An answer to a certain book, writtenAn answere to a certeine booke, written

First you say that in commending the fountains so much,¹ I have spoken nothing against you, but rather much and all against my self. If you can make your saying good herein, we shall have cause much to commend your wit and learning. The ⟨p. 244⟩reason that you have brought, is by you uttered in these words following. For if the fountains were so pure in the times of S. Jerome and S. Ambrose, and the Church then troubled with great diversity of their Latin Bibles, reformed one to the purity of the fountains and originals, and we now find those fountains and originals differing from that reformed bible, why shall we not conclude, that the fountains have in the mean season been corrupted? And what cause have you thus to conclude? where have you learned to make such conclusions? think you that this conclusion is ought worth? Let us way it a little together, Master Rainolds, and then shall we better esteem the value of it. First you grant the fountains were pure in S. Jerome and S. Ambrose days: the translations corrupt. Doubtless it grieveth you to confess thus much, but the necessity of confessing the same enforced you. Then four hundred years after Christ by M. Rainolds confession the fountains of the Hebrew and Greek text were pure,² and all translations were reformed by them. Now let us know some certainty of the great alteration that followed. What cause was there that the fountains and originals remained ⟨p. 245⟩pure so long, and then after began to be so shamefully and universally corrupted? Again, what was the cause that the latin translations were so greatly corrupted for so long a space, and never since could be corrupted? Tell us some truth, show some reason, allege your authorities, speak to purpose, and leave these untoward presumptions. The same means that kept the text pure all that while, why might it not continue in times following? if you lay the fault of corrupting the fountains upon the Jews, as you do, were there no Jews in the world, for the space of four hundred years after Christ, or were they either unwilling or unable to attempt such a matter? it cannot be denied, but that within the compass of those years the Jews had as great opportunities and greater, to have performed so wicked an enterprise, then since that time can be devised.