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…

It is an old practise of Satan, to bestir himself, and to open the mouth of all his hellhounds against the godly and learned travels of those, which have laboured in this work of translating ⟨p. 60⟩the holy Bible, or any part thereof. Hereof Jerome complaineth,¹ in many places of his prefaces and Epistles: that he was tong-rent & railed upon miserably. The same complaint is renewed of Erasmus, who was baited by Ley in England, Natalis Bede in France, Stunica in Spain, and infinite other unlearned Monks and Fryers. And therefore it ought not to seem strange, if the worthy labours of Master Beza & other learned men of ours, and other Countries have also their curs, to bark at them. As for us, albeit we are not of that sort of men which love our own, & (as the Dolphins do their young ones) have in admiration our works and writings: And further also confess, that our translations are not so exact in all points of perfection, but that time & study may better them: yet how falsely they are charged, by the slanderous pens of these wrangling Jesuits, appeareth at large by the learned and substantial defence made for our English translation, unto th' unlearned ⟨p. 61⟩and trifling quarrels against the same. And if it appear to th' indifferent reader, that our translation which (no doubt) for pure love they bear to their country & countrymen, they judge the worst of all others: is free from those corruptions wherewith the Jesuits have slandered it: the good reader may easily know, what to judge of our translations in other Languages, Latin, French, Italian, &c. And herein let all men mark their equity, and by their fidelity in their judgment of Master Calvins and Bezas translations, affirmed by them to be as new and delicate, as Castalions, or worse then it: esteem what trust they deserve in other their accusations, for either they have never red them, or else partly their ignorance, & partly their furious malice against them, hath so bewitched them, that they can put no difference between a swelling and swaged speech, between an honest homely stile, & that which is pricked and pranked up by choice & exquisite words, sought rather to tickle th' ears of dainty fools, then for