A battle-door for teachers & professors to learn singular & plural you to many, and thou to one, singular one, thou, plural many, you : wherein is shewed ... how several nations and people have made a distinction between singular and plural, and first, in the former part of this book, called The English battle-door, may be seen how several people have spoken singular and plural...: also in this book is set forth examples of the singular and plural about thou, and you, in several languages, divided into distinct Battle-Doors, or formes, or examples; English Latine, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriack, Arabick ... and how emperors and others have used the singular word to one, and how the word you came first from the Pope, likewise some examples, in the Polonian, Lithuanian, Irish and East-Indian, together with ... Swedish, Turkish ... tongues : in the latter part of this book are contained severall bad unsavory words, gathered forth of certain school-books, which have been taught boyes in Enland ... / George Fox, John Stubs, Benjamin Farley.

AN INTRODUCTION: Which is, a leading into the BATTLE-DOOR which is, The Entrance into Learning.

FOr all you Doctors, Teachers, Schollars, and School-masters, that teach people in your Hebrew, Greek, Latine, and English Grammars, Plural and Singular; that is, Thou to one, and You to many, and when they learn it, they must not practice it: what good doth your teaching do them? for he is a Novice, and an Ideot, and a fool called by You, that practises it; Plural, You to many; and Singular, Thou to one.

NOw People, What good doth all your giving money to these School-masters, Teachers, and Doctors, to teach your children Singular and Plural, in their Accidence, and Grammars? what good doth your learning do them, when you do not intend, that they should practice it, when they have learned it; that is, Thou to one, and You to many, he is called clownish, and unmannerly, if your childe practice that which he hath learned at School, which you have paid for, he is called a Clown, and unmannerly, and ill bred. (Mark) Then I say, All the Schollars, all the Doctors, and Teachers, and School-masters then are them that teach people ill-breeding, and unmannerliness; which teaches Singular to one, and Plural to many; For that is it they teach them, as you may read in the Accidence, and Grammar; as, amas, thou lovest; amatis ye or you love: and so all your Learning is come'd to nought, and all your money is spent in vain, and all the Doctors, Teachers, and Schollars profits them not; for they come to be unmannerly, and called ill-bred, and Clownes, when they speak the Language Singular and Plural, thou to one, and you to many: And so, if people must not practice that which they learned of them, this will make people believe, its a work of darkness; But come people, do as they say, though they say, and do not. Though they do not speak Singular to every one, but plural to one, though they teach it, but thou to one, and you to many.

But, why do the Translators translate the Bible, Thou to one, and You to many, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, and Latine; (Dutch Bibles, high and lowe) French Bibles, and Welch and English Bibles, and others, Plural and Singular, thou to one, and you to many, if the people should not practice it, thou to one, and you to many? Why do the Translators translate it so? thou to one, and you to many, if the people should not practice it, and say thou to one, and you to many, seing he is an Ideot, and a Novice, and a fool, and an ill-bred Clown, and unlearned, and unmannerly, by all the Doctors, School-masters, Teachers, Lawyers, Magistrates, and Schollars, that say thou to one, and you to many: Why did all the Translators translate the Accidence and Grammar singular and plural, thou to one, and

you to many, which is to make Clowns of them, and Ideots, and Fools and Novices? and why could you not have let you have stood in all the Bibles, and Accidences, and Grammars, and never have tran∣slated the word thou to one, if they be Ideots and Fools, that sayes thou to one, and you to many? Do you not in this say that the Prophets, Apostles, and Saints were Ideots and Fools, for saying thou to one, and you to many; and say, you are wiser than them all; and you may say, you to all, though we have set it otherwise in our Accidence, and Grammers, and Bibles, and teach so, and whip all that do not learn so: May not the Nations question, and all People, the Teachers, that they are not as ignorant in other things, in other Do∣ctrines, Principles, & points, as they have been, and are of the plural & singular Language, in their tongues, that is you to many, & thou to one? who said, it hath been in other Languages, you to one, have not they deceived the Nations, think you, in other things as well as this, as you may read in this Battle-door.

The Teachers of the world, and Schollars have been either very Ignorant of Tongues, or else wilfull, that they would have you spoken to one, which is thou; and this may give all people to see, in saying that it was you in other Tongues to one, that they are them which corrupts the Languges, and are exalted, taking glory to them∣selves, and have the Plural put upon them, for the singular, which is vulgar.

All Languages are to me no more than dust, who was before Languages were, and am come'd before Languages were, and am redeemed out of Languages into the power where men shall agree: but this is a whip, and a rod to all such who have degenerated through the pride, and ambition, from their natural tongue, and Languages, and all Languages upon the earth is but Naturall, and makes none divine, but that which makes divine is the Word, which was before Languages, and Tongues were.

Men, crying up Tongues to be the Original, and they have degenerated from the Tongues which they call the Originall, which is not the Originall, which be the Naturals, I look upon the natural Languages no more than men to learn to dress a horse, or women to sweep a house, as to divine things; For in the beginning was the word, which was before Natural Languages were.

For speaking the word Singular and Plural we have been stoned, and persecuted by the Priests, and Professors Generation, and our lives in jeopardy dayly; What sayes Thou? Thou to me.

Here is a touch of your Pricks, aud your stuff of your one way, but not that it is ours, for all these are in the confused State; for we could do it without pricks, but onely there is a great Company in the blindeness and ignorance, which cannot read without them, nor cannot tell what to make of our words without them, therefore we come to let you see your own way, and your own teaching, that you may read your own, and how contrary you have been in your own way, in your teaching, as in Accidence, and Grammar, and Bible.