"If" thou offer aright, and dost not divide aright, thou sinnest;" according to the Greek" reading: whereas the vulgar Latin hath it: "If thou do well, shalt thou not receive again? but if thou doest ill, shall not thy sin forthwith be present at the door?" Of the psalter there are extant four or five Latin translations out of the Greek, (namely, the old Italian, the Gallican, the Roman, the Gothic, and that of Milan :) and one out of the Hebrew, composed by St. Hierome: which though it be now excluded out of the body of the Bible, and the Gallican admitted in the room thereof; yet in some manuscript copies it still retaineth his ancient place; three whereof I have seen myself in Cambridge, one in Trinity, another in Benet, and the third in Jesus College library; where this translation out of the Hebrew, and not the vulgar out of the Greek, is inserted into the context of the Bible. In the citations of Gildas, and the Confession of Saint Patrick, I observe that the Roman psalter is followed, rather than the Gallican; in the quotations of Sedulius, on the other side, the Gallican rather than the Roman. Claudius speaking of a text in the one hundred and eighteenth, (or as he accounteth it, the one hundred and seventeenth) psalm2, saith, that where the LXX. interpreters did translate it, "O Lord save me," it was written in the Hebrew, "Anna Adonai Osanna:" which our interpreter Hierome (saith he) more diligently explaining, translateth thus: "I beseech thee, O u Si recte offeras, recte autem non dividas, peccas. Asser Menevens. de gestis Ælfredi R. * Ουκ ἐὰν ὀρθῶς προσενέγκης, ὀρθῶς δὲ μὴ διέλης, ἥμαρτες ; * Nonne si bene egeris, recipies? sin autem male, statim in foribus peccatum aderit ? y Gothicis nostrorum libris antiquissimis adjuti sumus: in quibus magis sincera sacrorum librorum versio ab Hieronymo facta conservatur, argumento præter alia, ejus etiam in Psalmos interpretationem iis libris contineri, pro qua nostri codices septuaginta interpretum versionem in illos mutarunt. Jo. Marian. Præfat. Scholior. in Biblia, ad Card. Bellarmin. z In Psalmo 117, ubi LXX. interpretes transtulerunt, O Domine salvum me fac; in Hebræo scriptum est, Anna Adonai Osanna: quod interpres noster Hieronymus diligentius elucidans ita transtulit; Obsecro Domine, salva obsecro. Claud. Scot. in Matt. lib. 3. Lord, save I beseech thee." Before this translation of St. Hierome, I have seen an epigram prefixed by Ricemarch the Briton, who by Caradoc of Lhancarpan is commended for "the godliest, wisest, and greatest clerk that had been in Wales many years before his time, his father Sulgen bishop of St. Davids only excepted, who had brought him up, and a great number of learned disciples." He having in this epigram said of those who translated the psalter out of Greek, that they did “darken the Hebrew rays with their Latin cloud:" addeth of St. Hierome, that being "replenished with the Hebrew fountain, he did more clearly and briefly discover the truth;" as drawing it out of the first vessel immediately, and not taking it at the second hand. To this purpose thus expresseth he himself: Ebræis nablam custodit littera signis : Pro captu quam quisque suo sermone Latino Nam tepefacta ferum dant tertia labra saporem. Namque secunda creat, nam tertia vascula vitat. Now for those books annexed to the Old Testament, which St. Hierome called Apocryphal, others Ecclesiastical: true it is that in our Irish and British writers some of them are alleged as parcels of Scripture, and prophetical writings; those especially that commonly bear the name of Salomon. But so also is the fourth book of Esdras cited by Gildas, in the name of blessed Esdras the prophet; which yet our Romanists will not admit to be canonical: a MS. in bibliotheca eruditissimi antistiatis D. Guilielmi Bedelli, Kilmorensis et Ardachadensis apud nos episcopi. b Caradoc. in chronico Cambriæ, circa annum 1099. ad quem in aliis etiam annalibus Britannicis MSS. annotatum repperi. Sub hujus anni ambitum morti succumbit Richmarch cognomine Sapiens, filius Sulgeni episcopi, cum jam annum XLIII. ætatis ageret. Quid præterea beatus Esdras propheta ille, bibliotheca legis, minatus sit attendite. Gild. epist. neither do our writers mention any of the rest with more titles of respect than we find given unto them by others of the ancient fathers, who yet in express terms do exclude them out of the number of those books which properly are to be esteemed canonical. So that from hence no sufficient proof can be taken, that our ancestors did herein depart from the tradition of the elder Church, delivered by St. Hierome in his prologues, and explained by Brito (a Briton, it seemeth, by nation, as well as by appellation) in his commentaries upon the same; which being heretofore joined with the ordinary gloss upon the Bible, have of late proved so distasteful unto our Popish divines, that in their new editions (printed at Lyons anno 1590, and at Venice afterwards) they have quite crossed them out of their books. Yet Marianus Scotus (who was born in Ireland in the MXXVIII. year of our Lord) was somewhat more careful to maintain the ancient bounds of the canon set by his forefathers. For he in his chronicle, following Eusebius and St. Hierome, at the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus writeth thus: "Hitherto the divine Scripture of the Hebrews containeth the order of times. But those things that after this were done among the Jews, are represented out of the book of the Maccabees, and the writings of Josephus and Africanus." But before him, more plainly the author of the book De mirabilibus Scripturæ (who is accounted to have lived here, about the year DCLVII): " Inf the books of the Maccabees, howsoever some wonderful things be found, which might conveniently be inserted into this rank; yet will we not weary d Vid. Richard. Armachanum, de quæstionib. Armeniorum, lib. 18. cap. 1. e Hucusque Hebræorum divina scriptura temporum seriem continet. Quæ vero post hæc apud ludæos sunt gesta, de libro Maccabæorum, et Josephi atque Aphricani scriptis exhibentur. Marian. Chron. MS. f In Maccabæorum libris etsi aliquid mirabilium numero inserendum conveniens fuisse huic ordini inveniatur; de hoc tamen nulla cura fatigabimur: quia tantum agere proposuimus, unde divini canonis mirabilibus exiguam (quamvis ingenioli nostri modulum excedentem) historicam expositionem ex parte aliqua tangeremus. Lib. 2. de mirabilib. Script. cap. 34. (inter opera B. Augustini, tom. 3.) ourselves with any care thereof: because we only purposed to touch in some measure a short historical exposition of the wonderful things contained in the divine canon;" as also in the apocryphal additions of Daniel, he telleth us, that what is reported "touching the lake (or den) and the carrying of Abackuk, in the fable of Bel and the Dragon, is not therefore placed in this rank, because these things have not the authority of divine Scripture." And so much concerning the holy Scriptures. 8 De lacu vero iterum et Abacuk translato in Belis et Draconis fabula, idcirco in hoc ordine non ponitur; quod in authoritate divinæ scrtpturæ non habentur. ibid. cap. 32. CHAP. II. Of Predestination, Grace, Free-will, Faith, Works, Justification and Sanctification. THE doctrine which our learned men observed out of the Scriptures and the writings of the most approved fathers, was this, that God "bya his immoveable counsel (as Gallus speaketh in his sermon preached at Constance) ordained some of his creatures to praise him, and to live blessedly from him and in him, and by him:" namely, "by his eternal predestination, his free calling, and his grace which was due to none:" that "he hath mercy with great goodness, and hardeneth without any iniquity, so as neither he that is delivered can glory of his own merits, nor he that is condemned complain but of his own merits; forasmuch as grace only maketh the distinction betwixt the redeemed and the lost; who by a cause drawn from their common original, were framed together into one mass of perdition." For "all mankind stood condemned in the apostatical root (of Adam) with so just a Præscitam et prædestinatam immobili consilio creaturam ad se laudandum, et ex se, et in se, et per se beate vivendum. S. Gallus in serm. habit. Constant. b Prædestinatione scilicet æterna non creatione temporaria, sed vocatione gratuita, vel indebita gratia. Id. ib. c Miseretur magna bonitate, et obdurat nulla iniquitate: ut neque liberatus de suis meritis glorietur, neque damnatus nisi de suis meritis conqueratur. Sola enim gratia redemptos discernit a perditis; quos in unam perditionis concreaverat massam, ab origine ducta causa communi. Sedul. in Rom. cap. 9. d Videt universum genus humanum tam justo judicio divinoque in apostatica radice damnatum; ut etiamsi nullus inde liberatur, nemo recte posset Dei vituperare justitiam: et qui liberantur, sic oportuisse liberari, ut ex pluribus non liberatis, atque damnatione justissima derelictis, ostenderetur quid meruisset universa conspersio. quod etiam justos debitum judicium Dei damnaret, nisi in ejus debitum misericordia subveniret: ut volentium de suis meritis gloriari, omne os obstruatur: et qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur. Id. ibid. |