A14353:52
Most learned and fruitful commentaries of D. Peter Martyr Vermilius Florentine, professor of divinity…Most learned and fruitfull commentaries of D. Peter Martir Vermilius Florentine, professor of diuinitie…
Most learned and fruitful commentaries of D. Peter Martyr Vermilius Florentine, professor of divinity in the school of Tigure, upon the Epistle of S. Paul to the Romans wherein are diligently [and] most profitably entreated all such matters and chief common places of religion touched in the same Epistle. With a table of all the common places and expositions upon divers places of the scriptures, and also an index to find all the principal matters contained in the same. Lately tra[n]slated out of Latin into English, by H.B.Most learned and fruitfull commentaries of D. Peter Martir Vermilius Florentine, professor of diuinitie in the schole of Tigure, vpon the Epistle of S. Paul to the Romanes wherin are diligently [and] most profitably entreated all such matters and chiefe common places of religion touched in the same Epistle. With a table of all the common places and expositions vpon diuers places of the scriptures, and also an index to finde all the principall matters conteyned in the same. Lately tra[n]slated out of Latine into Englishe, by H.B.
London: printed by John Daye. Cum gratia & privilegio Regiæ Maiestatis per decennium. These books are to be sold, 1568London: printed by Iohn Daye. Cum gratia & priuilegio Regiæ Maiestatis per decennium. These bookes are to be solde, 1568
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
For whereas Origen complaineth of the dark, unorderly, & imperfect sentences, it may by this be excused, for that the Apostle went to work coldly, but wrote with so fervent a mind, that sometimes he may seem to be ravished beyond himself, and he leaving all other study and care, only hereto endeavoured himself, to draw the hearers unto Christ, being not very careful for the fine joining together of words, but using most mighty engines to stir up, and throughly to move our hearts. And as streams when they swell and1 rage, carry with them what so ever things are in their way, not observing the disposition of things: So in this Apostle the spirit of the Lord sometimes stirred up the force of writing and of speaking: in whom these things which seem to be faults in writing and in speaking, were most singular virtues. Touching that which Jerome bringeth, I have already declared my judgement. But if thou wilt still continue to prove that the Apostle was not able in a strange tongue to express deep sentences, for that his writings, as Peter said, sometime have in them great obscurity: to this we say, that the divine things whereof he entreateth, can not but be hard to our senses. But this ought not to drive us away from reading of him. For this difficulty2 as Chrysostom teacheth in those things which he writeth in his Preface before the Epistle to the Romans, is lenified by daily studying, and continual reading: and is so lenified, that he was not afeard to say, that we by our selves without a master, shall be able to understand the things which are there entreated of, so that we occupy our selves in these Epistles day and night. For we do not, (saith he) by the sharpness of understanding, pierce unto all those things which we understand. For even they also which are of more dull wits, do by continual study, attain to hard things. And he bringeth a very apt similitude: The cogitations and senses of a man are most hard to be known: yet notwithstanding our friends whom we fervently love, and with whom we are continually conversant, do oftentimes even by a beck, open unto us the cogitations and senses of their mind, without any token of words and speech, by them spoken. So (saith3 he,) shall it come to pass in these Epistles, so that a man love them, and be continually conversant in them. He which asketh, receiveth, he which seeketh, findeth: