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…

To the six first sections page 1. 2. & 3.

THE true religion being like the heavenly bodies which never change: the Popish religion resembleth the earth, which as the potters clay is ready to receive any form, according as the wind and weather, times and seasons of the •eare, winter or summer, spring or fall will set upon it. Hereof it is that they which sometime did so deadly hate the instruction of the youth, in the grounds & principles of religion; that they ⟨p. 4⟩could not hear the word of Catechism with patient ears: now in fear of a general falling from them through opinion either of their blockish ignorance or sluggish negligence; are constrained both to write and teach their Catechisms. Out of the same fear it riseth, that they which hitherto could not endure the holy scriptures to be red of the people, in their mother tongue: now lest they should utterly fall from the hope of their gain, through a vehement suspicion of juggling and playing under the board with the people: and constrained to profess a print of that, which they sometimes burned, and pretend allowance of that, which in times past they condemned. Howbeit th'evidence of the trueth having these Church robbers upon the rack: see notwith-standing how hardly they are gotten to confess the trueth, & how they lisp it, rather then speak it out. For here they confess that th' Armenians, Goths, Italians, French ⟨p. 5⟩and English men, had either some part or the whole of the scriptures translated into their own tongues. But they will not grant it of the Slavoies; which notwithstanding is most evident, not only by the words of Jerome, who affirmeth that he gave to his own nation a translation most diligently amended: but by certain of their own Doctors, from whom th'evidence of Jeromes words¹ doth wring forth the confession of the trueth in this behalf. But what needeth all this niceness; when it is evident that in the elder and purer times, the scriptures were translated into innumerable, yea to all tongues usual amongst men. In the latter times of popery,