FULKE, 19. MARTIN, 20. las Hiero. Ep. 97. in fine. sostom, Joannes presbyter Antiochenus, doth he not mean he was as then but a priest of Antioch? Would he have said so, if he had written of him after he was bishop of Constantinople? Fulke. All this while here is nothing for the English word "priest," in that respect we avoid it in translation; nor against the word "elder," which we use, by which we mean none other thing than the scripture doth give us to understand by the word #peoẞúτepos. As for the distinction of episcopus and presbyter, which came in afterward, you yourself confessed, as we heard of late, that it is not observed in the scriptures; but the same men are called episcopi, which before were called presbyteri. And according to that distinction, you can allow but one bishop of one city at once: yet the scripture in divers places speaketh of many bishops of one city, as Acts xx., the bishops of Ephesus, called before presbyteri, "elders;" also he saluteth the bishops and deacons of Philippi, Phil. i., where your note saith, that in the apostle's time there were not observed always distinct names of either function of bishop and priest. Would you have us to translate the scripture with distinction of names which the Holy Ghost maketh not, nor your vulgar Latin observeth, nor you yourself for shame can observe? And if we should have translated for "elders" "priests," that distinction taken up after the apostle's times, or the writing of the scripture, had been never the more confirmed. Martin. But of all other places, we would desire these gay translators to translate this one place of St Augustine, speaking of himself a Inter Episto- bishop, and St Jerome a priest: Quanquam enim secundum honorum vocabula, quæ jam ecclesiæ usus obtinuit, episcopatus presbyterio major sit ; tamen in multis rebus Augustinus Hieronymo minor est. Is not this the English thereof? "For although according to the titles or names of honour, which now by use of the church have prevailed, the degree of bishop be greater than priesthood, yet in many things Augustine is less than Jerome." Or doth it like them to translate it thus, "The degree of bishop is greater than eldership," &c.? Again, against Julian the heretic, when he hath brought many testimonies of the holy doctors, that were all bishops, as of St Cyprian, Ambrose, Basil, Nazianzene, Chrysostom; at length he cometh to St Jerome, who was no bishop, and Lib. 1. c. 2. saith, Nec sanctum Hieronymum, quia presbyter fuit, contemnendum arbitreris; that is,." Neither must thou think that St Jerome, because he was but a priest, therefore is to be contemned; whose divine eloquence hath shined to us from the east even to the west, like a lamp ;" and so in fine. forth to his great commendation. Here is a plain distinction of an inferior degree to a bishop, for the which the heretic Julian did easily contemn him. Is not St Cyprian full of the like places? Is not all antiquity so full, that whiles I prove this, methinketh I prove nothing else but that snow is white? 20. Fulke. Of all other importune and unreasonable judges FULKE, you are one of the worst, that would enforce us to translate the scriptures, which you confess observeth not the distinction of bishops and priests, according to the fathers, which do almost always observe it. If we should translate those sentences of St Augustine, we might use the word "priest" for presbyter, and "priesthood" for presbyterium; and if we use the words "elders" and "eldership," what offence I pray you were it, when by these names we understand nothing, but the same function and minister which Augustine doth? That episcopus, a "bishop," was of very old time used to signify a degree ecclesiastical higher than presbyter, an "elder" or "priest," we did never deny; we know it right well. We know what St Jerome writeth upon the epistle to Titus, chap. i. Idem est ergo presbyter, qui episcopus1. "The same man is presbyter, or an elder,' or 'priest,' which is episcopus, a 'bishop.' And before that, by the instinct of the devil, factions were made in religion, and it was said among the people, 'I am of Paul, I of Apollo, and I of Cephas,' the churches were governed by common counsel presbyterorum, 'of the elders.' But afterward, when every one thought those whom he had baptized to be his own, and not Christ's, it was decreed in the whole world, that one de presbyteris, of the elders,' being elected, should be set over the rest, to whom all the care of the church should pertain, and the seeds of schisms should be taken away." This, and much more to this effect, writeth St Hieronyme of this distinction, in that place, and in divers other places; which nothing proveth that we [ Idem est ergo presbyter qui episcopus: et antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent, et diceretur in populis, Ego sum Pauli, ego Apollo, ego autem Cephæ, communi presbyterorum consilio ecclesiæ gubernabantur. Postquam vero unusquisque eos quos baptizaverat suos putabat esse, non Christi, in toto orbe decretum est, ut unus de presbyteris electus superponeretur ceteris, ad quem omnis ecclesiæ cura pertineret, et schismatum semina tollerentur. Comment. Hieronymi in Titum, c. i. Opera, Vol. iv. p. 413.] MARTIN, 21. Annot. in 1 Pet. v. Beza's words in the place above alleg ed. are bound to translate presbyter in the scripture a "priest," and least of all, that we are bound in terms to keep that distinction, which the scripture maketh not, and the papists themselves cannot observe in their most partial translation. Martin. In all which places if they will translate "elder," and yet make the same a common name to all ecclesiastical degrees, as Beza defineth it, let the indifferent reader consider the absurd confusion, or rather the impossibility thereof: if not, but they will grant in all these places it signifieth "priest," and so is meant; then we must beat them with Beza's rod of reprehension against Castaleon, that " we cannot dissemble the boldness of these men, which would God it rested within the custom of words only, and were not important matter concerning their heresy! These men therefore, touching the word 'priest,' though used of sacred writers in the mystery of the New Testament, and for so many years after, by the secret consent of all churches, consecrated to this one sacrament, so that it is now grown to be the proper vulgar speech almost of all nations; yet they dare presume rashly to change it, and in place thereof to use the word 'elder.' Delicate men, forsooth!" (yea, worse a great deal, because these do it for heresy, and not for delicacy,) "which neither are moved with the perpetual authority of so many ages, nor by the daily custom of the vulgar speech can be brought to think that lawful for divines, which all men grant to other masters and professors of arts; that is, to retain and hold that as their own, which by long use, and in good faith, they have truly possessed. Neither may they pretend the authority of any ancient writer," (as that the old Latin translator saith senior and seniores;) "for that which was to them as it were new, to us is old; and even then, that the selfsame words ment of bap which we now use were more familiar to the church, it is evident, because it is very seldom that they speak otherwise." Prete. Presbyter, for a priest. Baptismus, for the sacra tism. FULKE, 21. Fulke. I see no impossibility, but that in all places where we read presbyter, we may lawfully translate "elder,” as well as "priest," and make it still, in scripture, a common name to all ecclesiastical degrees, (at least, to as many as the scripture maketh it common,) without any absurdity or confusion. And albeit in the fathers we should translate it "priest," because they understood by the name presbyter a distinct degree from episcopus; yet the saying of Beza against Castaleo could not by any wise man be applied to us. For Castaleo changed the name of the sacrament baptismus, by which both the scriptures and the fathers uniformly did use to signify one and the same sacrament: whereas the name of presbyter in the scripture signifieth one thing, and in the fathers another. For in the scripture it is taken indifferently for episcopus, and episcopus for presbyter but in the fathers these are two distinct degrees. Therefore he is worthy to be beaten in a grammar-school, that cannot see manifest difference between the use of the word baptismus, which, being spoken of the sacrament, in the scriptures and fathers is always one, and of presbyter, which in the scriptures is every ecclesiastical governor, in the fathers one degree only, that is subject to the bishop. 22. Martin. Thus we have repeated Beza's words again, only changing MARTIN, the word "baptism" into " priest," because the case is all one: and so unwittingly Beza, the successor of Calvin in Geneva, hath given plain sentence against our English translators in all such cases, as they go from the common received and usual sense to another profane sense, and out of use: as, namely, in this point of "priest" and "priesthood." Where we must needs add a word or two, though we be too long, because their folly and malice is too great herein. For whereas the very name "priest" See M. Whitgift's defence never came into our English tongue, but of the Latin presbyter, (for against the thereupon sacerdos also was so called only by a consequence,) they ply, p. 721, translate sacerdos" priest," and presbyter, not priest, but "elder," as wisely firmeth that and as reasonably, as if a man should translate Prætor Londini, " Mayor priest comof London," and Major Londini, not "Mayor of London," but "Greater eth of the word presbyof London ;" or Academia Oxoniensis, "the University of Oxford," and ter, and not Universitas Oxoniensis, not "the University," but "the Generality of sacerdos. Oxford;" and such like. 66 Puritans' Re where he af this word of the word 22. Fulke. Beza's words agree to us, as well as German's FULKE, lips, that were nine mile asunder. For if this English word priest," by custom of speech, did signify no more than the Greek word peoẞúrepos, we would no less use it in our translations, than "bishops" and "deacons :" which offices though they be shamefully abused by the papists, yet the abuse of the words maketh no confusion between the ministers of the law and of the gospel, as this word "priest" doth, by which the Jewish sacrificers are rather understood, than preachers of the gospel and ministers of the sacraments. But whereas the etymology of this English word "priest" cometh from presbyter, you charge us with great folly and malice, that for sacerdos we translate "priest," and for presbyter "elder." To this I answer, We are not lords of the common speech of men; for if we were, we would teach them to use their terms more properly: but seeing we cannot change the use of speech, we follow Aristotle's counsel, which MARTIN, 23. is to speak and use words as the common people useth, but to understand and conceive of things according to the nature and true property of them. Although, for my part, I like well of the French translation, which for iepeis, or sacerdotes, always translateth sacrificateurs, "sacrificers;" and for presbyteri, where they signify the ministers of the word and sacraments, prestres, "priests." But this diversity being only of words, and not of matter or meaning, reasonable men will take an answer; fools and quarrellers will never acknowledge any satisfaction. Martin. Again, what exceeding folly is it, to think that by false and profane translation of presbyter into "elder," they might take away the external priesthood of the new testament, whereas their own word sacerdos, which they do and must needs translate "priest," is as common and as usual in all antiquity as presbyter; and so much the more, for that it is used indifferently to signify both bishops and priests, which presbyter lightly doth not but in the New Testament. As when Constantine the Great said to the bishops assembled in the council Ruffin. lib. 1. of Nice: Deus vos constituit sacerdotes, &c. "God hath ordained you priests, and hath given you power to judge of us also." And St Ambrose: "When didst thou ever hear, most clement prince, that laymen have judged bishops? Shall we bend by flattery so far, that forgetting the Juris sacerdo- right of our priesthood, we should yield up to others that which God c. 2. Epist. 32. ad Valentinianum Imp. talis. In Apolog. pro sua fug. Χριστῷ συνιερούELV, Epist. 1. orat. 1. hath commended to us?" And therefore doth St Chrysostom entitle his six books, De Sacerdotio, Of Priesthood, concerning the dignity and calling not only of mere priests, but also of bishops: and St Gregory Nazianzene, handling the same argument, saith, "that they execute priesthood together with Christ." And St Ignatius saith: "Do nothing without the bishops; for they are priests, but thou the deacon of the ad Hieronem. priests." And in the Greek liturgies or masses, so often: ó iepeùs, “Then the priest saith this and that," signifying also the bishop when he saith mass; and *St Denys saith sometime, Archisacerdotem cum sacerdotibus, "The high priest or bishop with the priests;" whereof come the words ἱερατεύειν, ἱερουργεῖν, ἱεράτευμα, ἱερατεία, ἱερουργία, in the ancient Greek fathers, for the sacred function of priesthood, and executing of the same. Sacerdotes. ἱερεύς. διάκονος iepéwv. ἱεράρχην σὺν τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν. Ec. Hiera. c. 3. MARTIN, 24. Martin. If then the heretics could possibly have extinguished priesthood in the word presbyter, yet you see it would have remained still in the words sacerdos and sacerdotium, which themselves translate "priest" and "priesthood;" and therefore we must desire them to translate us a place or two after their own manner. First, St Augustine Lib. 8. c. 27. speaking thus: Quis unquam audivit sacerdotem ad altare stantem etiam super reliquias martyrum dicere, Offero tibi, Petre, et Paule, vel Cypriane?1 De Civ. Dei. [The passage of Augustine here referred to is incorrectly quoted. In the Paris reprint of the Benedictine edition it stands thus: "Quis |