&c. Who seeth not in these words, that I rehearse the objection of Saunder, which is common to him with many other papists; which not discussing whether it be true or no, but supposing it were as Saunder and the rest of the papists do affirm, I shew that it is no good consequence to charge all protestants with Luther's private opinion, which perhaps he held sometime and after retracted, more than to charge us with all opinions of papistry which he did hold, before God opened his eyes to see the absurdity of them? And yet, if he had held that opinion, and never retracted the same, he were not in worse case than Eusebius', who in plain words affirmeth, that the same epistle is a counterfeit or bastard epistle, lib. 2, cap. 23. Do you not see now, how flatly Master Fulke confesseth that it was so? Such confessions as these are now and then extorted out of the ancient fathers' writings, which are not living to expound their meanings. But I had thought Master Martin could have discerned between a suppose or concession, and an absolute assertion or a flat confession, especially of one whose writing is plain enough, and beside is alive to interpret himself, if any ambiguity were therein. But be it that Master Martin either would not, or could not, see in my writing any thing else but a flat confession of Luther's denying of St James' epistle, and calling it an epistle of straw: of what forehead proceedeth it, that he willeth Master Whitaker to ask Calvin, in argum. epist. Jacobi, whether Luther so spake of that epistle?—in which argument Luther is not once named by Calvin; so far is it that he doth testify any such thing against Luther. Only he saith, that some there are in these days which think that epistle not worthy of authority; which could not

[ Τοιαῦτα καὶ τὰ κατὰ τὸν Ἰάκωβον, οὗ ἡ πρώτη τῶν ὀνομαζομένων καθολικῶν ἐπιστολῶν εἶναι λέγεται. ἰστέον δὲ ὡς νοθεύεται μέν· οὐ πολλοὶ γοῦν τῶν παλαιῶν αὐτῆς ἐμνημόνευσαν, ὡς οὐδὲ τῆς λεγομένης Ιούδα, μιας καὶ αὐτῆς οὔσης τῶν ἑπτὰ λεγομένων καθολικῶν. ὅμως δὲ ἴσμεν καὶ ταύτας μετὰ τῶν λοιπῶν ἐν πλείσταις δεδημοσιευμένας ἐκκλησίαις. Eusebii Pamphili Eccles. Hist. Lib. I. c. 23. Opera. Vol. 1. p. 66. edit. Valesii.]

[Calvin's words are: "Hanc epistolam non sine certamine olim receptam a multis ecclesiis fuisse ex Hieronymi Eusebiique testimonio notum est. Sunt etiam hodie nonnulli, qui eam auctoritate dignam non censeant. Ego tamen, quia nullam ejus repudiandæ satis justam causam video, libenter eam sine controversia amplector."-Argumentum cum Joh. Calvini Commentariis. p. 91. edit. Stephan. 1560.]

be understood of Luther, who long before Calvin wrote that argument had forsaken that opinion, if ever he held any such; as all those Dutch bibles and testaments of Luther's translation, in which those words so much baited at, and so much sought for, are omitted, do give sufficient testimony. What Flaccus Illyricus3 reporteth, who perhaps held that opinion himself, and would father it upon Luther, I have neither opportunity to seek, nor care to know. But how great a matter it is, that all the popish Germans, and other, who have written against Luther, do so spitefully gnaw upon, I have learned at length by relation of Master Whitaker, whom you send to ask of me; who, after long search and many editions turned over, at the length lighted upon a Dutch testament, by likelihood one of the first that Luther did set forth in the German tongue, in which he findeth neither denial of St James' epistle to be canonical, nor affirmation that it is unworthy of an apostolical spirit; no, nor that whereof there hath been so much babbling of all the papists, that he calleth it an epistle of straw simply and in contempt, but only in comparison of the epistles of Paul and Peter, and other books of the new testament; the excellency of which, one above another, after he hath shewed in sundry degrees, at last he saith, the epistle of James in comparison of these is straw, or like straw: which he saith not in respect of the credit or authority thereof, but in regard of the argument or matter handled therein; which all wise and godly men will confess to be not so excellent and necessary, as the matter of the holy gospels and epistles of some other of the apostles, namely of Paul, Peter, and John. Our Saviour Christ himself, John iii. 12, calleth the doctrine of regeneration, in such plain manner as he uttered it to Nicodemus, earthly things, in comparison of other greater mysteries, which he could have expressed in more heavenly and spiritual sort. "If I have spoken to you," saith he, "of earthly things, and you have not believed, how, if I should speak to you of heavenly things, will you believe?" Were not he an honest and a wise man, that upon these words of Christ,

[3 Mathias Flack, or (as the name was latinised, from Albona in Istria, a part of ancient Illyria, where he was born in 1521,) Flaccus Illyricus, was a famous protestant theologian. He studied under Luther and Melancthon, and became a most formidable enemy to the Church of Rome.]

2

[PULKE.]

can. 47.

Argu. in epist. Jacob.

spoken in comparison, would conclude by his authority, that regeneration were a contemptible matter, a thing not spiritual, not heavenly, but simply and altogether earthly? And yet with as good reason, for ought I see or can learn of Luther's words concerning this matter, he might so infer, as the papists do enforce the like against Luther. Wherefore it is nothing else but a famous and infamous cavillation, to the confusion of all the papists which write against Luther, that no one of them omitteth upon so false and frivolous a ground to slander him so heinously, and to charge all protestants with his assertion so enviously: which, if it were his, should not be so evil as other catholic writers have affirmed of that epistle, and therefore not sufficient to charge him, and much less others, with heresy; but being not his simple affirmation, yet because it hath been offensively taken, he himself hath put it out and given it over. O what a stir would they keep, if they had any weighty matter of truth to burthen him withal!

MARTIN, 8. Martin. To let this pass: Toby, Ecclesiasticus, and the Machabees, Conc. Cart. 3. are they not most certainly rejected? And yet they were allowed and received for canonical by the same authority that St James' epistle was. This epistle the Calvinists are content to admit, because so it pleased Calvin: those books they reject, because so also it pleased him. And why did it so please Calvin? Under pretence forsooth, that they were once doubted of, and not taken for canonical. But is that the true cause indeed? How do they then receive St James' epistle as canonical, having been before doubted of also, yea, as they say, rejected?

Whitak.

p. 10.

Ibid.

FULKE, 8. Fulke. You may well let it pass, for it is not worth the time you spend in writing of it; and if you had been wise, you would utterly have omitted it. But what say you of Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, and the Machabees, most certainly by us rejected? They were allowed (you say) for canonical by the same authority that St James' epistle was. And think you that St James' epistle was never allowed for canonical before the third council of Carthage? For of the other it is certain, they were never received by the church of the Israelites before Christ's coming, nor of the apostolic and primitive church for more than 300 years after, as both Eusebius out of Origenes, and the council of Laodicea, Can. 59. confirmed afterward by the sixth general council of Constan

Whitakeri ad Rationes Campiani Responsio.]

18.

Christ. lib.

tinople, sheweth for the Greek church, and St Jerome in Lib. 6. cap. Prologo Galeato for the Latin church. As for the provincial council of Carthage, holden by forty-four bishops of Africa, if we were bound to receive it for these books, we must also acknowledge five books of Salomon, which in the same. council are authorised, whereas the church never knew but of three. And although the book of Wisdom should be ascribed to Salomon, there could be but four. Again, how they understand the word canonical, it may be gathered both out of the words of the same canon, where they give none other reason of the approbation of all those books of scripture, but that they have received them of their fathers to be read in the church; and also out of St Augustine, who was De doct. one present at the same council; which after he hath declared 2. cap. 8. how a man should discern the canonical scriptures from other writings by following the authority of the catholic churches, especially those that have deserved to have apostolic sees, and to receive their epistles, he addeth further: Tenebit igitur hunc modum in scripturis canonicis, ut eas quæ ab omnibus accipiuntur ecclesiis catholicis, præponat eis quas quædam non accipiunt; in eis vero quæ non accipiuntur ab omnibus, præponat eas, quas plures gravioresque accipiunt, eis quas pauciores minorisque auctoritatis ecclesiæ tenent. autem alias invenerit a pluribus, alias a gravioribus haberi, quanquam hoc invenire non possit, æqualis tamen auctoritatis eas habendas puto. Totus autem canon scripturarum, in quo istam considerationem versandam dicimus, his libris continetur. He shall hold therefore this mean in the canonical scriptures, that he prefer those which are received of all catholic churches, before those scriptures which some churches do not receive. But in those which are not received of all, let him prefer those scriptures which the greater number and graver churches do receive, before those which churches fewer in number and of less authority do hold. But if he shall

Si

[Non idem ordo est apud Græcos, qui integre sapiunt et fidem rectam sectantur, epistolarum septem, quæ canonicæ nuncupantur, qui in Latinis codicibus invenitur. Quod quia Petrus primus est in numero apostolorum, primæ sint etiam ejus epistolæ in ordine ceterarum. Sed sicut evangelistas dudum ad veritatis lineam correximus; ita has proprio ordini, Deo nos juvante, reddidimus. Est enim prima earum una Jacobi; Petri duæ; Johannis tres; et Juda una.-Hieronym. Prolog. Septem Epistolarum Canonicarum. Opera. Vol. 1. p. 1667.]

find some scriptures to be had of fewer churches and other
some of graver churches, although you cannot find this thing,
yet I think they are to be accounted of equal authority.
Now the whole canon of scriptures in which we say this
consideration must be occupied is contained in these books:
Five books of Moses, that is Genesis, Exodus, &c. By this
saying of Augustine it is manifest, that he calleth canonical
scriptures, not only those books that ought of necessity to
be received of all churches; but also such as were received
of some, and of some were not; in which number were these
books of Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, and the Machabees, which
by his own rule were not to be received as of absolute and
sovereign authority, because the apostolic churches of Asia
and Europe, and those of gravest authority, among which
was the church of Rome in that time, did not receive them;
as witnesseth not only St Jerome, a priest of Rome, but
also Ruffinus of Aquileia, in symbolo', who both declare what
books were received in their churches as canonical, and of
irrefragable authority to build principles of faith upon them,
and what books were admitted only to be read for instruc-
tion of manners. And therefore, according to the rule of
Augustine and testimony of the ancient fathers, and because
it consenteth with the rest of the scriptures, and not for
Calvin's pleasure, we receive the epistle of St James, though
it hath not been always and of all churches received. Con-
cerning the name of Calvinists, as of all other nick-names,
that it pleaseth you of your charity to bestow upon us, it
shall suffice to protest once for all, that we acknowledge
none other name of our profession, but Christians and catho-
lics; and that we have neither received that epistle, nor
rejected the other, because it pleased Calvin so.
This may
serve for a clear demonstration, that in the first English2

[1 Sciendum tamen est, quod et alii libri sunt qui non canonici, sed ecclesiastici a majoribus appellati sunt: ut est Sapientia Salomonis, et alia Sapientia quæ dicitur filii Syrach, qui liber apud Latinos hoc ipso generali vocabulo Ecclesiasticus appellatur; quo vocabulo non auctor libelli, sed scripturæ qualitas cognominata est. Ejusdem ordinis est libellus Tobiæ, et Judith, et Machabæorum libri.-Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum Ruffini. p. 397, 398. ed. Ald. 1563.]

[In the bible of 1537, known under the name of the translator, Thomas Matthew, this is the case. Also in Coverdale's bible of 1537, 4to., imprynted in Southwarke by James Nycolson.]