, as Augustine showeth, and Hieronym ihinkeih as much. Neither is there greater dissension of our interpreters, than is of the copies of your vulgar Latin text: neither is it like, neither is there any cause why Luther should so say, as you report out of iiis adversary Cocltsiis. For so long as the Greek text remaineth, the diversity of translations cannot bring the truth in uncertainty, but they that be learners and lovers of truth, may plainly see it. Nor yet is Beza's translation so wide from the Greek, that it is forsaken of us : but we uso our judgment freely in those points, and are not tied to his authority. The Son of Cainan, though it be a superfluous and false addition, yet because it is in most of the Greek copies, we are content to let it stand, as the name of Jeremy, in Matt. Gospel, which yet we doubt not to be a corruption instead of Za-
PREFACE.
27
chary, or else that there should be neither named. Yet Beza, by authority of Moses, and of a very ancient Greek copy, now re- jTiaining in iJie library of the University of Cambridge, doth leave it out in his transla- tion.
The other example, Cum ruoribus, with their wives, is nothing wide fiom the Greek text, but very aptly agreeth therewith, yet because the word signifielh also women ge- nerally, and because it might be, that there were other godly women, besides the wives of the Apostles, our translator thought good to translate it by the word women, wliich comprehendeth as well wives, as other wo- men.
This only argument, if it were well proved, might justify your translation out of the vulgar Latin text. The other nine reasons, if ihey were all granted, as there is not one of them all true and good, arc not sufficient to prove, that you ought to translate out of the Latin, rather than out of the Greek. Seeing the water is most pure out of the spring, and not out of ponds and ditches that are derived trom it.
27. The proof is like your accustomed proofs, where you heap on words to deceive the ignorant, which being rightly weighed, have no substance at all of truth in them. Your first argument is, that most of the an- cient heretics were Grecians, which did cor- rupt the Scriptures in Greek. A feeble rea- son, as though the providence of God, which caused the New Testament to be written in Greek, either could not, or would not, pre- serve it from the corruption of the heretics, in Greek as well as in Latin. But some of these corruptions, you say, remain in the Greek books unto this day : it may he in some copies they do, which yet are convinced by other copies. But that you deny : and for example you say, Tertullian affirmeth the Greek text, which is at this day, 1 Cor. 15, 47, to be an old corruption of Marcion the heretic, and the truth to be as your vulgar Latin hath : but Lindanus whom you follow, mistook Tertullian greatly, and so doth Beza. For Tertullian layeth not Marcion's corruption in that verse, but in the 46th verse, and by the authority of the Apostle in the 47th verse, discovereth his corruption. For after he hath proved out of the Apostle against Mar- cion, that the resurrection pertaineth unto the body, and not unto the soul only : he declareth that the Apostle confirnieth the same^ of Christ himself, where he saith, " The first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit, although the most foolish heretic would not have it to bo so: for he hath placed the last lord, instead of the last Adam, fearing indeed, lest if he shall have the Lord to be the last Adain, we also might de- fend Christ in the last Adam, to be of the same nature whereof the first Adam was. But the falsehood doth plainly appear : for why is the first Adam, but hecau.se there is the'last Adam ? There is no order of things one to another, except they be equal, and be
either of the same name, or substance, or author. For although i:i divers things also, there may be one thing first, and another last, yet they must be of one author. But it the author be another, he also may be called the last : yet that which he hath brought in, is first, but last, if it be equal to the first: but equal to the first it is not, because it is of the same author ; after the same manner, he siiall be convinced in the name of man. The first man, saith the Apostle, is of the earth earthly, the second is the Lord from , Heaven. Why is he called the second, if he be not a man as the first I Or is the first the Lord if the second be ? But it sufficeth, if in the Gospel he taketh Christ the Son of Man, as man ; and in the man Adam, cannot deny him. The words following also do press him together; for when the Apostle saith, such as he is, which is of the earth, namely the man, such are the men earthly : therefore, such as the man is, that is from Heaven, such are the men who are fronj Heaven." This place of Tertullian being rightly understood, doth not charge the Greek with any corniption, but rather reproveth the corruption of Marcion in verse 45 ; and is a good testimony for the antiquity of that read- ing, which is now of verse 47 in the Greek text. And whereas in his book, De carnis resurrectione, it is now read, Secundus homo de calo ; it scemeth that Domiiius is left out, through fault of the writers, seeing he addeth immediately, Id est, SermoDei,idest Chrislus ; which agreeth properly to Dcminus, and addeth not celestis, as it is in the vulgar Latin. And although some ancient Fathers of the Latin Church, as Ambrose and Hieronym, do read so, and Calvin misliketh not the sense, which is true ; yet all the Greek copies and ancient Fathers of the Greek Church, as Athanasius alleging it against Marcion himself, Euthy. Fan. par.l. tit.9\ Chrysos- tom, Damascen, andOecumenius, holding the Greek text, and the sense thereof, being good and godly, there is no reason why it should be counted a corruption. Another corruption of the Greek text, you say is noted by Hierom. in 1 Cor. 7. 33. Adv. Jovinian, lib. 1 ; where indeed he saith that " the Latin books of his time were as the Greek is now, and that the Apostolic truth is as your vulgate text is, and as he in that place translateth :" yet he confesseth that he had cited it other- wise, and so he doth in his book against Helvidius, and it Ep. ad Eustochi. de Virgin, custodia. But seeing Basil, who was of the Greek Church, and older than he, doth often cite the text as we read it now, and so doth Chrysostom likewise read and expound it Oecumenius also and Theophylact. Almost all the old Greek copies do agree in this read- ing, with that which was the ancient Latin text in Hieronym's time: therefore it is rather like that Hieronym's Greek book was faulty, and lacked the conjunction, than that all the Greek Church was deceived in it. The third corruption you say is noted by the Tri- partite history, /t6. 12. cap. 4. in 1 John 4. 3 ;
28
PREFACE.
and the true reading to be onmis sjnritus qui solvit Jesuni ; as also Socrates contendeth, affirming that text which we now read, is a corruption of tlie Nestorians, as Beza con- fesseth. But Beza tclleth you also, that Cy- prian, lib. 2. ado. Jiideeus, cap. 8 ; citeth it in Latin, according to that we now read in the Greek, who seeing he lived certain hundred years before Nestorius, Socrates, or Cassio- dorus, do unjustly charge him with corrup- tion, although some old copies in their time, ' whom your Vulgate interpreter followed, might have o Xvti tov Irjuovi', as Socrates saith. Yet all the Fathers of the Greek church, as appeareth by Oecumenius, retaining the Greek text as it is now, and all the ancient copies thereunto agreeing, and the Syrian translation confirming it, the testimony of one no very ancient historian, Socrates, and that manifestly false, is not sufficient to convince the Greek Testament of corruption, espe- cially seeing not only Cyprian, and long Ije- iore him, TertuUian, De pnscript. adv. Heret., and alter ihem Augustiii, ami otiu r ancient Fathers of the Latin church, do ai;kiiowledge this reading to be the true text and word of God.
23. It is a shameless cavillation to say, we acknowledge the Greek text lo be corrupt, because in some few places, where the Greek copies do vaiy, through the default of the writers, being deceived by similitude of let- ters or otherwise, we choose that reading, which being most agreeable t > the circum- stance of the text is confirmed also by au- thority of the vulgar Latin translation; as in the first example you bring out of Heb. 9 : 1. Some Greek copies now extant, leave out the word (ahn-iiade, and so the circumstance (jf the place rerpiireth. The same is tiie judgment of Photiu.~, and Oecumeniu.-:, :;i;(i before them of Chrysostom, in whose copy it was left out. The Syriac translation also omitteth it, as well as the vulgar Latin. Is the Greek text then corrupted, when we have so good testimony of the true reading thereof, both out of some ancient Greek copies yet extant, out of the ancient Fathers of the Greek text, and also out of the ancient translations into other languages? The second, Rom. 12, likewise, hath most of the ancient Greek copies to warrant it, beside the authority of Clemens, Alexandri- nus, Basil, Chrysostom. Photius, Oecumenius, Theophylact, old writers of the Greek church, the Syriac translation, and the Vulgate inter- preter of the Latin ; yet forsooth, we forsake the Greek text as corrupted, when in diver- sity of Greek readings, we follo>.i that which is so substantially avouched.
The third example. Apocalypse 11, beside the Complutensian edition, wliich doubtless followed some ancient Greek copies, hath the authority of Aretas, and those ancients of the Greek church, out of whom he gathered his coiiMnentarics, which, is sufficient to judge of that diversity, which is in mistaking of one only letter in the Greek word. The fourth, 2 Tim. 1. 14. is no departing or
forsaking of any Greek text, but only a ne cessary explication of that Greek according to our English phrase. In so great a number oi places, as you speak of, in this section, you had small wit to bring this for one, but that you svere come to the end of your quarrels, though you place another after it lor a fa- shion. You yourselves have other manner of additions than this is, in your translation, whereof soine are necessary and some need- less. Yet you would not be charged lo for- sake the Latin text as corrupt, although sometimes you do, and cleave to the Greek, wherein no wise man will blame you.
The last example, James 5. 12, hath also ancient Greek copies, the Syriac translation, and the judgment of Oecumenius, with such ancient Fathers as he doth follow, together with the vulgar Latin.
'\Ve forsake not the Greek text as corrupt- ed, when we forsake the fault of the printer or of the writer, and follow the Greek text, which is warranted by ancient copies writ- ten or printed, and by the authority of ancient Fathers, the sense of the Holy Ghost, and the circumstances of the places agreeing that to be the very true reading of the Greek text and the right Scripture of God, no more than you forsake the vulgar Latin text as corrupt- ed, when you leave the common reading, and follow that which is placed in the margin- You yourselves acknowledge at the end of this preface, that sometimes you translate the word in the Latin margin, and not that in the text, " when by the Greek or the Fathers, we •see it is a manifest fault of the writer thereof, who mistook one word for another." And may we not do the same in the Greek, which you do in the Latin, without forsaking the Latin as corrupted ? O conscience of Pa- pists !
29. It is not vain trifles, whatsoever Eras- mus, or any other man, shall reject out of the Greek text under that name ; and yet you do him wrong, to say he calleth the conclusion of tiie Lord's prayer trifles, absolutely ; but upon condition, if it be no part of the ancient text : for confirmation whereof, beside the most part of ancient Greek copies, Chrysos- tom in his commentary upon Matthew's gos- pel, Horn. 20, without any controversy doth read it and expound it. Therefore it msiy well be thought, that the Homily upon the Loru's I)rayer m the fifth tome, where it is omitted, was written by some P^ather of the Latin Church, rather than by Chrysostom. So the style in my opinion doth argue with the men- tion of stimum corda, brought in also by Cy- prian. Euthymius who gathered his exposi- tion out of many ancient Fathers of the Greek Church, doth in like manner read it, and ex- pound it. The Syriac interpretation also which is very ancient doth acknowledge it : so doth the Hebrew text, which if it be not the authentical ol Matthew, yet is very ancient. The Latin Church indeed hath not used it in the form of prayer, because it is not a peti- tion, but acknowledging of the power and glory of God, to whom the petitions are di-
PREFACE.
reeled. Yet it secmeth, that Tertullian did read it: for althoutrh in his book, Ve ora- rtone, where he handleth only the petitions, he makes no mention of it, yet, lAb. 4. adv. Mar. it is veiy like, he hath respect unto it, when after a short conviction of the Heretic out of every petition of the Lord's prayer, he add- eth — " Therefore of whom shall I ask, that I may receive ? At whom shall 1 seek, that I may find ? At whom shall I knock, that it may be opened unto me ? Who hath to give to him that asketli ? lie whose are all things, whose also I am, who do ask." And where- as some ancient Greek copies, which it seems that the Vulgate Latin interpreter did follow, do back this conclusion, yet it fbllow- eth not, that it is rashly added in all the rest, and so rashly received of the Greek Church, but rather it is most lilse, that the writers of those copies omitted it, as a thing commonly known, and daily rehearsed of every man : by which means also, it is like, the omission of certain petitions in Luke's Gospel came.
Concerning the second example of super- fluity noted by Erasmus, Rom. 11. 6, seeing all the Greek copies except one, that we can hear of extant in these days, do agree in this text ; and Chrysostom in his commentary upon this place, likewise Phofius, Oecume- nius and Theophylact do read ii. mid ihc u xt requireth it to make a perfect ;h(Miii. -i-, we must rather think it a defect in \(iiir \ ul-aiu Latin text, than a superfluity in tlie LiitL-k. For the third superfluity of the word wife, Mark 10. 29, Erasmus hath nothing but his bare conjecture ; all the Greek copies being against him. But it is a device that you have found out, to make the Greek text condemn itself of superfluity, and to justify ex- ceedingly the vulgar Latin. Because the printers Stephen and Crispin do set a mark at those words or sentences which are found in most of the written copies, yet not in all; that the readers may know, that such words or sentences are not found in every written copy; which, by no logic in the world, ar- gueth the one of superfluity more than the other of defect, but leave it to the judgment and discerning of the learned, which is most agreeable to the truth. Your own Vulgate Latin te.xt, printed by Plantin and corrected by Hentenius, hath^more than two hundred places in the New Testament marked more than are found in divers ancient copies. Wherefore, if Popish logic be as good against Latin, as it is against Greek, I may conclude, that the Vulgate Latin text in these super- fluities condemneth itself, and justifieth the Greek text exceedingly, as being marked in a number of places, that such words and sen- tences are superfluous, in which our Greek text hath no such thing. For example, Acts 5. 8, the word, mulier, woman, hath a mark of superfluity : and in the same chapter, verse 15, this sentence, "arid might be all delivered from their infirmities." And Acts 15. 41, this sentence is noted with a mark of superfluity ; "Commanding them to keep the precepts "of the Apostles and Elders ;" none of which is
in our Greek text ; and therefore it provea the Greek to be more sincere and true than the Latin. This is your own argument, therefore you must not deny it.
30. If you would conclude rightly, you should say, that it is no derogation to the vul- gar Latin text, to disagree from every Greek copy, so it agree with the most and the best. But to disagree from all, as it doth some times, or olten from the most and the best, must needs be a great derogation unto it. The testimony of Beza whicli you cite, is nothing against himself; neither doth it jus- tify your vulgate Latin text in all places, but only where it followed the best and truest copies of the Greek text, as sometimes it doth: unto which you do well to confesB with Augustin, that " the Latin translations that fail in any thing must needs yield." But the chief matter is to prove, that it was trans- lated out of the more learned and diligent Greek copies : and that it hath continued ever since without alteration or corruption. The first you take upon you to prove by eight reasons,*all which shall be examined.
If it agree Vv'ith the true and uncorrupted Greek text, we will not complain, but you must remember that every Greek copy, ex- tant or not extant, is not sufficient to excuse it : neither can you prove that it agrees with the true and uncorrupted text in all places, as where it is not only against all old copies extant, but also against the reading and inter- pretation of all the Fathers of the Greek church. Where you doubt, lest we shall for- sake the Greek, it is needless. Beza, in .Tames 4 : 2, with Erasmus, supposeth a letter might be changed through default of the writers, in a matter of no controversy or ad- vantage against you. In the other place he maketh no question, but showeth how the Greek word is taken, even in the same sense, that your vulgate translator doth.
Sometimes it doth agree with other Greek copies set in the margin, but not always; and therefore this is no good argument to justify it to agree with the Greek in all places. If it did always agree with the margin, it were not enough to warrant it; except you can prove all that is in the margin to be always the true and uncorrupted, the more learned and diligent Greek copy.
You make very good conclusions of parti- culars. We sometimes follow the marginal copies, as the true text, and leave the com- mon reading; ergo, the maro;inal copies are always the true text. In the examples by you noted, I have showed what reasons we have to prefer the marginal copies. Bring you the like for those which agree with your Vulgate Latin, dissenting from the common Greek reading, and then your argument will be of some force, otherwise you may be ashamed to use it.
This argument in effect is the same as the former. Therefore except you prove that which any copy of Erasmus, Beza, Gagneis, or any other man, hath agreeable to your vulgar Latin to be a true, uncorrupted, and
more learned and diligent copy than the common Greeic text, you say nothing to tlie purpose. For the Latin text, as you said be- fore, nmst yield and be correcied according to the Fathers' meannig, by the true and un- corrupted Greeic text, and by Augustin's judgment, by tlie more learned and diligent copies; and theretore cannot be justified by following any Greek copy, though it be false, corrupted, lesser learned, and more negligent. As for some Greek copies, it is not unldie, I ut they have by some perverse writers been altered according to the Latin, or negligently Leen written or copied out of truer copies.
This reason hath more pith than all that went before, therefore whereas your vulgar Ladn haili the consent of the ancient Fathers of the Greek Church, although there be no Greek copy extant at this day to warrant it, yet will we not condemn it, as disagreeing from the Greek text. As in the first example you bring, 1 Tim. 6. 20. Although Oecu- nienius doth read, as the common reading is now, yet he telleth you that Chrysostom did read as your vulgar Latin hath. Beza addeth Basil, and of the Latin Fathers, Ambrose and Augustin, and confesseih that it hath a very good sense, yet he preferred the other, per- adventure being moved by the authority of the Syrian interpreter, who translateth it vanities and novelties. But in your second example of John 10. 29, you were foully be- guiled to say, so readeth 'Cyril and expounddh it, lib. 7. in John c. 10. For that seventh book, as the fifili, the sixth, the eighth, are none of Cyril's books, nor ot any ancient Fathers, but were added by Jodocus Clicthovius, a very late writer, because these four books of Cyril are lost, and are nowhere extant at this day. You show yourselves to be diligent readers of antiquity, by this example. And yet you might have been admonished to beware of this ridiculous error at this time, if you would have vouchsafed to peruse my rejoinder to Bristow, sometime one of your crew, who made sport with this authority of Cyril, to defend the vulgar Latin before, and was well laughed at for his labour, as you are much more, among all the learned, who by his stumbling in the dark, could not beware of falling in the broad day light.
Your third example is of 1 Jolm 3. omnis spirilus qni solvit Jrsum, which Ireneus read- eth so, but of Ireneus there may be a doubt, because he did write in Greek, and is trans- lated into Latin by one that followed the vul- gar Latin text very much, and was not so precise in expressing the words of Ireneus, as may appear by that parcel of Ireneus in Greek, which is reserved in Epiphanius. Augustin, in tract. G. in John, readeth this text, according to the Greek text that now is, and afterward discourseth at large upon it. But tov/ards the end, he rcpeateth the text according to ihc vulgar Latin, and brieflv expounds it, whereby it seemeth, that his book had both the texts. Except we should sus- pect, tliat those few lines which concern the vulgar Latin, were interlaced by some that
would show what sense the words of the vulgar Ladn nnght have. Indeed the words in the conclusion, (juidnos docet, 7ivd ut facta interrogemus, verha Jion credamus, do very aptly agree with the end of the sentence immediate- ly before those fines, adeo ut noveritis, quia ad facta retulit. Lodovicus Vives noteth divers lines inserted in his book De Civitate Dei, which in other ancient copies were not to be found.
Leo indeed, who lived after Augustin, and was a Bishop of Rome, followed herein the vulgar Latin text. Socrates and the Tripar- tite stor)', I have answered before. So that except you had Ireneus in Greek, you have gained little certainty out of the ancient Fa- thers. TertuUian and Cyprian being for the Greek reading that now is, with aU the Greek. Church. ,
Touching your fourth example, JoAn 5.2, if you let Piscina be the nominative case, and by probatica understand a gate of Jerusalem near to the Temple so called, your vulgar Latin text is agreeable to the Greek text, and need not to be altered. And this is Be- za's judgment for the name of that gate, citing Nehem. 3. 1. &,c. And although Chrysostom and Cyril, andTheophilact deceived by them, read otherwise, yet EuthymiUs, who followed other ancient Fathers of the Greek Church, readeth agreeable to the Greek text that now is, and to the vulgar Latin.
Concerning vour fifth example, Theodoret, as Beza telleth you, readeth the copulative conjunction Km between the two nouns, signi- fying gift and justice, but it appeareth not so by his commentary. And his reading is not sufficient to control all the copies, and all other the Fathers of the Greek Church, as Chrys. Phot. Oecum. Theophil. Last of all, Luke 2. 14, the vulgar Latin is maintained not only by Origen and Chrysostom, but also by a most ancient copy which Beza had, now kept in the Library of the University of Cam- bridge, and is not'misliked of Beza, ahhough he follow the conimon reading warranted by all the rest of his Greek copies, and many other of the ancient Fathers. To conclude, if all the varieties of the vulgar Latin, had some ancient Greek Father, or some old copy to avouch them, as a great number have not ; yet were not that sufficient to justify them, if the better learned and more diligent copies be against them, and the sense of the place do plainly require another reading.
We think verily, that the old interpreter did follow some Greek copy which he had, in places where he haih not been depraved. But whether it was alvvay.s a true and uncor- rupted copy which he followed, we must ex- nmine by other copies, by consent of the Greek Fathers, by cUligent marking the scope of the text, and by the ancient translations, which seeing they are often against your vulgar Latin text, although the "interpreter followed some Greek co[)y, whether extant I or not extant, lie is not altogether to be ex- cused, nor his translation, according to some I corrupt copy to be embraced as authentical
PREFACE.
31
Beside this, it is oftentimes nsanifest, tiiat v'hcn his reaiiiii^ was the same that ours is, j'et sometimes because he understood not the property of the. Greek word or piirasc, souieiiiiie because he was not able to express it ajitly in tiio Latin tongue, lie halh connnitied many errors rneet to be amended, as in the annotations of Bezu, Erasmus and others, a j;reat number may be seen. Tliis reason therefore is of no force, to make it better tlian tlie Greek generally, though the truth of zOKi'a for irvyftri Were granted unto you : no more than a beggar's cloak with a hundred patches in it, is better than a fair gown of velvet, that hath but one stich amiss in it. As for the word in question if it signify up to the elbow, as Theophylact and Euthymius take it, 1 see no absurdity, ahhoujjh the Po- pish Priest at Mass washeth only his fingers' ends, as superstition is sometimes nice, sometimes insatiable, if we think that the Pharisees washed their hands to the elbow. | And peradventure it is more probable that they i washed to the elbow, than that they washed oftentimes before every meal. But seeing the word cometh of ^vyiios, which sisnifieth \ a fist, the meaning may be, they waslied di- j ligently, as they do who oftentimes rub one ; fist in another: and so it may be taken for often washing, as the interpreter of Euthy- j niius saith it is taken of all the interpreters. |
The consent of the Latin Fathers who fol- j lowed the vulgar te.xt, which Hieronym in his ' time confessed to be corrupted, will not jus- tify the vulgar translation against all the Greek copies, all the Fathers, all old transia- ' tions, all circumstances of the text, and that which you add, all such conjectures. The former example is not agreeable to the rule, for ^as you say it hath a Greek co|iy in the Vatican, it hath the Syriac translation, and a i Greek author to warrant it, beside the autho- ] rity of Augustin and Leo, Fathers of the ' Latin Church. And yet two make not so great a consent, to carry the matter from all copies. Fathers, translations, circumstances ^ and conjectures. But in truth, your vulgar i text, in some copies, hath according to the Greek, spintux sanctus, and leaveth out dafus, i yet indeed, this is not to be accounted a fault | or variety, though it be not precisely accord- ing to the word, which expresseth the true meaning of the text, as all men, except Ma- cedonian heretics, which deny the divinity of the Holy Ghost, will confess.
In your second example, you have small consent seeing Erasmus telleth you, that Augustin is corrupted and Hieronym, as you confess in the next section, is against you, and so are some copies of your vulgar trans- lation. Then have you no more but Am- brose : for venerable 'Beda had, according to the Greek, ni eum volo manere, by whom the corruption of Augustin is plainly discovered, seeing he hath notliinginamannerof his own, but the very words ofAugustin upon tliat pi ace.
I perceive you will have your vulgar I^atin text to stand, though it have neither Greek copies, nor Greek Fathers, nor good rea-
son, which you call conjectures, nor ihe con- sent of the La:in Fatliers, to niuiniuin u. l''or the divers reading ot the Latin I'uthtrs, inaketh no more lor the Gieek, than lor tlie vulgar Latin, you say, difiering olteiitimes from both. Admit it be so, wlien ey diller from both, yet when they agree wuii the Greek, as you cannot deny, but ottentiines they do, they make more for the Greek, than lor the vulgar Latin. And where you say they differ often from both, that one example that you bring, argueth that you have no great store of examples, where they diiier from both. For the place of Hieronym agreeth fully with the sense of the Greek, although he add the word sic, which is not in the Greek, yet: maketh no alteration in the sen- tence, which is conditional, whereas youf vulgar Latin is absolute, without condition. But to put the mailer tnit nl (l(i\ibt, that no readings of some Lutin or Ci.ik Fathers, difiering from the vulvar LiHiii, ;:i-.- acdieckor condemnation to the same ; Ui za's authority is cited, saying, " That whosoever shall take upon him to correct ihe vulgar Latin transla- tion, out of the aiuiint I'athers' writings, Greek or Latin, unless he do it very circum- spectly and advisedly, he shall rather mar then mend." This is your usual kind of rea- soning, of a particular to infer an universal. But what if he do it circumspectly ai.d ad- visedly ? what if he have not oi.ly some Fathers' writing, but also some Gretk co- pies, or all or most that are extant ■ what if he have good reasons taken of the scope of the text, and circumstances thereof? may he not then be bold to correct some- thing in the vulgar Latin translation '! As whensoevtr Beza, or any other learned man reproveth the vulgar Latin interpreter, he doth it upon the only writing of some Fa- ther, who had not always the book by him, when he cited places ot the Scripture, but either all or some of those proofs, leading him to approve the writing of that Father, to be the true text, and specially some Greek copy to warrant it.
31. They have very dim eyes, that through these gross paralogisms, can see the vulgar Latin translation, in all points approved good, yea better than the true text itself of the Greek, so that it may not give place to any other text, copies, or readings, except it be in such faults evidently crept in by the negli- gence of the writers, which you affirm to be very rare. If you would correct your books, but according to some ancient readings and copies observed in Plantin's bible, which you speak of, you should reform many hundred places even in the New Testament, and make them to be more agreeable to the Greek text, than that you take to be your vulgar Latin translation. But except it be gross cor- ruptions, that may be felt with the hand, you will not bend one joint to the Greek text, such malice you bear against the truth. Ne- vertheless you translate that text, you say, which in your opinion isuncorrupt, we trans- late the Greek, which we confess to be cor-
PREFACE.
rupt, as you have declared. What you have declared, we have sufficiently confuted : it is now time to see what you have more to charge us, with confession of corruption in the Greek text.
32. The Calvinists, you say, confess the Greek text to be most corrupt, and yet trans- late it only : yes forsooth, they have transla- ted the Syriac, and some parts of the Arabic, as they could get the copies. But who are they, that confess the Greek text to be most corru[)t .' You answer, Beza, bringing in his suspicion only, in four places. But a suspi- cion or opinion, is neither an affirmation, nor a confession. Yet let us severally examine them. In the first place, he doth not suspect the matter, but only maketh an objection, and answereth it, approvin^with the ancient Fa- thers, the prinincy of Peter, the priniacy of order, not of dignity. Yea he is so far from suspicion of this matter, that Mark 3. 16, he readeth Simon, thefirst, where neither your vulgar Latin readeth so, nor the common printed Greek te.xt hath it so
In the second place, Luke 22. 20, he saith it may be, that it came out of the margin into the text, but he doih not affirm it. He saith turther that Basil readeth the participle, with his article in the dative case, which taketh away ail difficulty, yet, because all the copies extant have it in the noiuinaiive, he concludeth in the end, that the solecism may be excused by the property of the Hebrew tongue, ex- pressed sometimes in the Greek, as I have showed at larse in mine answer to Gregory Martin, cup. \~ sect. 37, 38, 39.
In the third place, he hath some light sus- picion, that the words, to adore them, might be removed out of the margin into the text, as in all written books, many such like words have been. The ground of this suspicion, is the authority of Justin Martyr, who citing this place against Triphon the Jew, leaveth out those words, to adore them, yet he showeth how it may stand with the sense of the He- brew text, of the Prophet Amos : and speak- eth never a word of corruption.
In the fourth place, he noteth the grounds of his suspicion, to be the Greek text of Hosea, and the authority of Augustin, in Joan, tract. 12, who readeth, Vhi est mors contentio tua ? whereby it appeareth that the trans- lation which he followed, did read vciKog, and not vtKOi. So readeth Cyprian ad Quirinum. lih. 3, cap. 58, and Tertullian De resur. cam. yet because of the general consent of all copies, and other writers, Beza retameth the u.sual reading.
Now come wc to those places which are past suspicion, as being manifestly affirmed to be corruptions. Of the first, you sav, he calleth it a manifest error, that in the Greek it is 400 years for 300 years. Acts 13. But that is not so: for rehearsing many ac- counts, of Beroaldu3, and Junius, and others, he suspecteth only with Luther, that error to be in the number, he doth not affirm it to be manifest.
The next place is, Acts 7, 15, where he
thinketh the name of Abraham, by some un- skilful person to be added as the name of Jeremy, Mat. 27, and of Esay, Mark I, and Mat. 13, as Hieronym conlesseth instead of Asaph, where neither of both is read at this day. And certain it is, that Abraham bought his field of Ephron, not of the sons of Emor. And Jacob it was that purchased the field of Emor, the father of Sichem, as Hierom suith. Now if you can give the true sense, not leav- ing out the riame of Abraham, you shall de- serve great commendation. In the mean time, Beza telleth you, it maketh- no_ uncer- tainty or corruption in the Scripture, if a name or two, by errors of some bold writers, not of the author, be placed amiss, which by conter- ence of other places, may easily be espied and reformed. The place, Mark 12. 42, though he was long troubled, as he confesseth, about the reckoning of it, yet in the end he findeth out the true account, how two mi es make a quadran, and suspecteth no manner of corruption at all.
Neither in the last place, doth he so much as suspect any corruption or addition, but only referreth the word Desert, to the way, and not to the city, although the city of Gaza at that time was not inhabited. This section therefore proveth not that the Calvinists, as you term them, confess the Greek to be most corrupt. For here is only one name certainly judged to be very untruly added, as all men confess, the name of Jeremy, Mat. 27, to be, and two or three light or uncertain suspicions, about matters of small weight, and such as can make no alteration of doctrine, the rest are false and unjust accusations.
33. He showeth out of Hieronym, that the Greek of the Septuaginla, in his time, agreed with the original of the Hebrew in the num- ber of 70, and therefore he thinketh ttcvtc is put instead of navra. But all men be not of the same opinion, therefore although the matter be not great, it is no reason, that the whole Church, for that they mean by (he Cal- vinists, should be charged for one man's opi- nion, and that but in one matter of no mo- ment, to change the doctrine, to confess the Greek text to be most corrupt.
In the place, Luke 3, 30, he judgeth rov Katvav to be falsely added to Luke, nol only by au- thority of Moses, which were sufficient but also by testimony of an ancient Greek copy, which now is at Cambridge. But all your quarrels, touching Qui fiiit Ciiinan, I have confuted in my defence against Gregory .Mar- tin; Preface, Sect 18,20.
34. The Greek text of the New Testament needeth no patronaM of men, as that which is the very word and truth of God. The sin- ceritv of our translations, against all your frivolous cavillations, hath hitherto, thanks be to God, been so strongly defended, as you have rio list any more to assail it. And as touching your easy answer that you can make, why you translate not the Greek, /or- sooth bccauxe it vs no infinitchj corrupted, all men of reasonable understanding may conceive, how well you have proved this infinite cor-
I'REFAGE.
33
mption. The sum of all your reasons being drawn together, your argument is this. One man suspecteth here and there, in three or four places, some depravation, or else in a name and a number, thinketh there is some corruption, ergo liy confession of all the Cal- vinists, the (Jreek text is inhniloly corrupted. But you tell us, you will not grant the Greek to be so corrupt, as we say, though you know It less sincere, and uncorrupt than the Latin, and therefore you prefer it, and have trans- lated it. Well, it you know the Greek te.xt that now is, to be sincere, where any of us hath but suspected or judt^ed it to be cor- rupt; and we have proved it to be sincere where you have slandered it to be corrupt : there is no reason, why you should not acknowledge it to be very perfect, and there- fore have translated it, rather than the vulgar Latin : which your own Bibles of Planthi's edition, whereunto you refer us, do convince of infinite variety, which as Hieronym saith, is a manifest argument of falsehood, and as 5'et is not decided among you, in that variety, which reading is to be followed, as true and authentical.
35. A great token of your true meaning, that }'ou prefer not the vulgar Latin, as making more for you, in which respect in these annotations it shall appear, that you have more advantage in the Greek, than in the Latin, being assured that we have not one, and you nmny advantages in the Greek. These Popish brags, all that read your writ- ings, arf! so well acquainted with "them, that we need not stand in doubt of them : having tried by often experience, that wh«n the matter cometh to approvement, your argu- ments are no better than a false and feeble cause can afford you, as m answer to the an- notations, by God's help, will be made mani- fest. In the mean space, you note unto us certain places, where you have more ad- vantage in the Greek than in the Latin. First, in such places where we dare not translate | the Greek, because itmaketh tor you, against us. Secondly, where the Greek hath some | words making for you, which the Latin hath j not. Of the first sort, is the word Ju.ifiji<:a- tiones, Luke 1, which we call ordinances of purpose, as Beza confesseth. And why should we not of purpose avoid that term, which may be cause of ambiguity and error, when the word in that place 'signifieth ano- ther thing ? as I have showed in my defence against Martin, Cap. 1, Sect. 50, and Cap. 8, Sect. 1, and the Sections following.
For the word Tradiiiones, mine answer is, cap. 2, in pU the sections : for the words. El- ders, Priests, cap. 6, for Images and idols, cap. 3, for the place of Luke 22, 20, cap. I, sect. 37, 38, 39.
But to come to the latter sort. First you bring two texts, 1 Cor 7, and Acts 16, 30, where fasting is mentioned in the Greek text, which is not in the vulgar Latin. O impu- dent slanderers! do we deny fasting, because we deny your antichristian prohibition and abstinence from meats, to be Christian fast- 5
ing ? God be praised, our doctrine is sound for fasting, would God our practice were as often, as our judgment is pure and agreeable to the holy Scriptures, in a hundred places almost, that commend lasting.
Your next advantage is for free will, if not flat Pelaginism, but catercousin with it, that man's will being holpen with God's grace, is free : and we hold, tiiat it is free trom constraint, but not from bondage of sin, Rom. 7. And what other thingcan you prove out of that text, 1 John a. 18, " he that is born ot God, preservcth himself:" dare you say by force of free will, and not by the strength of God's grace ? mtdie your syllogism, and give us a plain conclusion, and we shall see what advantage the Greek text giveth you.
Another giveth you advantage'against only faith. What is that I pray you ; Apoc. 22. 14. Blessed are they that do his commandments: a goodly advantage, I promise you. They that are justified by faith only in his merits I do his commandments, an i none other. Against special assurance of salvation, you have Rom. 8. 38. Paul saith not as it is in the Latin, certus .turn, I am sure, but Tciruaixai, I a^m probably persuaded. Verily, either the Greek word sii;niiieth I am sure, so as I can- not be deceived, or else your vulgar transla- tion is false. And where he saith, I am per- suaded, he noteth the certainty of the word and Spirit of God, whereby he hath this assurance.
Your last advantage is about the sacrifice of the Sacrament, where the Greek text useth the present tense, referring that breaking of his body, and shedding of his blood, to the present sacrificing of it sjicramentally, and mystically : but I would advise you to beware, lest while you seek advantage for a Sacri- fice, you lose your best argument for the real presence, as you term it. For you are wont to reason thus : He gave that which Should be crucified, but his natural body was crucified, therefore he gave his natural body: and so he did, to be rec .ived spirit- ually, as in a Sacrament or mystery. But to shut you from your sacrifice, the word shed- ding, so often repeated, will be sufficient, ex- cept you have forgotten your old distinction of his unbloody sacrifice from his bloody sacrifice. If his blood be shed in the Sacra- ment, then is the Sacrament also a bloody sacrifice. So that you see, it is small gain that you gather by this advantage, that you need not cry out and say, '* Lo these and' the Uke our advantages in the Greek more than in the Latin." Nay rather these be your fantasies of the Greek, and of the Latin.
36. There is none of us, that calleth the vulgar translation of the New Testament papistical, as though it were translated by Papists, or else made so greatly for Papists, when it is rightly understood : but because it is so magnified'by the Papists, that it is pre- ferred before the Greek ; which is the origi- nal tongue in which the New Testament was written, and commanded by the Triden- line Papists, to be counted the only authenti-
34 PREFACE.
cal text. And he that said, the vulgar trans- 1 that you may deserve to escape all these things, lation is worst of all, spake of the vulgar and to sta7id before the Son oj Man, and ao oi me
translation of the whole Bible, in comparison • of the Plebrew of the old Testament, and of the Greek of the New Testament, and of the septuaginta in Greek, and the Latin thereof. Your fond conclusions, " the Greek is more Papistical, and Papistry is yery^ ancient, if the vulgar translation be papistical,'" be as good as your antecedent. Some of them call it so, which I am sure, no man of learning hath done, otherwise than 1 have before declared, except it be for that it is abused of Papists, to maintain Popery, when indeed the trans- lator had no such meaiiing, as in the three first examples it is manifest: for hy pan iten- iiam agite, he meant not popish doing of pe- nance, but true and Christian repentance : yet you will not give over the show ot popish penance and satisfaction, that you have by that translation. Likewise, by sacramentum, Eph.b. 32, he meant nothing but a mystery generally, as the truth of the Greek is, and as you do well prove out of his translations of the same word, Apoc. 17. Nevertheless, if you give over the hold, you would seem to have of that translation, to make matrimony a Sacrament of the New Testament, in that sense that Baptism and the Lord's Supper are called Sacraments : you shall have no
rest: for not only his translation had been i true, but the sentences through his untrue translation had been false : for though men deserve, and are accounted worthy ofpunish- ment and damnation by sin, yet they deserve not God's grace and his kingdom, by their works, but are accounted worthy of his bless- ing and eternal felicity, for Christ's sake of God's mere mercy. But you ask whether Primasius, Augustin's scholar, were a Papist for using this text, and all the rest that have done the like ? I answrr no. For Prima- sius meaneth nothing else, but that God is pleased, as the Greek word signifieth, to ac- cept such sacrifices. " With such sacrifices and gilts God is pleased to receive them: wherefore he saith by the Prophet, I will mercy and not sacrifice. The poor man is not to be considered, which seemeth to re- ceive, but rather he which commanded to give : for the alms which is given to the poor man upon earth, is received of God in heaven. And think not that he will render unto thee that which he hath received : for thou hast given earthly things, but thou shall purchase eternal things." These be the words of Pri- masius, which declare, that />ro7ner£?or was vul- arly taken for dilecior, to be pleased or
show in the Scriptures to dazzle the eyes of | dehghted. Neither doth he mean any merit- " -. ■• ^' 1 , • . •. j^g j^y jj^g term ot purchasing, which he usetli : for he was an utter enemy to the Pela- gians, as his master Augustin was, but only, that God of his mercy doth crown and re- ward his own gifts, not our merits, as Augus- tin saith. And when he useth the name of merits, he meaneth simply, works, as many
the ignorant. For Gratia Plena, 1 think, if he had understood the force of the Greek word rightly, he would have translated it otherwise. That he translateth the very like word, plenus ulceribus, which we also trans- late,/wi of sores, ii may excuse him of par- tial affection, but cannot defend his transla-
tion, to express the sense of the Greek word, j of the old writers Qui in that time : for other- For the very like word he translateth ^us/j^- j wise there is no Father so clear for justifica-
tatt,beingjustifiedormade just, not full of jus- tice, Rom. 3. 14, and 1 Cor. 4 4, justifcatus sum, I am justified. But concerning the last, phrase, Heb. 13, because he could not express his own mind in Latin, I know not what his meaning was, but leave it to God and himself. Nevertheless it is certain, that it is not only barbarous, but also false and blaspiiemous to say, that by good works God's favour is deserved.
The active of this verb, Heb. 11. 5, and 6, he translateth placuisse and phcere, to please and to have pleased : what else can the pas- sive then signify, but to be pleased ? which perhaps he meant, if he had known any Latin word of the passive voice that had sig- nified so much, for lack of which, he used the term, wliich was of the common people used in that sense.
Now where he useth the word mereri, Heb. 10. 29, you say we like it well enough": but how know you our liking so well? we may allow the sense of the translation as jood, because wicked men are thought wor
ion by faith only, as Primasius is, Rom. 3, upon these words, being justified freely : Hear this word freely, and hold thy peace of me- rits. Likewise upon Rom. 4, and many other places : and who so used this text according to this meaning, we take theiu not for Papists.
But further you demand, whether Cyprian was a Papist, for using so often this speech, promereri, ^c. I answer : The using of the v/ords maketh not a Papist, but the Popish meaning, which Cyprian hath not; but that God is pleased with just works and obedi- ence, repentance and humility, not merited or deserved : for he citeth the Scripture plen- tifully, that we ought to glory in nothing, seeing nothing is ours. Test, ad Quirin. cap. 4. And that we miist put our trust only m (lod, and glory in him. Cap. 10. Your last question, was it papistry to say Senior for Preshiter, ^c. is foolish trifling. We accuse not your translator ofpnpistry, though you abuse his untrue or unperfect translations to the defence of papistry.
We have answereci before of the words :
gOOu, utv-ciucJi, ..i^.v^.. ....... . — _ ■ - — -- — - ■
thy of punishment according to their deserts: and for the sentences we say, they are no but we do not allow the translation, to be agree- papistical translations, neither do they any able to the sense of the Greek word ufiwO^/crcrrt,, thing in the world favour Papi.stry : for they and therefore he could not have said truly, arc vvell translati<d,:uid the very words of the according to the same Greek verb, ttaa-Zi | Holy Ghost : when you can conclude any Pa-
PREFACE.
fiistry out ot tliese sentences in MOd and awful form of arguments, we will vield to your Papistry. Fmally, the ancient Failiers, general Councils, and Churches of the west part, that used these speeches hefore Pa- pistry was hatched and fully shapen, were not all Papists, but most of them professed enemies to the usurped tyranny of the Pope, to the pride ol his Clergy, to merit of works and free will : and were maintainers of justi- fication by faith onlj', of the marriage of them that were not able to keep the vow of conti- nence, as in answer to these annotations it shall more fully appear ; and by their own words not mangled, gelded, and falsified, as they are in your annotations, but truly set down as their books shall testify, whereby it shall be evident, that you believe not as they believed, nor interpret as they interpret, as you use not the translation that many of them i used, nor speak as they spake.
37. Not the desire of sincerity, but rather 1 of obscurity, hatiimade you thrust in a great number of words, not only Hebrew or Sy- riac, which are found in the Greek text, but also Greek and Latin words, leaving the English words of the same, which by long use, are well known and familiar in the Eng- lish tongue. And as for Hebrew and Syriac words, which are found in the Greek text, it is not to be misliked that they should be brought also into the English tongue : be- cause the Spirit of God, not without cause, writing Greek, did think it meet to receive them. And therefore in our translations, we retain them all, except a few that are usually expressed in English: as Amen, Amen, in the beginning of a sentence, which might well have been used, but that the trans- lator studied to be more plain, and to express the meaning of that asseveration. Alleluiah we use in the New Testament, because we find it in the Greek Testament: but when we translate the Old Tes'iment, there is no reason why we should not translate it into English, as well as other words of the text. We say also Hosaima, Raca, Belial, yea, and Corbana, because we find them in the ori- ginal text. But as for Greek terms, which may well enough be expressed in the Eng- lish tongue, we see no cause why we should retain them, as Farasceve, Azymes, Neophyte. And if you had so religious a care to use all the Greek words in your English trans- lation, which you find in your vulgar Latin text, then you would as well have translated these and such like Greek words as your Latin text hath. Magi, Ecclesia, Archifriclinus, Enccenia, Dyscolis, Pyra, Nanclerus, Typhoni- cus, Bolis, Artemon, Dithalassus. Mages, Ec- clese, Architricline, Encenes, Discoles, Pyre, Nauclere, Typhonike, Bole, Artemon, Ditha- lasse, and not as you have done, Sases, Church, Chief Steward, Dedication, Way- ward, Fire, Master ofthe ship, Tempestuous, Sound, Mainsail, a place between the two seas, where if we should pick quarrels as you do against us, we should make ourselves to all wise people ridiculous, as you are.
You neither like that our translation calleth Farasceve, the day of preparing, nor the pre- paration of the Sabbath, and yet both are true, according as the word is taken in that place. You say it is a solemn word for the Sabbath eve ; but you are short ofthe sense, for it is taken for a whole day before the evening, and for the day of preparing : nei- ther of which are contained in your Popish term, eve. Where vou say, it is taken for Good Friday only, Ignatius is against you, Epi. 5, using it for every Friday. We trans- late Fascha, Easter, or Passover, the one being the usual English term for tiiat feast, the other expressing the meaning of the He- brew word. And what signifietn Azyma but sweet bread, and unleavened bread, as we translate it, and Panes propositionis but the show-bread, or the bread that is showed ? yet, you say, that the one is false, the other ridiculous and strange : nevertheless some of the best learned among you, have used those terms, as Heskins, lib. 1, cup. 15, and 22, Slapleton translation of Beda, lib. 5, cap. 22. You mislike that Neophytus is translated a young scholar, and will nave it restrained to those that are newly baptized, though they be old scholars. We know, that Neophytus doth signify one lately planted, and so were they called, that were lately baptized, in as much as by the visible sign of baptism they were newly ingrafted into the faith : but if any such were well learned, he was not excluded from the office of a Bishop, from which Paul excludeth Neophytum, as appear- eth by the story of Ambrose, who was chosen Bishop before he was baptized, and ordained Bishop the eighth day after he was baptized. Neither doth Catechumenus signify always him that is not baptized, for Paul useth it, Galat. 6, 6, for every one that is instructed. If Phylacteria could as well be Ervglished either for sense or term, as Didragma, Para- cletus, and such like, I think the translators would not have feigned a term of the Greek M'ord : although the word Phylacteries was usual in the English tongue, before our late translations, as appeareth in the Homil. of Wiclifi'upon the Tuesday in the second week of Lent. Where he also showeth what they were. Concision -we use also, to express the allusion unto circumcision : but there is no such like reason, for Prepuce, depositum, gratis, and such like Latin words as you use. Evan- gelium signifieth the glad tidings ofthe Gos- pel, and so we translate Luke 2. Evangelizo I bring you glad tidings. And yet lodochus Lorichius a Popish doctor, in his Gospel, contendeth that Evangelium signifieth pro- perly Bonum nuntium, good tidings rather than glad tidings. So that by his judgment, thatwhich you reprove is the better transla- tion. But why do you not call Evangelium the Evangil, as the Scots do ? as well as Evan- gelizare to Evangelize, but that you affect novelty of words, to obscure the Gospel, as much as you can. In the rest, which you call Catholic terms, you are glad to have a sound of words out of the Scripture for a
36
l>KEi^'ACE.
show, seeing you have no raatier at all to jus- tify your Popish Advent, penance, traditions, and such like.
38. By all means you labour to suppress the light ot truth, under one pretence or another. For what prejudice had it been to the sense, if you had translated spiritmks nequitioB, spi- ritual wickedness, as you do desideriis carnis luxurice, the desires of fleshly righteous- ness, 2 Peter 2, 18 ? Your second example, John 2, is no hard phrase in Greek, but very vulgar and common, signifying as we have translated, " What have I to do with thee, woman ?" but that you are angry with Christ for reprehending his mother, wlien she was i i fault : whom you hold to be void of all sin, even original, contrary to the Scrip- tures. Otherwise you are not so precise in the same phrase : For Matt. 8, 29, Quid7iobis el tibi, you translate, " What is between us and thee ?"
In the third example, some of your old copies agreeing with the truth of the Greek, why do'you follow the error of the rest of your copies, but that you love darkness rather than light ? In the fourth example, the words of the te.xt following, " Thou hearest the sound thereof," do plainly argue, that spiritus in that place sisnifieth the wind, and not the Holy Ghost. For the sound or noise of the Holy Ghost is not heard. Nei- ther do the ancient Fathers otherwise trans- late it, though by that text, as they may well, they prove the free working of God's spirit.
In the fifth it is plain both out of the text, and out of Matthew 8, 24, that the vessel was filled with the waves of water. In the sixth example, Luke 22, 5, Paul, 1 Cor. 11, doth warrant us that tliis is Luke's meaning, " This cup is the New Testainent." But you know- why you would have hidden it as much as is possible, because it is direct against Transub- Stantiation. In tlie seventh, our translation is according to the meaning, as appeareth. Matt. 24, 21. though yours be more precise to the word of Mark.
In the eighth place, you say, that we boldly and presumptuously add the word Scripture, James 4, 6, saying, "The Scripture giveth greater grace," whereas you leave it indif- ferent to the Scripture, and the Holy Ghost both going before. By which reprehension you verify the saying of the Apostle, "The spirit that dwclleth in you lustcth to envy." For except envy of our well doing had blinded your eyes, you would never have said, that the Holy Ghost is that spirit that lusteth unto envy, as both your vulgar trans- lation, and you yourselves do render the text.
In the mnth, you seek a knot in a rush, Heb. 12, 21, for whether this word, that, he added or omitted, the sense is all one. And you yourselves add many other words for explication, as it is necessary for every trans- lator.
Men and brethren, is our English phrase, as masters and friends, of the same persons. .And what difference is there between a
widow woman, and a woman that was a widow ? A woman, a sister, the original text saith not, 1 Cor. 9, bat a sister to wife : for it were absurd to say, a sister a woman. But where you say, the hell of fire, seeing your Latin is gekennti ignis, why say you not the
fehenna of fire, as you say, PaKch, and not assover. Amen, Amen, and not verily, ve- rily ? If youmay express not only the phrase, but also the Hebrew word in English, without offence against the majesty of that speech, we may be bold to bring the Hebrew phrase into the English tongue, so as it may be under- stood of Englishmen.
39. Seeing you confess, that the Latin bein^ a translation, cannot always attain to the full sense of the principal tongue, why did you not translate out bf the Greek which is the principal tongue ? And why doth the "Tridentine assembly authorize that transla- tion for only authentical, which neither doth nor can attain to the full sense of the principal ton;^iJe, before the text of the principal tongue itself ? As for the advantage of your cause whereof you speak, that hath been exactly examined already, and more shall be in the proper places.
It you added the Latin word every time, that you give not the precise signification thereof, yOu should make yourselves and your vulgar Latin translation ridiculous even to children that are young grammarians, as when vou translate /cejierator, a creditor, Luke
7, stabitlum an inn, Luke 10, navis a boat, Mark 8, navicula a ship, Luke 5, Non quia de egenis verlinehat ad eum. Not because he cared for the poor, and such like.
How precise you are, let those few ex- amples last before remembered testify And for adding, let your own confession bear wit- ness. Curaverunt Slephanum. " Tliey took order for Stephen's funeral :" where a plain dressing of his battered body unto burial is signified, and no pompous funeral And if I should follow such small quarrels as you do, I might bring plenty of examples, as 2 Cor.
8, Qui multum, he that had much, and Qui modicum 7wn minoravit, he that had little, wanted not. 2 Cor. 1, Supra virtutem, above our power. 1 Cor. 13, Evaciiavi wa; erant parvnli, I did away the things that oelanged to a little one.
For diminishing, take these examples. 1 Cor. 14. But if they learn any thing, will or desire left out. Acts 25. But Festus an- swered that Paul is in Cesarea, this word kept, being omitted. But Acts 10, 41, in a place of great importance, and a matter of some controvery, the text is diminished of a whole clause testibus praordinatis a Deo, for which you give us no English at all. Like- wise Heb. 1, 28, in a matter of controvers)r, where the Latin is. Lex enim homines consti- tuit sacerdotes, yon translate for the Law ap- pointeth Priests them that have infirmity, leaving out Homines, where the antithesis is between the Priesthood of men, and of the Son of God.
These be diminishings of your Latin text,
PREFACE.
which otherwise is defectire from the Greek ia a hundred places, yet you make a great matter, that the name ot Paul is left out in the title of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the name of Catholic in the title of the Epistle of James. But the tiiles are no part of the word of God. One ancient Greek copy leaveth out the name of Paul. Again, thot-( other five Epistles are called Catholic or ge- neral, not as though the doctrine of them, were more sound and Catholic than the doc- trine of Paul's Episdes, but because they are directed to uo special city or country, but either nniversal to all Christians, or to all Jews, inhabiting many nations.
40. You take enough unto you, to use your judgment in pointing, which may alter the whole sense, and sometimes ^ive a contrary meaning. And as you are bold sometimes to
prefer the margin reading, before the text, wlien by the Greek or the Fathers, you see it is a manifest fault of the writer, so might you have done in many more places, and made your translation more agreeable to the truth of the Greek text: if you had not rather fly from the truth, than come no nearer than you be enforced.
Now I also let the reader understand my purpose in answer to the Annotations. I mean not to strive for every word in the margin, as the name of the Popish feasts, and such like, neither to meddle with those Annota- tions, which although they be not rightly gathered out of the text, yet contain no im- piety, or slander of the Church, or the true members (hereof But only with such as are framed against the truth, and the maintainers of it.
REPLY TO THE INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
The truth and sense of the Scripture com- eth not only by the credit we give unto the Church, but also by the spirit of God which giveth witness to his word, as the Prophet saith, "My spirit which is within thee, and my words which 1 have put in thy mouth, and the mouth of thy seed, shall not fail for ever." And therefore you falsify Augustin's authority, in translating commoveret, moved. For he saith as there were many things, which held him in the Catholic faith, so, if he were not an infidel, he would not believe the Gospel, unless the authority of the Church, for the most part, do first move the outward man, to know and reverence the Scripmres : yet afterward, by the spirit and the word, he is confirmed in the faith of them, so that now he believeth, not only for the authority of the Church, which consisteth of men, but by the assurance of the word of God, and the autho- rity of the word itself, expressed in the Scriptures. And therefore Augustin in the 14th chapter of the same book, saith of the Maniches, as we may say of the Papists, " what have we to do but to forsake them, that invite us to know certain, and afterward command us to believe uncertain things : and to follow them which invite us first to believe, that which we are not yet able to behold, that being made stronger through faith itself, we may attain to understand that we believe, now not men, but God himself, confirming and lighting our mind inwardly." The other two sentences of Augustin, although they be not truly and wholly cited, yet they contain nothing for the Popish Church which is not Catholic, but particular, heretical, antichris- tian, and hath no succession in doctrine from the Aposiles and the Bishops of the primitive Church whose doctrine it hateth and perse-
cuteth. For it is continuance in the same doctrine that Augustin commendeth, and not sitting in the same place, where the Apostlea and ancient Bishops sat.
Luther, Zuinglius and Calvin, who received and believed all the Scriptures of God, and al- ways gave sovereign authority only unto them, are unfitly compared with such heretics, as Tertullian named, who refused what Scrip- tures they would, and corrupted the rest at their pleasure. Therefore although all their heresies are condemned by the Scriptures, which is sufficient to establish the faithfiil, yet it was in vain, to encounter with them, by authority of Scriplures, which they did not admit ; whereas by the argument of pre- scription, they were plainly convinced. For as Tertullian smth. that is true v;hich is ^rsi, and that is false which is latter, which is the meaning of Tertullian, and his scope in that book of prescription against heretics.
The Papists in this point of vaunting, are not behind, as appeareth in the preface. And wherefore serve these Annotations, but to vnunt themselves of the Scriptures .' But they are never the more to be trusted for that, but the Scriptures more diligently to be searched, and studied, that their falsehood in perverting them, may the better be espied and discovered.
Calvin and Jewel have their pages gar- nished not only with authorities of Scriptures, but also the sentences of the ancient fathers of the primitive Church, which by the judg- ment of Vincentius, are means to bring them to the true understanding of the Scriptures, and are testimonies, that they teach not their ov\Ti new" inventions, as Samosatenus, Pris- cillian, Eunomius, Jovinian, &,c. but the ancient faith of the Church, planted by the
S3
REPLY TO THE INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
Apostles, ana continued by the ancient fathers i for many hundred years after Christ, even until the Apastacy was made by Antichrist. |
While you hold tradition beside the Scrip- ' ture to be necessary, you cannot defend the i Scripture to be perfect and sulTicient by itself, [ unto all points of faith, as Vuicentius saith:j whom you falsify in translating ad omnia in | all points ; and leaving out that he saith be- 1 fore, of the means to defend faith, which are the authority o< God's law, and the tradition | of the Catholic Church, which tradition bringeth in nothing that is left out of the Scriptures, as yours do, but containeth the sum of Catholic doctrine grounded in the Scriptures. As appeareth plainly by the words of the same Father, abridging his for- mer sentence. " We have said before, that this hath always been, and is also at this day, the custom of the Catholics, to approve the true faith, by these two means. First by the authority of the divine canon, afterward by tradition or delivery of the Catholic Church, not because the canon alone, is not by itself sufficient unto all things : but because many interpreting the words of God after their own pleasure, do conceive divers opinions and errors. And therefore it is necessary tliat the understanding of the heavenly Scripture be directed to one rule of ecclesiastical sense, only in those questions chiefly, on which the foundations of the whole Catholic doctrine do lean."
By which saying it is plain, that Vincentius allowed another manner of perfection and sufficiency of the Holy Scripture, than you do acknowledge, which teach, that tiiere be articles of faith necessary to be believed, which are not to be proved out of the Scrip- ture, but stand only upon credit of tradition, as prayer for the dead, invocation of Saints, &c. whereas Vincentius .speaketh of no tra- dition but that which is grounded upon the canon of the Scriptures.
In the second testimony of Basil also, you falsify his meaning, translating dogmata, arti-
cles of religion, whereby you would have it thought, that he speakeih of articles of faith and doctrine, preached in the Church, which have no warrant of the Scriptures, whereas he speaketh only of forms of speech, by which the articles of faith taught in the Scripture, are expressed, and of rites or ceremonies used in the Church in his time. As that they used to sing in the Church : glory be to the Father, and to the Son, with the Holy Ghost. The heretics objected, that this form of speech, with the Holy Ghost, was not found in the Scriptures. Basil proveth by the Scrip- ture, that equal glory is due to the Holy Ghost, with the Father, and the Son. But touching the use of the preposition aw, in that form of glorifying the Holy Trinity, which of ancient time had been used in the Church, he referreth it to the Apostolic tra- dition, as he doth a number of ceremonies beside, and forms of public service then used in the Church : which he called doyiiara, that are not spoken of in the Scripiuies, at least not plainly and expressly, for he defendeth some of tnem to have their reason out of the Scriptures : counting among them the form of this confession : to believe in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost, which form of words in so many syllables, is not found in all the Scriptures, yet the truth and substance of this confession is most plainly and perfectly contained in the Holy Scriptures. Basil there- fore is no patron of traditions that bring in arti- cles of faith or religion not contained in the Scriptures, as is evident by other places of his writings, as in his moral. Reg. 26. " Every word and deed ought to be warranted by the testimony of the Scriptures inspired of God. And Re^. 8. If whatsoever is not of faith is sin, as the Apostle saith, and faith is of hearing, and hearing by the word of God, whatsoever is without the Holy Scripture, seeing it is not of iaith, is sin." The same judgment he showeth in many other parts of nis works, tract, de vera et piafide, in re ul, brev. inter 1. et 95. ct 93. Episl. 80
THE ANSWER TO THE ANNOTATIONS ON MATTHEW'S GOSPEL.
Chapter 1. 1. You must understand this note, where there is a Priest or Deacon, that can chant it lustily, as in Cathedral Churches, or other great choirs: as for poor country Churches, where there is none but one hedge Priest that can neither well sin" nor say, it is munililed up as the rest of the morrow mass, unless we shall think that poor Churches and Chapels be no part of the Pope's holy Church. To the leasts of the conception ana nativity of our lady, which is a very idol, you might have added the visitation of Mary, of the common people called the new-found lady- day. But the true histories of the Gospel have not so great honour with you as the idolatrous and blasphemous inventions of your own brain. For therefore you have ap- pointed those solemn feasts of the conception and nativity, because you teach contrary to the Scriptures, that the blessed Virgin Mary was conceived and born without spot of ori- ginal sin. Rom. 5, 12, and 16, Rovi. 3, 9, Gal. 3, 22. And therefore, instead of honouring her with the singular privilege of Christ the Saviour and Retieemer of both her and us, you honour an idol, and not her : for an idol IS nothing in the world. And so is that man or woman who is conceived without original sin, except our Saviour Christ, who was con- ceived by the Holy Ghost, as none other ever was or shall be. Likewise when you call the blessed Virgin our Lady, as you call God and Christ our Lord, what do you but make her equal with God and Christ, in power and re- demption ? In which respect God is called our Lord. For it is no term of civil and temporal dignity and authority, as when we say, our sovereign lady the Queen, but a re- ligious and divine honour that you ascribe unto her, calling her absolutely, our lady, as blasphemously as the Frenchmen do ridicu- ously call other saints. Monsieur S. Pierre. M. S. Peter, or my Lord S. Peter, and Madavi S. Gen/efe, Mistress S. Genofefa, or, my lady S. Genofefa, &c. In which appellation, as in offering of candles, and other things unto her image, and worshipping thereof, you resemble the old CoUyridian heretics, agamst whom, and generally against the worshipping of images, Epiphanius, writeth, Heres. 79 and 78, calling the making of images to be worshipped, a devilish interit, and the wor- shipping of them and of the Virgin Mary, to be a deifying of her, and a blasphemous and wicked work. What would he have written if he had seen the horrible idolatry com- mitted by the Papists in the pilgrimages to the images of the blessed Virgin, where you called, and yet call stocks and stones your lady, as our Lady of Walsingham, Ipswich, Paris, Antwerp? What else were they but dead
images at those places ? If he had heard your blasphemies uttered in the solemn fes- tivities that you liold in her honour, contained in hymns, anthems, and especially in that ex- ecrable Psalter of Bonaventure, who per- vertelh whatsoever the iJoly Ghost hath ut tered in praise ot God, abusuig it to magnify the Virgin Mary. Roga Patrem, Jube natum Entreat the Father, command the Son. Coge Det.ii, compel God. Vita salus, our life and salvation, &c.
20. Augusiin in the place quoted, by the word Sacrament, meaneth the holy mystery that is in marriage, of the inseparable con- junction of Christ with his Church, therefore he saith Sacramentum, quia nullum, divortium, Sacrament because there was no divorce. Not that matrimony is a Sacrament of the New Testament, seeing it was itisiituted in Paradise before the fail of man, as baptism and the Lord's Supper are called Sacraments, which he saith, are fewest in number, and findeth ro more in the Canonical Scriptures. Epist. ad Januar. If 8. But as he calleth ge- nerally every sacrifice of the Old Tesiarnent, a Sacrament, that is, a holy sign of the invi- sible sacrifice. De civ. Dei. lib. 10, c. 5. And as he calleth that bread, which in that time was given to young novices in Christian reli- gion before they were baptized, a holy Sa- crament, though it was not the body of Christ. Depcc. mer. and remiss, lib. 2, c. 26. Likewise in Psalm 44, he so calleth all the mysteries of Christian doctrine uttered in divers tongues, Sacramenta doctrincc, Sacraments of doc- trine.
23. We teach even as Paul doth, 1 Cor. 7, although we teach that marriage is better than single life, where virginity or chastity are not kept, but counterfeited. And so held Epiphan. and the Church in his time. Cont. Aposl. hcer. 61. Hierom and Dcmtt.
25. You do most impudently allege Au- gustin, to testify that Helvidius was con- demned for a heretic by tradition only, for Augustin hath no word sounding to that pur- pose. And Epiphanius, whom he supposeth to have understood Helvidians by Antidi- comarianites, labourelh to convince that error by Scriptures. And Hierom, in his book against Helvidius, showeth that he was con- demned for affirming that of the Virgin Mary, which is not read in the Scriptures, in these words, "But as we deny not these things that are written, so we reject those things that are not written. That God was born of a virgin we believe, because we read it : that Mary had matrimonial company with her husband after her delivery, we do not believe, because we read it not." Behold what a friend Hierom was to imwritten tra- dition !
•10
MATTHEW.
Chaptkr 2.
i. This coming was a divine inspiration, and oracle : lor the star only could not tell them that Christ was born in Jewry. " Their coming," saith Hieroni, " was to the confusion of the Jews, that they might learn the birth of Christ by the Gentiles." Chrysostom, Horn. 6. in Matt. Because Christ was come to make an end of the old Testament, and to call the whole world to adore Him, who was to be worshipped by sea and land, from the very beginning of his nativity, he openeth the door to the Gentiles, and so instructeth his domestical, that he also inviteth strangers ; and, therefore, had no resembling to Popish pilgrimage, which is idolatry. Neither doth their example of comin" to Christ, warrant the faithful in the like kind of external worship, done to holy persons, places, and things. For what faithful Christian will grant, that ^.■hatso- ever may be done to Christ's own person, their King, the same OT the like may be done to any of his subjects? much less to any places, or other dead things. Such shameless collec- tions as this, may warrant all idolatry and he- resy.
4. Not the privilege of their unction forceth the priests sometimes to say the truth, for then they should never He, because that privilege remaineth still with them ; but ^ the will of God sometimes e.xpresseth the
confession of truth, even out of his adversa- ries. Ckrysost. in Malt. Horn. /• The very enemies of the truth are forced for the truth to read the Scriptures, and to interpret the prophecy of Christ to them that were igno- tant, although they would not publish the whole truth.
11. Chrysostom speaketh not of adoration of the Sacrament, but of the reverent co- ming to the participation of the Lord's ta- ble, that they receive it not unworthily, as the words going before and after do plainly de- clare : Immediately before, he saith, "How miich the greater the benefit is which we re- ceive, so much the more we shall be punish- ed, when we appear unworthy of it." And, after he had set forth the example of the wise men, with many amplifications, he con- cludeth iri these words : " Let us be stirred up, therefore, and be afraid, and show forth greater piety, that coming neither negli- gently, nor coldly, we offer our head to a more _^ vehement fire. This I say not, that we
should not come at all, but that we should not come rashly." It is reverence of the holy mysteries that he requireth, not worshipping of the outsvard elements, as his own words declare. " Thou seest him," &,c., not with the bodily eyes, but with the eyes of faith, as thou seest the Holy Ghost poured forth, whose nature to the bodily eye is altogether invisi- ble ; yet with the eyes of faith is seen, that is, certainly known to work, in the divine mysteries, not transubstantiation, whereof he never heard or thought, but the spiritual feeding of the faithful, with the body and blood of Christ. "Wherefore, ascend to the galea of heaven and hnrk diligently, yea
rather not of heaven but of the heaven of heavens, and then thou shalt behold that we say : for that which is worthy of highest honour, I will show thee inearth:" meaning the body of Christ, " which thou dost not only see, but also handle and eat," &-c. All which speeches must be, of necessity, im- derstood of a spiritual manner of seeing, handling, and eating by faith of the inward man whereof he saith, " Wipe thy soul, there- fore, from all filthiness, and prepare thy mind to the receiving of these mysteries."
Likewise Hxim. 7. in Ivlatthew, he saith, they are like Herod, that abuse unworthily the communion of the mystery of the bodv and blood of Christ, and rebukeththem, whicli refuse to visit Christ in his poor members, as the wise men did in the crib : likewise them that leave Christ, in the spiritual crib ; that is, that forsake the communion of the Lord's table, and run to filthy plays, unto the theatre.
Horn, de Philogonia, he useth the like ex- hortation by e.xample of the wise men, to the worthy receiving of the Lord's Supper, not to the adoring of the Sacrament, after the Popish manner : " For if we shall come with faith, out of doubt, we shall see him lying in the crib : for this table supplieth the place of the crib : for here, also, the Lord's body is laid, not wrapped in swaddling clothes," as then, but on every side clothed with the Holy. Ghost : they which are admitted to these mys- teries, know what is said. A»id the wise men truly did nothing but worship, but thee we will sufler, if thou shalt come with a pure conscience to receive it, and to depart after thou hast received it." Here is no word of worshipping of that which we see with our bodily eyes, but to receive him revcrenth% whom we may see by faith : so that none of these places favour the kneehng and knock- ing, that is, the gross idolatry, maintained by the Papists, unto the sacramental bread and cup.
11. It is a mere fable, without ground of antiquity, or any probability, that these philo- sophers were kings, which being much for the honour of Christ, as you say; the Evange- list would not have omitted. Chrysostom saith, that the Jews ought to have perceived, how great dignity was added unto them, by the nativity of so great a king, which, bv his triumphant birth, had drawn //le ^in^ o/'Per- sia unto him, and under whom they might subdue all people. But it is against reason, that the king of Persia, who was, at that time, a great monarch, came to Jerusalem.
And CTirysostom, speaking of the Magi, ne- ver giveth them any honourable title meet for kings, but speaketh more contemptibly ol them than he should, for he saith tliev were ungodly and barbarous men, 1 Cor. Horn. 24. Therefore, he meaneth not, that the kin^ of Persia came in person, but that by preaching of the wise men, when they returned into their country, the king of Persia might be brought to the knowledge of his nativity.
Thcophylact, a more late writer, aaitn, the Jews should have rejoiced, that they should
MATTHEW.
41
have such a king, as sliould be worshipped of the Persian kings. Where, if he mean that these magi were kings, he goeth against all stories, which teil that there was but one king of the Peisi.ius at once. An;!, for the number of tiieni, the author of the imperfect work, that goeth under the name of Ciirysos- toin, being as ancient as he, out of au old