more than you (howsoeuer it pleaseth you and some of your companions vndutifully to contemne them) wherefore as I saide, this comparison is something, and not so lightly to be estéemed, as you would make the reader beléeue. For my part I thinke the worse of you, bycause you thinke so well of your selues, that you dare be so bolde, as not onely to compare your selues with them, but to preferre your selues before them. As for this Humilitie, and abasing your selfe in saying, that you cōfesse your selfe to be a great deale inferioure to the least of them: He that will take paynes but to peruse your booke, shall easly vnderstand that you thinke nothing lesse. For truly your stile is so bigge and loftie, and your tauntes such towards them and others, that a man would thinke you not only to haue cast off all modestie, but vtterly to haue forgotten all good manners, ciuilitie, and duetie. But it is Rhetoricke common to you with o∣ther of your companions, as appeareth in diuers places of the first Admonition, and in the second throughout the whole, which I would wish the reader to consider, that he may thereby partly know, and discerne your spirit.
But say you, the omitting of these necessarie things, ought to be no more preiudice agaynste them. &c. Surely if you can proue that they haue omitted any thing expressely against the commaundement of God, then is it true that you say, but if you cannot do so, then do you vniustly charge these learned and godly martyrs. But what if you haue abu∣sed the place in the. 8. Chapter of Nehemias? What if you vnderstand it not truely? What if there can be no suche thing gathered of it, as you woulde make the reader beléeue? Shall I triumph ouer you and say that eyther you haue not read it, or you do not vnderstand it, or that you willingly and wittingly abuse it, or that you receiued it in some notes from others, as it pleaseth you to deale with me, when no such occasion is offered vn∣to you? I will not so requite you: But this only I say, that you haue not set downe the true sense of that place: For the meaning is not that the feasts of Tabernacles was not celebrated from the time of Iosua the sonne of Nun, vnto that day which was almost a thou∣sand yeares, but that it was not celebrated in that manner, that is with such solemni∣tie, so great reioycing and gladnesse, as the very wordes them selues declare, both in the Hebrue, text and in the best translations. And so dothe Pellicane expounde that place, who saith, that these words since the time of Iosua the sonne of Nun. &c. be spo∣ken in the respect of the greatnesse of the ioy whiche then happened to the people. Lyra also expoundeth the same place much after the same sort, and presupposeth nothyng lesse, than that the feasts were omitted all this time: for he affirmeth that they were much more solemnly and with greater cost celebrated in the times of Dauid and Salomon: therefore, saith he, the comparison is secundum quid, &. proportionaliter (for I vse hys words) bycause in all this time sithence Iosua, it is not read, that the people were so general∣lie gathered togither in Hierusalem, as we reade in the beginning of this Chapter that they were at this time: and againe he saith that it was more for the people newly returned frō captiuitie, to celebrate suche a feast with that solemnitie, than it was to mightie kings and people being in prosperitie, and setled in a kingdome, to celebrate the same day with much more cost and solemnitie. I might alledge other expositiors to the same effect: neyther haue I read any that doth expound that place otherwise.
The like kind of speach we haue. 2. Reg. 23. where it is said. That there was no pas∣souer holden like that (which Iosias helde) from the dayes of the Iudges, that iudged Israell, nor in all the days of the kings of Israell, and the kings of Iuda: whiche is only spoken in respect of the multitude, and zeale of the people, with the great preparation: and not bycause the passouer was not all this time celebrated. The like is also vsed. 2. Chro. 30. vers. 26. euen so it is in this place: for there is no doubt, but that the feast of Ta∣bernacles was celebrated both in Dauid and Salomons time: and it is manifest that it was celebrated not long before this time, as it is in plaine words expressed. 1. Es∣dras Ca. 3. vers. 4. wherefore I might make much ado at this ouersight of yours, or rather wilfull deprauing of the scriptures, if I were delighted with that kind of con∣futing. But though my learning be small, and that I am ignoraunt both of Logicke and Philosophie, and haue read so little in Diuinitie, and you so mightie a man in the Scrip∣tures, and so profound in all kind of knowledge, as you perswade your selfe to be, yet