Sin theoni en christoni the answer to the preface of the Rhemish Testament. By…Syn theōi en christōi the ansvvere to the preface of the Rhemish Testament. By…

And if there could be any profit in this dotage: yet have not you observed it. For where the Greek hath¹ in one verse, a reed bruised, & flax smoking: you have in the former followed the' order of the Greek, and say a reed bruised; but in the latter you have left the' order of the Greek, and kept the natural order of our speech, saying smoking flax, not flax smoking. And although it be no answer here, to say that they followed their old translator, seeing rather they ought to have followed the full consent of the Greek ⟨p. 203⟩copies, if such an imitation had been needful: yet they are easily stripped of that answer. For sometimes they leave the order of the' old interpreter, and follow the Greek: as Math. 4. 4. they say as the Greek bread alone, and not as the vulgar alone bread. Which also they do not in phrase only, but in whole sentences: as Math. 4. they forsake the vulgar, which sayeth, walked in darkness, and take the Greek which sayeth, sate in darkness. And in Rom. 12. in stead of that the vulgar hath, not defending our selves, they have cleaved to the Greek, which is not revenging your selves. Neither can they say, that this was the slip of a pen of the writer, for beside that there is no resemblance of the words, they are shut from that, in that that Jerome so readeth. And other sometime they forsake the order of the Greek and² vulgar both. For where both the Greek and vulgar have, to his Angels shall he give charge of thee: they have turned³ it, he will give his Angels charge of thee. And again, where both Greek ⟨p. 204⟩and Latin have into an hill high very: they (as it should seem) ashamed of this their apish and sottish imitation, have translated it, as we do, into a very high mountain. So it appeareth, that as they are utterly ignorant of all good order of translation: so they keep not themselves to their own crooked rule, but when and where it pleaseth them. And as they make themselves ridiculous in the profession of a superstitious observation of the' order of words: so are they not only often ridiculous, but sometime impious in the sense, which their servile observation of like number of words, draweth them unto. Take for example one of the most comfortable places in all the scripture, which by their sottish translation (in sparing a word)