A view of the marginal notes of the popish Testament, translated into English by the English fugitiue papists resiant at Rhemes in France. By George Wither

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Title: A view of the marginal notes of the popish Testament, translated into English by the English fugitiue papists resiant at Rhemes in France. By George Wither
Author: Wither, George, 1540-1605.
Publication: Printed at London :: By Edm. Bollifant for Thomas Woodcocke,; [1588]
Rights/Permissions: To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
Subject terms: Bible -- N.T -- English -- Versions -- Douai -- Controversial literature -- Early works to 1800.; Bible. -- N.T -- Commentaries -- Early works to 1800.
Cite this Item: "A view of the marginal notes of the popish Testament, translated into English by the English fugitiue papists resiant at Rhemes in France. By George Wither." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A15622.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 9, 2024.

Pages

Colos. 1. 6.

The text.

That is come vnto you, as also ∴ in the whole world it is, and fructifieth and groweth, euen as in you, since that day that you heard and knew the grace of God in truth.

The note.

He sheweth that the Church and Christs gospell should daily growe, and be spred at length through the whole world, which cannot stand with the heretikes opinion of the decay thereof so quickly after Christs time, nor agree by any meanes to their obscure conuenticles. See S. Augu∣stine epist. 80. in fine.

The answer.

It is true that Christs faith did grow and spread in the whole world: yet you your selues will confesse, that it doth not alwaies spread alike. For I know you will except our times. And we wil except the times, wherein the Arrians florished, who (as you re∣port) continued longer, and was better defended by princes and worldly power than we are now. Then it cannot be a question how quickly some corruptions grew, but whether any great di∣minution,

Page 217

or lessening of the number of true Catholikes may be. But the ancient testimonies of stories do also put that out of doubt. This repugnance you speake of we sée not. Neither haue our conuenticles (as it pleaseth you to terme them) béene at any time more obscure than the assemblies of Christians in the pri∣mitiue church, as you your selues cannot choose but confesse. S. Augustine whose authoritie you alledge, in his latter daies saw a greater decay of the Christian faith, by the cruel inuasion of ma∣ny barbarous nations that did ouerrun both Europe and Af∣frike, than he did thinke, when he wrote that Epistle, possible to haue béene in so short a space. And further, if we consider the sto∣ries of the times since, we shal find that, that the bounds of Chri∣stendom haue béene greatly lessened, and diminished since saint Augustines time: Flat contrarie to his opinion in that Epistle.