Heretical translation against FREE WILL

AGAINST free will your corruptions be these. Io. 1, 12. where it is said,¹ As many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God: ² some of your translations say, he gave them prerogative to be the sons of God. Beza, dignity. Who protests that whereas in other places often he translated this Greek word, power and authority, here he refused both, indeed against free will, which he says the Sophists would prove out of this place, reprehending Erasmus for following them in his translation.³ But whereas the Greek word is in different to signify dignity, or liberty, he that will translate either of these, restrains the sense of the Holy Ghost and determines it to his own fancy. If you may translate, dignity: may not we as well translate it, liberty? yes surely. For you know it signifies the one as well as the other both in profane and Divine writers. And you can well call to mind αὐτεξούσιος, and τὸ αὐτεξούσιον, [self-determining, and free will] whence they are derived, and that the Apostle calls a man’s liberty of his own will,⁴ ἐξουσίαν περὶ τοῦ ἰδίου θελήματος. Now then if potestas in Latin, and power in English, be words also indifferent to signify both dignity and liberty, translate so in the name of God, and leave the text of the Scripture indifferent as we do: and for the sense whether of the two it does here rather signify, or whether it does not signify both (as no doubt it does, & the fathers so expound it) let that be examined otherwise. It is a common fault with you and intolerable, by your translation to abridge the sense of the Holy Ghost to one particular understanding, and to defeat the exposition of so many fathers, that expound it in another sense and signification. As is plain in this example also following.

2 The Apostle (1 Cor. 15, 10.) says thus:⁵ I, laboured more abundantly than all they: yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Which may have this sense, not I, but the grace of God which is with me, as S. Jerome sometime expounds it: or this, not I, but the grace of God which laboured with me. & by this later is most evidently signified, that the grace of God and the Apostle, both laboured together, and not only grace, as though the Apostle had done nothing like unto a block, forced only: but that the grace of God did so concur as the principal agent with all his labours, that his free will wrought withal. Against which truth & most approved interpretation of this place, you translate according to the former sense only, making it the very text, & so excluding all other senses and commentaries, as your Masters Calvin & Beza taught you, who should not have taught you if you were wise, to do that which neither they nor you can justify. They reprehend first the vulgar Latin interpreter for neglecting the Greek article, and secondly them that by occasion thereof, would by this place prove free will. By which their commentary they do plainly declare their intent and purpose in their translation, to be directly against free will.

3 But concerning the Greek article omitted in translation,⁶ if they were but Grammarians in both tongues, they might know that the Greek article many times can not be expressed in Latin, and that this is one felicity & prerogative of the Greek phrase above the Latin, to speak more briefly, commodiously, and significantly, by the article. What need we go to Terence and Homer, as they are wont? Is not the Scripture full of such speeches? Jacobus Zebedaei, Jacobus Alphaei, Judas Jacobi, Maria Cleophae, [James of Zebedee, James of Alpheus, Jude of James, Mary of Cleophas] and the like, Are not all these sincerely translated into Latin, though the Greek article be not expressed? Can you express the article, but you must add more than the article, and so add to the text, as you do very boldly in such speeches throughout the New Testament, yea you do it when there is no article in the Greek: as Io. 5, 36.⁷ and 1 ep. Io. 2, 2. Yea sometime of an heretical purpose:⁸ as Eph. 3. By whom we have boldness and entrance with the confidence which is by the faith of him, or, in him, as it is in other your bibles.⁹ You say, confidence which is by faith, as though there were no confidence by works: you know the Greek bears not that translation,¹⁰ unless there were an article after, confidence, which is not, but you add it to the text heretically. As also Beza does the like (Ro. 8, 2.) and your Geneva English Testaments after him, for the heresy of imputative justice: as in his Annotations he plainly deduces, saying confidently, I doubt not but a Greek article must be understood, ¹¹ and therefore (forsooth) put into the text also. He does the same in S. James 2, v. 20: still debating the case in his Annotations why he does so, and when he has concluded in his fancy, that this or that is the sense, he puts it so in the text, and translates accordingly. No marvel now, if they reprehend the vulgar Latin interpreter for not translating the Greek article in the place which we began to treat of, when they find articles lacking in the Greek text itself, and boldly add them for their purpose in their translation. Whereas the vulgar Latin interpretation is in all these places so sincere, that it neither adds nor diminishes, nor goes one jot from the Greek.

¹²4 But you will say in the place to the Corinthians, there is a Greek article, and therefore there you do well to express it. I answer, first, the article may then be expressed in translation, when there can be but one sense of the same: secondly, that not only it may, but it must be expressed, when we can not otherwise give the sense of the place.¹³ as Mat. 1, 6. Ex ea qua fuit Vriae. [of her that was the wife of Urias] Where you see the vulgar interpreter omits it not, but knows the force & signification thereof very well. Marry, in the place of S. Paul which we now speak of, where the sense is doubtful, & the Latin express the Greek sufficiently otherwise, he leaves it also doubtful and indifferent, not abridging it as you do, saying, the grace of God which is with me: nor as Calvin, gratia qua mihi aderat: [the grace which was with me] ¹⁴ nor as Illyricus, gratia qua mihi adest. [the grace which is with me] Which two later are more absurd than yours, because they omit and neglect altogether the force of the preposition, cum, ¹⁵ which you express saying, with me. but because you say, which is with me: you mean heretically as they do, to take away the Apostles cooperation and labouring together with the grace of God, by his free will: which is by the article and the preposition most evidently signified.

5 And here I appeal to all that have skill in Greek speeches and Phrases, whether the Apostles words in Greek,¹⁶ sound not thus: I laboured more abundantly than all they: yet not I, but the grace of God (that laboured) with me. Understanding not the participle of Sum, [the verb “to be”] but of the verb going before. As in the like case when our Saviour says, It is not you that speak, but the Holy Ghost that speaks in you. If he had spoken short thus, but the Holy Ghost in you, you perhaps would translate as you do here, the Holy Ghost WHICH IS IN YOU. But you see the verb going before is rather repeated, Not you speak, but the Holy Ghost THAT SPEAKS IN YOU. Even so, Not I laboured, but the grace of God labouring with me, or, WHICH LABOURED WITH ME. So prays the wise man Sap. 9, 10. Send wisdom out of thy holy heavens, that she may be with me, and labour with me as yourselves translate.¹⁷ Bib. 1577.

6 And so the Apostle calls himself and his fellow preachers, God’s coadjutors [fellow workers], collabourers, or such as labour and work with God, which also you falsely translate,¹⁸ God’s labourers, to take away all cooperation, and in some of your Bibles most foolishly and peevishly, as though you had sworn not to translate the Greek, We together are God’s labourers. as well might you translate (Ro. 8, 17) that we together be Christ’s heirs: ¹⁹ for that, which the Apostle says coheirs, or joint heirs with him: the phrase and speech (as you know) in Greek being all one. So does Beza most falsely translate,²⁰ Una viuificauit nos per Christum, for that which is plain in the Greek, He has quickened us together with Christ, Where the English Bezites leave also the Greek,²¹ and follow our vulgar Latin translation rather than Beza, who goes so wide from the Greek, that for shame they dare not follow him. Fie upon such hypocrisy & pretensed [feigned] honour of God, that you will not speak in the same terms that the holy Scripture speaks, but rather will teach the Holy Ghost how to speak, in not translating as he speaks. As though these phrases of Scripture, men are God’s coadjutors, coworkers with his grace, raised with Christ, coheirs with him, compartakers [joint sharers] of glory with him, were all spoken to the dishonour of God and Christ, & as though these being the speeches of the Holy Ghost himself, needed your reformation in your English translations. Otherwise if you mean well, and would say as we say, that whatsoever good we do, we do it by God’s grace, and yet work the same by our free will together with God’s grace as the mover and helper and directer of our will: why do you not translate in the foresaid place of S. Paul accordingly?

7 You say moreover in some of your Bibles thus: So lies it not then in a man’s will or running, ²² but in the mercy of God. Whatsoever you mean, you know this translation is very dissolute and wide from the Apostles words, and not true in sense. For salvation is in willing and running:²³ according to that famous saying of S. Augustine, He that made thee without thee, will not justify thee without thee: that is, against thy will, or, unless thou be willing. And the Apostle says, No man is crowned, ²⁴ unless he fight lawfully. and again, So run THAT YOU MAY obtain. and again, The doers of the Law shall be justified. And our Saviour, If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. We see then that it is in willing, and running, & doing: but to will, or run, or do, are not of man, but of God’s mercy. And so the Apostle speaks, It is not of the willer, nor runner, but of God that has mercy. And it is much to be marveled, why you said not, It lies not in the willer, nor in the runner: which is near to the Apostles words, but so far of, in a man’s will and running.

8 Again, touching continency [celibacy] & the chaste single life, you translate thus:²⁵ All men can not receive this saying. Mat. 19. v. 11. Now you wot well,²⁶ that our Saviour says not, All men can not, but, all men do not receive it: and that therefore,²⁷ (as S. Augustine says) because all will not. But when our Saviour afterward says, He that CAN receive it, let him receive it: he adds another Greek word to express that sense.²⁸ whereas by your fond translation he might have said, ὁ χωρῶν, χωρείτω. And again by your translation, you should translate these his later words thus: He that can or is able to receive it, let him be able to receive it. For so you translate χωρεῖν before, as though it were all one with δύνασθαι χωρεῖν. Do you not see your folly, & falsehood, & boldness, to make the reader believe that our Saviour should say, Every man can not live chaste, it is impossible for them, and therefore no man should vow chastity, because he knows not whether he can live so or no?

9 Again in some of your Bibles (Gen. 4. v. 7.) where God says plainly,²⁹ that Cain should receive according as he did well or evil, because sin was subject unto him, and he had the rule and dominion thereof, evidently declaring his free will: you translate it thus, If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lies at the door: and also unto thee HIS desire shall be subject, and thou shalt rule over HIM. By which relatives falsely put in the masculine gender, you, exclude the true antecedent sin, and refer them to Abel, Cain’s brother. As though God had said, not that sin should be in his dominion or subject unto him, but his brother Abel. But that this is most false and absurd, we prove many ways. First S. Augustine says directly the contrary:³⁰ Tu dominaberis illius: nunquid Fratris? Absit. Cuius igitur nisi peccati. Thou shalt rule (says he) over what? Over thy brother? Not so. Over what then but sin? ³¹ S. Jerome also explicates this place thus: Because thou hast free will, I warn thee that sin have not dominion over thee, but thou over sin. Moreover the text itself, if nothing else, is sufficient to convince this absurdity. For where this word, sin, goes immediately before in the same sentence, and not one word of Abel his brother in that speech of God to Cain, how is it possible, or what coherence can there be in saying as you translate, Sin lies at the door, and thou shalt have dominion over him, that is, thy brother. but if we say thus, Sin lies at the door, and thou shalt have dominion thereof: it has this direct & plain sense, If thou doest ill, sin lies at the door ready to condemn thee, because it is in thee to overrule it.

10 Now if against the coherence of the text, and exposition of the holy Doctors and of the whole Church of God, you pretend the Hebrew grammar forsooth, as not bearing such construction: not to trouble the common reader that can not judge of these things, and yet fully to satisfy every man even of common understanding, we request here the Adversaries themselves to tell us truly according to their knowledge and skill,³² whether the Hebrew construction or point of grammar be not all one in these words, Sin LIES at the door: & in these, the desire THEREOF shall be subject to thee, & thou shalt rule over IT. If they say (as they must needs) that the Hebrew construction or Syntaxis is all one, then will it follow that the Hebrew bears the one as well as the other: & therefore when the self same translation of theirs makes no scruple of Grammar in the former, but translate as we do, Sin lies at the door: a blind man may see that in the later words also, the Hebrew is but a foolish pretence, and that the true cause of translating them otherwise, proceeds of an heretical humor, to obscure and deface this so plain and evident Scripture for man’s free will.

11 And as for the Hebrew grammar in this point, were it not for troubling the reader, we could tell them that the word, sin, in Hebrew is not here of the feminine gender (as they suppose) but of the masculine. So says S. Jerome expressly upon this place,³³ who had as much knowledge in the Hebrew tongue as all these new Doctors. Aben Ezra also the great Rabbin, in his Hebrew commentaries upon this text, says, it is a mere forgery and fiction to refer the masculine relative otherwise than to the word, sin: which, though elsewhere it be the feminine gender, yet here it is a masculine, according to that rule of the Grammarians,³⁴ that the doubtful gender must be discerned by the verb, adjective, pronoun, or participle joined with the same: as the said Hebrew doctor does in the word, paradise, Gen. 2. which there by the pronouns he pronounces to be a feminine, though elsewhere a masculine. Lastly, if the word, sin, were here and always only a feminine, & never a masculine: yet they have little skill in the Hebrew tongue, that think it strange to match masculines and feminines together in very good and grammatical construction. Whereof they may see a whole chapter in Sanctes Pagninus with this title, Foeminea masculeis iuncta. that is, Feminines joined with masculines.

12 Now for the last refuge, if they will say all this needed not, because in other their bibles it is as we would have it: we tell them, they must justify and make good all their translations, because the people reads all, and is abused by all, and all come forth with privilege, printed by the Q. printer &c. If they will not, let them confess the faults, and call them in, and tell us which translation or translations they will stand unto. In the mean time they must be content to hear of all indifferently, as there shall be cause and occasion to touch them.

13 Again they translate in some of their Bibles against free will,³⁵ thus, Christ, when we were yet OF NO STRENGTH, died for the ungodly Ro. 5. v. 6. The Apostles word does not signify that we had no strength,³⁶ but that we were weak, feeble, infirm. Man was wounded in free will by the sin of Adam (as he that in the Gospel went down from Jerusalem to Jericho,³⁷ which is a parable of this thing) he was not slain altogether. But I stand not here, or in any place to dispute the controversy, that is done elsewhere. This only I say, because ³⁸ they falsely hold that free will was altogether lost by Adam’s sin, therefore they translate accordingly, When we had no strength. But the Greek word is well known both in profane authors and Ecclesiastical, and specially in the New Testament itself, throughout, to signify nothing else, but, weak, feeble, sick, infirm.³⁹ look me through the New Testament, wheresoever, infirmity, feebleness, languishing, and the like are spoken of, there is found this Greek word to express it. What Grecian knows not (be he but simply acquainted with phrases and nature of words) what ἀσθενεῖν, and ἀσθενὲς ἔχειν, [to be weak, and to be ill] do signify. When the Apostle says, Quis infirmatur, & ego non vror? ⁴⁰ Who is weak and infirm, and I am not much grieved? shall we translate, who is of no strength, &c. Or let them give us an instance, where it is certain that this word must needs signify, of no strength. ⁴¹ Will they pretend the etymology of the word? A ridiculous and absurd evasion. We ask them of ῥώμη, a word of the very same signification, which being compounded in like manner as the other, what does it signify? Anything else but infirmity and feebleness? Yea it is so far from signifying, no strength, ⁴² that the greatest Grecians say, it is not spoken properly of him that for weakness keeps his bed,⁴³ which is νοσεῖν, but of him that is ill disposed and distempered in body. Yet the etymology is all one with that word which these men will have to signify him that has no strength. And if they will needs urge the etymology, we tell them, that σθένος καὶ ῥώμη signify, robur, that is, great strength such as is in the strongest and stoutest champions. And so the etymology may take place, to signify a man of no great strength, not, of no strength.⁴⁴ But M. Whitaker puts us in good hope, they will not stand upon etymologies.

14 When they have bereaved and spoiled a man of his free will, & left him without all strength, they go so far in this point, that ⁴⁵ they say, the regenerate themselves have not free will and ability, no not by and with the grace of God, to keep the commandments. To this purpose they translate (Io. 5, 3) thus:⁴⁶ His commandments are not heavy. for in saying, they are not heavy, it would follow, they might be kept & observed: but in saying, they are not grievous, that may be true, were they never so heavy or impossible, through patience. As when a man can not do as he would, yet it grieves him not, being patient and wise, because he is content to do as he can, and is able. Therefore do they choose to translate, that the commandments are not grievous, where the Apostle says rather, they are not heavy. Much more agreeably to our Saviour’s words, My burden is light: and to the words of God by Moses, Deu. 30. This commandment which I command thee this day, ⁴⁷ is not above thee (that is, beyond thy reach) but the word is very near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, ⁴⁸ that thou maiest do it: and to the common signification of the Greek word, which is, heavy. Beza would say somewhat in his commentary, how the commandments are heavy or light, but his conclusion is against free will, and that there can be no perfection in this life, inveighing against them that would prove it out of this place: which is as much to say (but he is ashamed to speak plainly) that we can not keep the commandments: which the holy Doctors have long since condemned & abhorred as most absurd, that God should command that, under pain of damnation, which is impossible to be done.

15 Thus having taken away free will to do good, and possibility to keep the commandments, and all merit or valure [worth] and efficacy of good works, their next conclusion is, that we have no true justice or righteousness in us, but an imputative justice, that is, Christ’s justice imputed to us, be we never so foul and filthy in our souls, so that we believe only, and by faith apprehend Christ’s justice. For this purpose they corrupt the Scriptures in their English bibles, thus.