A defense of the sincere and true translations of the holie Scriptures into the English tong against the manifolde cauils, friuolous quarels, and impudent slaunders of Gregorie Martin, one of the readers of popish diuinitie in the trayterous Seminarie of Rhemes. By William Fvlke D. in Diuinitie, and M. of Pembroke haule in Cambridge. Wherevnto is added a briefe confutation of all such quarrels & cauils, as haue bene of late vttered by diuerse papistes in their English pamphlets, against the writings of the saide William Fvlke.

FVLK. 20. Who alloweth, or who can abide chop∣ping and changing, or hacking and hewing the sacred text of holy Scriptures? As for the perplexities where∣vnto you faine that wilfull heresie and arrogancie hath driuen vs, is of your weauing, for God be praised we can wel inough with good conscience & sound knowledge, that may abide the iudgement of all the learned in the world, defend both the Hebrew text of the olde Testa∣ment, and the Greeke text of the new. Not of purpose to discredit the vulgar Latine translation, and the expositi∣ons of the fathers: but to fetch the truth, vpon which the hope of our saluation is grounded, out of the first foun∣taines and springs, rather than out of any streames that are deriued from them. And this we doe agreeable to the auncient fathers iudgements. For who knoweth not what fruitfull paines S. Hierom tooke in translating the Scripture out of the originall tongue, neither would he

be disswaded by S. Augustine, who although he misliked that enterprise, at the first, yet afterward he highly com∣mended the necessitie of the Greeke & Hebrue tongues for Latine men, to find out the certaine truth of the text in the infinite varietie of the Latine interpretations:

for thus he writetth, De doct. Christ. lib. 2. cap. 11. Contra ignota signa propria magnum remedium est linguarum cognitio. E•• latinae &c. Against vnknowen proper signes, the know∣ledge of tongues is a great remedie. And truly men of the Latine tongue, whom we haue now taken in hand to instruct, haue neede also of two other tongues vnto the knowledge of the diuine Scriptures, namely the Hebrue, & the Greeke, that recourse may be had vnto the former copies, if the infinite varietie of the Latine interpreters shal bring any doubt, although we find oftētimes in the bookes, Hebrue words not interpreted, as Amen, Alleluia, Racha, Osanna, &c. and a litle after Sed nō propter haec pau∣ca &c. But not for these few wordes which to marke and inquire of, it is a very easie thing, but for the diuersities (as it is said) of the interpreters, the knowledge of those tongues is necessarie. For they that haue interpreted the scriptures out of the Hebrue tōgue into the Greke tong, may be nūbred, but the Latine interpreters by no means can be numbred. For in the first times of the faith, as a Greeke booke came into euery mans hand, & he seemed to haue some skill in both the tongues, he was bold to interpret it. Which thing truly hath more helped the vn∣derstanding, than hindred, if the readers be not negligēt: for the looking vpon many bookes, hath often times made manifest sundry obscure or darke sentences.

This is S. Augustines sound iudgement, of the knowledge of tongues, and diuersitie of interpretations, for the better vnderstanding of the Scriptures. But let vs see what be the absurdities, that you gather of our defending the o∣riginall texts of both the tongues. First, we must needes reiect the Greeke of the olde Testament, called septua∣ginta, as false, because it differeth frō the Hebrew. Where

it is not onely different in wordes, but also contrary in sense, Why should we not? but if it reteine the sense and substance, although it expresse not the same wordes, we neede not reiect it. S. Hierom, who was required by Paula, and Eustochium, to expounde the Prophetes, not onely according to the truth of the Hebrew, but also af∣ter the translation of the Septuaginta, whereof he di∣uerse tymes complayneth: vppon the first of Nahum, sayth expresly, that it was against his conscience alwaies, to follow the same.

Ignoscite prolixitati, &c. Pardon me that I am so long. For I can not, following both the sto∣rie, and the tropologie or doctrine of maners, compre∣hend both briefly: most of all, seeing that I am so great∣lye tormented, or troubled with the varietie of the translation, and against my conscience sometimes I am compelled to frame a consequence of the vulgar edi∣tion: which was the Septuaginta. This was Sainct Hie∣roms opinion of the Septuagintaes translation.

But vpon reiection of that translation (say you) it followeth that wheresoeuer those places, so disagreeing from the He∣brue are cited by Christ, or the Euangelistes and Apo∣stles, there also they must be reiected, because they disagree from the Hebrue, and so the Greeke text of the newe Testament is not true, and consequentlye the wordes of our Sauiour, and writinges of his A∣postles speaking according to the Septuaginta, must at leaste bee reformed. It is an olde saying, and a true, that one inconuenience being graunted, ma∣nye doe followe, and so you may heape vp an hundred after this manner. But for aunswere I say, that ney∣ther our Sauiour, nor his Apostles, citing any place out of the olde Testament, doe bring any thing disa∣greeing in sense, and substance of matter (the purpose for which they alleage it considered) from the truth of the Hebrue text. Therefore there is no neede that the 70. in those places should be reiected. Althogh our Sauiour Christ speaking in the Syrian tōgue, is not to be thoght

euer to haue cited the text of the 70. which is in Greeke. And his Apostles and Euangelists vsing that text, regard the substance of the sentence, & not the forme of words. For many times they cite not the very wordes of the Greeke 70. neither: & S. Hierom in Catalogo script: Eccles. which is set as a Preface to S. Mathewes Gospell, telleth you expresly, that in the Hebrew example of S. Mathew which he had, wheresoeuer the Euangelist S. Mathew ei∣ther in his owne person, or in the person of our Lorde and Sauiour, vseth the testimonies of the olde Testa∣ment, he followeth not the authoritie of the 70. transla∣tors, but the Hebrew: of which these are two places: Out of Egypt haue I called my sonne. And he shall be called a Nazarite. See you not what a perilous perplexi∣tie we are are in by defending both the Hebrue text of the olde Testament, and the Geeke of the Newe, when neither are contrarie to the other?