TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCESS ELIZABETH, BY THE GRACE OF GOD QUEEN OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, &c. AMONG the inestimable benefits, wherewith Almighty God hath wonderfully blessed this your majesty's most honourable and prosperous government, it is not to be numbered among the least, that under your most gracious and christian protection the people of your highness' dominions have enjoyed the most necessary and comfortable reading of the holy scriptures in their mother tongue and native language. Which exercise, although it hath of long time, by the adversaries of him that willeth the scriptures to be searched, (especially those of our nation,) been accounted little better than an D. Standish.1 heretical practice; and treatises have been written, pretending to shew great inconvenience of having the holy scriptures in the vulgar tongue; yet now at length perceiving they cannot prevail to bring in that darkness and ignorance of God's most sacred word and will therein contained, whereby their blind D. Heskins.2 [1 John Standish here alluded to was admitted a probationer fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford, in 1528. In the time of Edward VI. he was a zealous reformer, made rector of Wigan, and married; but was separated from his wife when queen Mary ascended the throne, and deprived of his preferment. Bp. Bonner for his affections to popery gave him the rectory of Packlesham. Among other works he wrote "A Treatise against the Translation of the Bible into the vulgar language; printed by Caley in 1554," of which there was a second edition by the same printer the following year. Wood's Athenæ. Vol. 1. p. 236—8.] [Thomas Heskins, or Heskyns, was collated by Cardinal Pole to the chancellorship of Salisbury, 1558, but ejected on the accession of Elizabeth the following year. (Le Neve's Fasti, p. 269. Wood's Fasti, p. 113.) Heskins wrote "the Parliament of Christ, concerning the Sacrament, impugned in a sermon by John Jewell. Ant. 1566. fol.” It was answered by Fulke in his book entitled Heskins' Parliament repealed by W. F. Lond. 1579.] devotion, the daughter of ignorance, as they themselves profess, was wont to make them rulers of the world, they also at the last are become translators of the New Testament into English. In which, that I speak nothing of their insincere purpose, in leaving the pure fountain of the original verity, to follow the crooked stream of their barbarous vulgar Latin translation, which (beside all other manifest corruptions) is found defective in more than an hundred places, as your majesty, according to the excellent knowledge in both the tongues wherewith God hath blessed you, is very well able to judge; and to omit even the same book of their translation, pestered with so many annotations, both false and undutiful, by which, under colour of the authority of holy scriptures, they seek to infect the minds of the credulous readers with heretical and superstitious opinions, and to alienate their hearts from yielding due obedience to your majesty and your most christian laws concerning true religion established; and that I may pass over the very text of their translation, obscured without any necessary or just cause with such a multitude of so strange and unusual terms, as to the ignorant are no less difficult to understand, than the Latin or Greek itself: yet is it not meet to be concealed, that they which neither truly nor precisely have translated their own vulgar Latin and only authentical text, have nevertheless been bold to set forth a several treatise, in which most slanderously and unjustly they accuse all our English translations of the bible, not of small imperfections and oversights committed through ignorance or negligence, but of no less than most foul dealing in partial and false translations, wilful and heretical corruptions. Against which most lewd and untrue accusation, though easy to be judged of by such as be learned in the tongues, yet dangerous to disquiet the conscience of them that be ignorant in the same, I have written a short and necessary defence; which, although not laboured in words, yet in matter I hope sufficient to avoid all the adversaries' cavils, I am most humbly to crave pardon, that I may be bold to dedicate unto your most excellent majesty; that under whose high and christian authority your people have so many years enjoyed the reading of the holy books of God in their native language, to the everlasting benefit of many thousand souls, under the same your most gracious and royal protection they may read also the defence of the sincere and faithful translation of those books, to the quieting of their consciences, and the confusion of the adversaries of God's truth and holy religion. By which they may be stirred up more and more in all dutiful obedience, not only to be thankful unto your majesty, as it becometh them, but also to continue their most earnest and hearty prayers to Almighty God for this your most godly and happy regiment over them for many years forward to be prolonged. The God of glory, which hitherto hath advanced your majesty's throne, above all princes of this age, in true honour and glory, vouchsafe to preserve the same with his daily blessing, to the protection of that glorious reparation of his church, which you have most happily taken in hand, to the everlasting praise of his mercy, and the endless felicity of your majesty! Your majesty's most humble subject, and most bounden daily orator, WILLIAM FULKE. THE PREFACE, CONTAINING FIVE SUNDRY ABUSES OR CORRUPTIONS OF HOLY TIME: WITH MANY OTHER NECES- MARTIN. five ways Martin. As it hath been always the fashion of heretics to pretend Heretics scriptures for shew of their cause; so hath it been also their custom specially and property to abuse the said scriptures many ways in favour of their abuse the errors. Fulke. scriptures. Whether these five abuses have been common to FULKE. all heretics, and whether it hath been the fashion of all heretics to pretend scriptures for shew of their cause, though I will spare now to inquire of, as a thing wherein learned men at the first sight may espy the great skill that Martin pretendeth to have in discerning of heretics and heresies; yet will I shew (by the grace of God) that none of these five abuses are committed by us or our catholic translations, and that the popish heretics are, in some sort or other, guilty of them all. books. Martin. One way is, to deny whole books thereof, or parts of MARTIN, 1. 1. Denying books, when they are evidently against them. So did (for example) certain books Ebion all St Paul's epistles, Manicheus the Acts of the Apostles, Alo- or parts of giani St John's gospel, Marcion many pieces of St Luke's gospel, and so did both these and other heretics in other books, denying and allowing what they list, as is evident by St Irenæus, St Epiphanius, St Augustine, and all antiquity. Fulke. First, we deny no one book of the canonical FULKE, 1. scripture, that hath been so received of the catholic church, for the space of 300 years and more, as it hath been often proved out of Eusebius, St Jerome, and other ancient authorities but the papists, in advancing apocryphal books to be of equal credit with the canonical scriptures, do in effect deny them all. Besides that, to add unto the word of God is as great a fault as to take away from it, the one being MARTIN, 2. of their authority and calling them into question. forbidden under as heavy a curse as the other. Those blasphemies of Pighius' and Eccius', the one calling the holy scripture a nose of wax and a dumb judge, the other terming the gospel written to be a black gospel and an inky divinity; and that of Hosius3, acknowledging none other express word of God, but only this one word ama, or dilige, "love thou;" what other thing do they import, but a shameless denial of all books of the holy scripture in deed, howsoever in word they will seem to admit them? Martin. Another way is, to call into question at the least, and 2. Doubting make some doubt of the authority of certain books of holy scriptures, thereby to diminish their credit. So did Manicheus affirm of the whole New Testament, that it was not written by the apostles; and peculiarly of St Matthew's gospel, that it was some other man's under his name, and therefore not of such credit, but that it might in some part be refused. So did Marcion, and the Arians, deny the epistle to the Hebrews to be St Paul's, Epiph. lib. 2. hær. 69, Euseb. lib. 4. hist. c. 27; and Alogiani the Apocalypse to be St John's the Evangelist, Epiph. et August. in hær. Alogianorum. FULKE, 2. Fulke. We neither doubt of the authority of any certain book of the holy scriptures, neither call we any of them into question; but with due reverence do acknowledge them all and every one to be of equal credit and authority, as being [Sunt enim illæ (scripturæ), ut non minus vere quam festive dixit quidam, velut nasus cereus, qui se horsum, illorsum, et in quam volueris partem, trahi, retrahi, fingique facile permittit. Pighius, Hierarch. Eccles. Assertio, Lib. I. cap. 3. fol. 80. edit. 1538. Albert Pighius, a mathematician and controversialist, born at Kempen in Westphalia about 1490, and died 1542.] [Scriptores canonici semper prius habuerunt evangelium mentale, quam ederent illud nigrum in literis. Eck. Apologia pro Principibus Catholicis. Fol. 74 b. Antverp. 1542. Tu nos ad mortuas pelles, ad atramentum remittis, et literam. Ibid. fol. 156 b. Echius, or Eckius, was professor and chancellor of the University of Ingolstad, and a celebrated controversialist of the 16th century. His chief work was a "Manual of Controversy," which went through many editions. was born in Suabia in 1486, and died at Ingolstad in 1543.] He [ Vis autem quod sit verbum salvificans cognoscere? Breve verbum est et expeditum, AMA. Caritas est verbum salvificans, etc. Hosii Opera, De Expresso Dei Verbo. Tom. I. p. 628. Stanislas Hosius was one of the most illustrious cardinals of the 16th century, born at Cracow in 1504. He opened the Council of Trent as legate from Pius the Fourth, and was subsequently appointed grand penitentiary by Gregory the Thirteenth. He died in 1579.] |