(1) THE two Hebrew words, pesilim and massechoth, which in the Latin, signify sculptilia and conflatilia, they in their translation render into English by the word images, neither word being Hebrew for an image; thus, if one should ask, what is the Latin for an image? and they should tell him sculptile. Whereupon he seeing a fair painted image on a table, might perhaps say, Ecce egregium sculptile; which, doubtless, every boy in the grammar-school would laugh at. And this I tell them, because I perceive their endeavour to make sculptile and image of the same import; which is most evidently false as to their great shame appears from these words of Habbakuk; Quid prodest sculptile? &c., which, contrary to the Hebrew and Greek, they translate, "What profiteth the image?" &c., as you may see in the former page. and therefore make the holy scriptures to speak herein according to their own fancies. What monstrous and intolerable deceit is this! (2) WHEREIN they proceed so far, that when Daniel said to the king, "I worship not idols made with hands," they make him say, "I worship not things that be made with hands," leaving out the word idols altogether, as though || he had said, nothing made with hands was to be adored, not the ark, nor the propitiatory, no, nor the holy cross itself, on which our Saviour shed his precious blood. As before they added to the text, so here they diminish and take from it as boldly as if there had never been a curse denounced against such manglers of holy scrip ture. 66 66 66 I wish every common reader were able to discern their falsehood in this place: first, they make sculpere sculptile no more than "to make an image," which being absurd, as I have hinted, (because the painter or embroiderer making an image cannot be said sculpere sculptile,) might teach them that the Hebrew has in it no signification of image, no more than sculpere can signify to make an image:" and therefore the Greek Lunior, and the Latin sculptile, precisely, for the most part, express neither more nor less than a thing graven;" but yet mean always by these words, a graven idol," to which signification they are appropriated by use of holy scripture; as are also simulacrum, idolum, conflatile, as sometimes imago: in which sense of signifying idols, if they did repeat images so often, although the translation were not precise; yet it would be in some part tolerable, because the sense would be so; but when they do it to bring all holy images into contempt, even the image of our Saviour Jesus Christ crucified, they may justly be controlled for false and heretical translators. Conflatile here also they falsely translate image, as they did before in Isaiah, and as they have done sculptile, though two different words; and, as is said, each signifying a thing different from image. But where But where they should translate image, as, Imaginem falsam," a false image," they translate another thing, without any necessary pretence either of Hebrew or Greek, clearly avoiding here the name of image, because this place tells them, that the holy scripture speaketh against false images; or, as themselves translate, such images as teach lies, representing false gods, which are not. Idolum nihil est, as the apostle says, et non sunt dii, qui manibus fiunt. Which distinction of false and true images, our Protestant translators will not have, because they condemn all images, even holy and sacred also; 10 See you not, that it is not enough for them to corrupt and falsify the text, and to add and take away words and sentences at their pleasure, but their unparalleled presumption emboldens them to deprive the people of whole chapters and books, as the two last chapters of Daniel, and the rest which they call Apocrypha, which are quite left out in their new Bibles. When all this is done, the poor simple people must be glad of this castrated Bible, for their only rule of faith." Væ ! væ! 66 The reason they give for rejecting them is, as I told you above," that they have formerly been doubted of;" but if you demand, why they do not, for the same reason, reject a great many more in the New Testament? the whole Church of England answers you in Mr. Rogers' words, and by him, "Howbeit we judge them (viz., books formerly doubted of in the New Testament) canonical, not so much because learned and godly men in the church so have, and do receive and allow of them, as for that the Holy Spirit in our hearts doth testify that they are from God." See Rogers' Defence of the Thirtynine Articles, pages 31, 32. So that Protestants are purely beholden to the private spirit in the hearts of their convocation-men, for almost half the New Testament; which had never been admitted by them in the canon of scripture,if the said private spirit in their hearts had not testified their being from God;" no more than the rest called Apocrypha, which they not only thrust out of the canon, but omit to publish in their smaller impressions of the Bible; because, forsooth, the holy private spirit in their hearts testifies them to speak too expressly against their heretical doctrines. THE doctrine of our pretended reformers is, that "there was never, from the beginning of the world, any other place for souls, after this life, but only two, to wit, heaven for the blessed, and hell for the damned." This heretical doctrine includes many erroneous branches: First, that all the holy patriarchs, prophets, and other noly men, of the Old Testament, went not into the third place, called Abraham's bosom, or limbus patrum; but immediately to heaven: that they were in heaven before our blessed Sa-rected it. See you not now, what monstrous viour had suffered death for their redemption; whence it will follow, that our Saviour was not the first man that ascended, and entered into heaven. Moreover, by this doctrine it will follow, that our Saviour Christ descended not into any third place, in our creed called hell, to deliver the fathers of the Old Testament, and to bring them triumphantly with him into heaven: and so, that article of the Apostle's Creed, concerning our Saviour's descent into hell, must either be put out, as indeed it was by Beza in the confession of his faith, printed anno 1564, or it must have some other meaning; to wit, either the lying of the body in the grave, or, as Calvin and his followers will have it, the suffering of hell torments, and pains upon the cross. (a) (1) IN defence of these erroneous doctrines, they most wilfully corrupt the holy scriptures; and especially Beza, who in his New Testament, printed by Robert Stephens, anno 1556, makes our Saviour Christ say thus to his Father, Non derelinques cadaver meum in sepulchro; for that which the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and St. Hierom, according to the Hebrew, say, Non derelinques animam meam in inferno. Thus the prophet David speaks it in Hebrew: (b) thus the Septuagint uttered it in Greek: thus the apostle St. Peter alleges it: thus St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles and for this, St. Augustine calls him an infidel that denies it. Yet all this would not suffice to make Beza translate it so; because, as he says, he would avoid (certain errors, as he calls them) the Catholic doctrine of limbus patrum and purgatory. And therefore, because else it would make for the Papists' doctrine, he translates animam, carcase; infernum, grave. (c) advertising the reader, that if it please him, he may read thus, "Thou shalt not leave my life in the grave," or, "Thou shalt not leave my person in the grave:" as though either man's soul or life were in the grave, or anima might be translated person. I said, they were ashamed of Beza's translation; but one would rather think, they purposely designed to make it worse, if possible. But you see the last translators have indeed been ashamed of it, and have corand absurd work our first pretended reformers made of the holy scriptures, on purpose to make it speak for their own terms? By their putting grave in the text, they design to make it a certain and absolute conclusion, howsoever you interpret soul, that the holy scripture, in this place, speaks not of Christ's being in hell, but only in the grave; and that according to his soul, life, or person; or, as Beza says, his carcase. And so his "soul in hell," as the scripture speaks, must be his carcase, soul, or life in the grave, with them. But St. Chrysostom says, (d) "He descended to hell, that the souls which were there bound, might be loosed." And the words of St. Irenæus are equally plain: "During the three days he conversed where the dead were as the prophecy says of him, he remembered his holy ones who were dead, those who before slept in the land of promise; he descended to them, to fetch them out, and save them." (e) (2) How absurd also is this corruption of theirs, "I will go down into the grave unto my son?" as though Jacob thought that his son Joseph had been buried in a grave; whereas, a "wild beast little before, he said, that some had devoured him." But if they mean the state of all dead men, by grave, why do they call it grave, and not hell, as the word is in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin? But I must demand of our latter translators, why they did not correct this, as they have done the former, seeing the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words are the same in both? It cannot be through ignorance, I find: no, it must have been purely out of a design to make their ignorant readers believe, that the patriarch Jacob spoke of his body only to descend into the grave to Joseph's body: for as concerning Jacob's soul, that, by their opinion, was to ascend immediately after his death into heaven, and not descend into the grave. But could he say, as they translate, "I will go down if Jacob were forthwith to ascend in soul, how into the grave, unto my son, mourning?" as if, according to their opinion, he should say: "My son's body is devoured by a beast, and his soul is gone up to heaven :" well, “I will go down to him into the grave." (d) St. Chrys. in Eph. iv. Hosea chap. xiii. verse 14. 66 Ero mors tua, O O death, I will be O "grave," I O death, I will be mors, morsus tuus thy death; I will be will be thy destruc- thy "plagues;" O ero inferne," .thy sting, O "hell." tion. "grave," I will be thy destruction. Hebrews chap. v. verse 7. “Which” in days was "Who" in the was heard in that he carnis suæ preces days of his flesh, of his flesh, "offered days, &c., "and est " from death, "and" was heard," in that "for his reverence." which he feared." (3) |