Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Monday, January 11, 2010

Whitaker


William Whitaker, Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge University and Master of St. John's College. "A Disputation on Holy Scripture Against the Papists, Especially Bellarmine and Stapleton," 1588. We will post some notes from the Preface, Epistle Dedicatory, and move to the Third Question. He was hostile to a growing sense of Arminianism, although formally, this would later gain visibility and traction, to some degree, on the Continent. Our hostile Laud, though later, would rail against Reformed theology at Oxford and get in trouble. Regrettably, that hapless cluck would become an Archbishop of Canterbury (perhaps we'll publish his narcissistic and mystical diaries, which are worth reading....Laud was no James Ussher). But back to Dr. Whitaker.

This work, we believe, will stand alongside Martin Chemnitz's towering work on the Council of Trent. We may have reason to believe that it will tower over Princeton's "Lion," B.B. Warfield, on the subject of Scripture from a Reformed perspective. We will hold that in suspension for now. He was a Prayer Book man, a Calvinist, and an Anglican of the first order magnitude. We believe he's better than Hooker.

In any case, this work still should be studied by any Reformed Churchman, espeically Anglicans.

Available at, freely and downloadably:

http://books।google.com/books?id=PhYXAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR7&dq=william+whitaker&output=text
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CONTENTS.
Preface by the Editor ........ ix
Epistle Dedicatory to Lord Burghley ..... 3
Preface to the Controversies . . . . . . .14
Question the First of the First Controversy: Of the number of the Canonical Books of Scripture ...... 25
Question the Second: Of the Authentic Edition and Vorsions of the Scriptures . . . . . . . . .110
Question the Third: Of the Authority of Scripture . .' . 275
Question the Fourth: Of the Perspicuity of Scripture . . 359
Question the Fifth: Of the Interpretation of Scripture . . 402
Question the Sixth : Of the Perfection of Scripture, against Unwritten Traditions ......... 496
To the Reader 705
Index .......... 709

Preface

William Whitaker (or Whitacre) was born at Holme, in Lancashire, A.d. 1547, of a good family, nearly related to Alexander Nowel, the celebrated dean of St Paul's. He was bred at Cambridge, where he soon distinguished himself, and was in 1579 appointed the Queen's Professor of Divinity. In 1586, through the influence of Burghley and Whitgift, and in spite of obstinate and powerful opposition, he was made Master of St John's College in that University; soon after which appointment he took his degree of Doctor in Divinity. His delay in assuming the doctorate seems curious, and it was maliciously made the ground of a most unjust imputation of puritanism. How small was his sympathy with the disciplinarian party, appears from the manner in which he speaks of their great leader, Cartwright, in a letter preserved by Bancroft1: " Quern Cartwrightus nuper emisit libellum, ejus magnam partem perlegi. Ne vivam, si quid unquam viderim dissolutius ac pene puerilius. Verborum satis ille quidem lautam ac novam supellectilem habet, rerum omnino nullarn, quantum ego quidem judicare possum. Deinde non modo perverse de Principis in Rebus Sacris atque Ecclesiasticis auctoritate sentit; sed in papistarum etiam castra transfugit; a quibus tamen videri vult odio capitali dissidere. Verum nee in hac causaferendus, sed aliis etiam in partibus tela a papistis mutuatur. Denique, ut de Ambrosio dixit Hieronymus, verbis ludit, sententiis dormitat, et plane indignus est qui a quopiam docto refutetur."

But though far removed from the disciplinarian tenets of the puritans, Whitaker undoubtedly agreed with them in their hostility to the Arminian opinions, which in his time began to prevail in the Church of England; as appears from the share taken by him in the prosecution of Baret, and the devising of the Lambeth articles. The history of such proceedings is foreign from my present purpose; but the reader will find a full detail of the circumstances connected with them in Strype's Life of Whitgift, Book iv., Chapters 14—18. Shortly after the termination of that memorable dispute, Whitaker died in 1595, in the forty-seventh year of his age. He was married, and had eight children. It was pleasantly said of him, that he gave the world a child and a book1 every year. Of his children I have nothing to communicate, and his books will speak for themselves. They gained for him in his life-time a high character, not only with friends, but with enemies also. " I have," says the writer of his life, in Lupton's Protestant Divines2, " I have heard it confessed of English Papists themselves, which have been in Italy with Bellarmine himself, that he procured the true portraiture and effigies of this Whitaker to be brought to hiin, which he kept in his study. For he privately admired this man for his singular learning and ingenuity; and being asked of some of his friends, Jesuits, why he would have the picture of that heretic in his presence? he would answer, Quod quamvis hcereticus erat et adversarius, erat tamen doctus adversarius: that, " although he was an heretic, and his adversary, yet he was a learned adversary," p. 359. " He was," says Gataker, " tall of stature and upright; of a grave aspect, with black hair and a ruddy complexion ; a solid judgment, a liberal mind, an affable disposition ; amild, yet no remiss governor; a contemner of money ; of a moderate diet, a life generally unblameable, and (that which added a lustre to all the rest) amidst all these endowments, and the respects of others (even the greatest) thereby deservedly procured, of a most meek and lowly spirit." " Who," asks Bishop Hall, " ever saw him without reverence? or heard him without wonder?"

I have only to add, that in the translation I have endeavoured to be as literal as would consist with a due regard to the English idiom. Had I considered myself at liberty to use more freedom, I should have made my task more easy to myself, and the work perhaps less tedious to the reader: for there is a prolixity in Whitaker's style, which contrasts unfavourably with the compactness of his great antagonist, Bellarmine; though ho trespasses far less upon the student's patience than Stapleton, whose verbose rhetoric made him admired in his own day, and whose subtlety of logic cannot save him from neglect in ours.

It is proper to apprise the reader, that, besides the Controversy translated in the present volume, the only one published in the Author's life-time, three others are contained in the ponderous volumes of his works, all of which were published after his death by John Allenson, B.D., Fellow of St John's College. The subjects of these are De Ecclesia, De Conciliis, and De Romano Pontifice. lie encountered Bellarmine also on the other controversies in succession, De ministris et presbyteris Ecclesice, De sanctis mortuis, De Ecclesia triumphante, De Sacramentis in genere, De Baptismo, and De Eucliaristia. " Quas," adds his biographer, Obadiah Assheton, a Fellow of his College, " utinam licuisset per otium relegisse, et mandasse typis universas: id cnim auditoribus erat in votis vel maxiine; quorum cum summa admiratione ct acclamatione singulas tractarat controvcrsias. Ceterum studio respondendi Bellarmino in omnibus controversiis religionis provcctus, optimum censuit has elucubratas disputationcs apud se reponere; ratus (quod postea non evenit) aptius fore tempus eas per otium evulgandi. Scd Deo immortali, cujus consilia sunt abyssus inscrutabilis, alitcr visum est."

The following is the list of his works:
1. Responsio ad decern rationes Edm. Campiani. 8vo. Lond. 1581.
2. Responsionis ad decern rationes Edm. Campiani Defensio. 8vo. Lond. 1583.
3. Refutatio Nic. Sanderi, quod Papa non sit Antichristus. 8\ro. Lond. 1583.
4. Answer to W. Rainold's Reprehensions, &c. 8vo. Camb. 1585.
5. Disputatio de Sacra Scriptura contra hujus temporis Papistas. 4to. Cantab. 1588.
6. Pro authoritate atque avToiriaTiq. S. Scripturae Duplicatio contra T. Stapletonum. Libri 3. Cantab. 1594.
7. Prselectiones de Ecclesia, &c, edited after his death by J. Allenson. 4to. Cantab. 1599.
8. Praslectiones de Conciliis. 8vo. Cantab. 1600.
9. Concio in 1 Thess. v. 12. 4to. Cantab. 1599.
10. In Controversiam de R. Pontifice, distributam in quaestiones viii., adversus Pontificios, imprimis R. Bellarminum, prselectiones. 8vo. Hanov. 1608.
11. De Sacramentis. Francof. 1624. 4to.

A complete collection of his works in Latin was printed in two vols, folio, at Geneva, 1610.

Besides the above, Whitaker published in 1569 a Greek translation of the Common Prayer; in 1573, of Nowel's larger, and in 1575, of the smaller Catechism.
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EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

TO THE MOST NOBLE AND PRUDENT,

WILLIAM CECIL, KNIGHT,

BARON BtJRGBLEY, HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND, AND
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.


There have been many heretofore, illustrious Cecil, who have defended the papal interest and sovereignty with the utmost exertion, the keenest zeal, and no mean or vulgar erudition. But they who have played their part with most address, and far outstripped almost all others of their own side, are those men who now, for some years back, have been engaged most earnestly in this cause; a fresh supply of monks, subtle theologians, vehement and formidable controvcrtists; whom that strange—and, in former times, unheard of—Society of Jesus hath brought forth, for the calamity of the church and the Christian religion. For when, after that black, deadly, baneful, and tedious night of popish superstition and antichristianism, the clear and cheerful lustre of the gospel had illuminated with its rays some portions of the Christian world, attracting, and by its incredible charms at the same time moving all, to gaze on, admire, and cleave to it; on a sudden, these men sprang up to obscure with pestilential vapours, and ravish, if possible, from our view, this light, so hateful to themselves, so hostile and prejudicial to their interests. So indeed had John, that holy disciple of Christ, predicted in the Apocalypse, that a star, which had fallen from heaven, and received the key of the infernal pit, should remove the covering of the abyss, and cause a mighty smoke to issue forth, like the smoke of a great furnace, shedding darkness over the sun and heaven. This pit, from the time that it was first opened, hath not ceased to exhale perpetual smoke to blind the eyes of men; and, as the same prophet had foretold, hath sent forth innumerable locusts upon the earth, like scorpions, who have wounded with their deadly stings all men upon whose foreheads the seal of God was not impressed. The event itself, the best interpreter of prophecies, has illustrated the obscurity of the prediction. For who can doubt the meaning of the star, the pit, the smoke, the locusts; who considers the state of the papal power, in which they are all so pourtrayed to the very life, as to be most readily discerned by any one, who can compare together the past and present, and interprets what was foretold, as about to happen, by that which is seen to have occurred ?

Amongst these locusts,—that is, as very learned men justly deem, amongst the innumerable troops of monks — none, as we before said, have ever appeared, more keen, or better prepared and equipped for doing mischief, than are the Jesuits at this present day; who in a short space have surpassed all other societies of that kind in numbers, in credit, and in audacity. Other monks, following the rule and practice of former times, lived in general a life of leisure and inactivity, and spent their time, not in reading and the study of the sciences, but in repeating by the glass certain offices for the canonical hours, which contributed nothing to the advancement of either learning or religion. But tho Jesuits have pursued a far different course. They have left the shade of ancient sloth and inactivity, in which the other monks had grown grey, and have come forth to engage in toils, to treat of arts and sciences, to undertake and carry through an earnest struggle for the safety of the common interests. It hath come to bo understood, that the cause of Rome, which, shaken by the perilous blows dealt on every side by men of ability and learning, had begun in many parts to totter and give way, could never be defended or maintained, except by learned and diligent and active champions.

For just as a dilapidated mansion, unless propped up almost every day by fresh and firm buttresses, will suddenly fall in a violent and total ruin; so they perceived that the Roman synagogue, tottering as it is and threatening to fall, in its wretched state of decay and dilapidation, hath need continually of newsupports and bracings, to maintain any remnant of its state and dignity under the pressure of such vehement assaults. Yet, with all their efforts, shall they never be able to avert the imminent calamity, or rescue themselves from perdition. But as buildings, whose foundations are subverted, their walls pierced, their roofs uncovered, having no part secure, can never be supported long by any multitude of artificial props; so that church of theirs, all rent and torn on every side, in which nor roof, nor pillar, nor foundation remains sound, intrinsically devoid of firmness and integrity, must at length fall headlong, and crush many to destruction in its ruins. We arc not to believe that the Roman church is flourishing, because the Jesuits are often able to impose upon inconstant and unskilful persons, and lead them into the popish fraud by the lures and blandishment of their fallacious reasoning, any more than we should think that health and life is restored to the frame that labours in a mortal malady, when it gains, for a moment, some casual alleviation of its pain. Let the Jesuits do their best; let them exert, if possible, still more intense sedulity, and omit nothing that learning and diligence can accomplish without the aid of truth. Yet all they can accomplish will be this,—to prop a falling house with mounds and buttresses, to afford some brief refreshment to antichrist, now gasping in his last long agony,—and, despite of all the rules of physic, apply remedies to a desperate disease.

Amongst these Jesuits, Robert Bellarminc, a native of Italy, hath now for several years obtained a great and celebrated name. At first he taught scholastic divinity in Belgium; but afterwards, having removed to Rome, he treated of theological controversies in such a manner as to excite the admiration and gain the applause of all. His lectures were eagerly listened to by his auditors, transcribed, transmitted into every quarter, and treasured up as jewels and amulets. After some time, for the sake of rendering them more generally useful, they were epitomized by a certain Englishman. Finally, the first volume of these controversies hath been published at Ingolstadt, printed by Sartorius; and the rest are expected in due time1. Now, therefore, Bellarminc is cried up by his party as an invincible champion, as one with •whom none of our men would dare to engage, whom nobody can answer, and whom if any one should hope to conquer, they would regard him as an utter madman.

When you, honoured sir, demanded my opinion of this writer, I answered, as indeed I thought, that I deemed him to be a man unquestionably learned, possessed of a happy genius, a penetrating judgment, and multifarious reading;—one, moreover, who was wont to deal more plainly and honestly than is the custom of other papists, to press his arguments more home, and to stick more closely to the question. Thus, indeed, it became a 'man who had been trained in the schools, and who had made the handling of controversies his professed business, to dismiss all circumlocutions and digressions, and concern himself entirely with the argument; and, having read all that had been previously written upon the subject, to select those reasons and replies which seemed to have most strength and sinew in them. In the prosecution of which task, he was led to weigh everything with a profound and anxious solicitude, and has sometimes differed from all his predecessors, and struck out new explanations of his own; perceiving, I suppose, that the old ones were not sound enough to be relied on. Wo have an instance (Lib. 11. de Verbo Dei, c. 16) in his treatment of 1 Cor. 14, where the apostle forbids the use of a strange language in the church. The former popish writers had usually understood that place to speak of exhortations or sermons to the

[* The first complete edition of Bellarmine's Controversies was printed, according to Baylo, at Ingolstadt, in three Tomes, 1586. The oldest edition which I have seen is that of 1588, printed also at Ingolstadt by Sartorius, in three Tomes. Alegambus states that the first Tome was printed so early as 1681.]

people; or, if they conceded that it might be understood of divine service, interpreted it so as to require that the words of the minister should be understood, not by the whole congregation, but only by him who made the responses in their name. But Bellarminc, haying reflected upon the falsehood and weakness of these evasions, hath invented another for himself; and pretends that the apostle is speaking not of the offices of divine service, nor yet of the public reading of the scriptures, but only of certain spiritual songs and canticles. What, however, or what sort of things these were, or why they required to be recited in a known language more than the common prayers or the scripture lessons, it is not so easy to understand. But of this place of the apostle, and this new pretence of Bellarmine's, we have discoursed sufficiently at large in the second question, chap. 18, of this controversy.

So again, (Lib. Hi. cap. 2) where he is answering an objection drawn from St Peter's calling the prophetic word a lamp, ho does not answer, as Hosius did (Lib. in. contra Proleg. Brentii), that in the prophecies there are many things plain, and that what is enigmatically spoken in the prophets is expressed clearly in the gospel; but he says that prophecy is called a lamp, not because it is easily understood, but because it illuminates when it is understood. He saw clearly that Hosius1 exposition left our doctrine of ** the perspicuity of scripture in sufficient strength, and therefore excogitated this new one; upon which we have treated, Quest, iv. chap. 4.

In the same way, when we maintain that the mysteries of the faith should be concealed from no one, and allege, in proof, those words of Christ, " What ye hear in the ear, that proclaim ye upon the house-tops;" Bellarmine, (Lib, iv. c. 12) has recourse to a strange and hitherto, I think, unheard of interpretation ;— that is, says he, if need so require. He gives the allegation no other reply whatever; and how proper and apposite an answer this is, I am content that others should determine.

Again, when we urge that the scripture is called canonical, andtherefore is, what that very appellation indicates, the rule of faith and of livingxJBellarmine answers confidently in the same chapter, that tho scripture was not published to be the rule of our faith, but to serve "as a sort of commonitory, useful to preserve and cherish the faith received by preaching." So that, according to this new interpretation of Bellarmine's, we learn that the scriptures are no rule of faith at all, but a certain commonitory,—an honour which they share with many others;—nor yet even a necessary one, but only useful to the end of preserving the traditions. This is a noble judgment of the value of scripture, and altogether worthy of a Jesuit!—a judgment which leaves the bible only the office of admonishing us, as if we only required to be admonished, and not taught.

Bellarmine hath innumerable such new discoveries; with which he defends the papal cause in a different manner, indeed, from that of its former patrons, but yet is so far from really serving it, that he hath rather done it the greater damage and injury with discreet and attentive readers, who have any care for their faith and religion. For hence it appears that, while Bellarmine cannot approve the answers of others, it is impossible to invent new ones, which are not worse than the old.

I remember, too, that in the course of that same conversation between us, I allowed Bellarmine the merit of dealing less dishonestly with the testimonies of the fathers than is customary with others, and of not captiously or maliciously perverting the state of the question; a fault which, I found, had particularly disgusted you in certain writers; whereas religious disputes and controversies should be managed in such a way as to eschew all craft, and seek truth, and truth alone, with a holy earnestness. I acknowledged that, while our adversaries erred grossly in this respect, our own party stood not so wholly clear of the same fault, as became the investigators of truths so sacred; which, in proportion as they are more heavenly in their nature, and concern us more nearly, should be searched into and handled with so much the more sincerity.

But, since many—more eager for contention than for truth— propose to themselves scarcely any other object than to be able to say something against their opponents, and to be esteemed the champions of a cause, which they love much better than they understand ; so it comes to pass, that the just state of the question is laid aside with a cold neglect, and truth, as usual, is lost in altercation. Thus Bellarmine himself, where he undertakes to impugn our doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture (Lib. in. c. 1), lays this down as the state of the question, " Whether scripture be so plain in itself as to be sufficient, without any explication, to determine controversies of faith;" and he imposes upon us the office of maintaining that the scriptures are in themselves most plain and easy, and stand in need of no interpretation:—as if wo either thought that every part of scripture was plain, easy, and clear, or ever rejected the exposition and interpretation of the scriptures! J Could Bellarmine really hope to impose upon us in so gross a manner, as to make us confess that to be our opinion which had never so much as entered into our thoughts? But to this we have given a sufficiently plain answer in our fourth question.

I could wish that this were the only place in which Bellarmine had shewn bad faith, and that he had not elsewhere also played the Jesuit in matters of no small importance. For there can be no end of writing and disputing, no decision of controversies, no concord amongst Christians, until, laying aside all party feelings, and assuming the most impartial desire and design of investigating truth, we apply ourselves entirely to that point where the stress of the controversy lies.

And now (since I am addressing one who is accustomed both to think of these matters often and seriously himself, and to listen to others delivering their own opinions upon them also), allow me briefly to explain, and commend to your consideration, a thing which I have long wished for, and which I trust might be accomplished with singular advantage and with no great difficulty. Our adversaries have very often demanded a disputation, and declared that they especially wish and long for permission to hold a scholastical contest with us upon the subject of those questions which form the matter of our present controversies. Whether this demand be made hypocritically, as many suppose, or sincerely, I, for my part, would desire that they may have their asking. For, although they cannot deny that they have often been disputed with in Germany, France, and England, nay, that those learned men Melancthon and Brentius repaired to Trent for the sole purpose of defending the confessions of their churches against the Popish theologians; yet I would have them made to understand, that they have no reason for believing that their cause hath become one whit the better, since it hath been espoused by its Jesuit patrons, than it was heretofore, when defended by the ancient orders. Let the Jesuits be allowed acute, ready, practised, eloquent, and full of resources; let them be, in a word, whatever they arc, or are believed to be: yet truth is ever one and the same; and still, the more it is attacked, shines out with greater brilliancy and lustre. Perhaps, indeed, it will be said that none can be found who would dare to stand a conflict with the Jesuits, or are fit to be matched with such opponents. I know well, for my part, how confident and boastful those men are, and what a look and mien they assume in disputation; as if they had only learned how most arrogantly to despise their adversaries, not how to give a better answer to their arguments. Yet, since the sacred laws of such conferences secure to each man just so much advantage, and no more, as he can win by reason and argument, and whatever is said must be reduced to the rules of Syllogism ; there remains no ground to fear that painted falsehood will prevail more than simple and naked truth. Not to speak of foreign nations and churches, where every one knows that there is abundance of learned men, this island itself possesses persons well skilled in every kind of learning, who could readily, not only explain the truth, but defend it also against any adversaries. In both our Universities there are men so practised and skilled in every portion of these controversies, that they would rather forfeit their recognisance, than shrink from a dispute so honourable, just, and necessary.

Nor do I see that any so great inconvenience is to bo apprehended from this course, as some suspect. For, although those who are bound to this cause by a blind superstition, will probably be so far from reaping any advantage, that they will rather be rendered still more obstinate, and some fickle people will, perhaps, be even alienated from our side; as, in every disputation, opinions inclino different ways, according as the several auditors are capable of judging or inclined to attend and reflect;—yet, we may reasonably augur the following important results: First, it would easily appear, what is the true state of the question in each controversy; which should be pressed, driven home, and discussed, without regard to impertinent and trifling altercations. In the next place, it cannot be doubted, that all who measured religion, not by the decrees of men or their own caprice, but by the standard of the holy scriptures, and were ready to acknowledge and embrace the truth when it was found, would easily reject the rotten devices of the papists, and prefer that sound and wholesome doctrine of the faith, which our churches have drawn from the pure springs of scripture, to their old and idle superstition. Lastly, the wishes of our adversaries would be satisfied; nor could they any longer, with any shew of probability, reproach us openly with cowardice. Yea, the truth itself, which we profess, would rise above the suspicion which it has incurred in the minds of some, and establish itself in the light and conscience of all the world. There is nothing which truth fears Bo much as to be prevented from appearing in public, and being exposed to the examination of all men. It would rather have any patron that is not absolutely dumb, tlian go without defence from the unrighteous calumnies of unjust accusers. One thing only I would have carefully provided. Prudent and grave moderators should preside in this disputation; who should restrain petulance, repress clamours, permit no breach of decorum, and maintain order, modesty and discipline. I have now laid before you my thoughts and wishes. The determination rests with those who are at the helm of church and state;—with yourself especially, in regard of that singular wisdom which hath ever distinguished you in every judgment and deliberation. I now return to Bellarmine.

I am rejoiced that these controversies of his, so much celebrated in common report, have now been published by himself; so as that we all may easily judge of their quality, their value, their strength, and their importance, nor believe Bellarmine to be any other than we find him by their evidence. And, although our adversaries' opinions might be collected from the many other writers who have appeared in great numbers on the same side; yet, since there are many points upon which they do not all agree, it hath been a matter of some obscurity hitherto, to ascertain the real judgment of the Roman church. But now that Bellarmine hath been published, we shall know better and more certainly what it is they hold upon every subject, the arguments on which they specially rely, and what is (so to speak) the very marrow of popery, which is thought to be as much in the Jesuits as in the pope himself. Knowing, therefore, how much our party desire that these Jesuits should be answered, and having fallen in with a manuscript copy of Bellarmine's Lectures, I thought it worth my while to handle these same controversies in the schools in the discharge of the duties of my office, to discuss the new sophisms of the Jesuits, and vindicate our unadulterated truth from the captious cavils with which the popish professor had entangled it. Afterwards, being often requested by many persons to publish some of my disputations against our adversaries, and let the whole church share in the benefit of my toil and studies, I determined to commit to the press this controversy concerning Scripture, which is the first of them; and which, forming, as it does, a sort of vestibule to the rest, and sufficing of itself to fill a reasonable volume, seemed, as it were, to demand that I should not wait until I had completed the remainder, but publish it by itself, and separate from all the others.

In all this I did nothing without the approbation of the most reverend father, the archbishop of Canterbury,—a man of the greatest wisdom and the greatest learning, who, having read and thoroughly considered this whole controversy, declared it worthy of publication. Now that it is published, I dedicate it to you, most noble Cecil, whom I have over esteemed the great patron and Maecenas of my studies; you, in whom this college prides herselfas a member of her body, and will always, as long as she stands, challenge to herself on this account a just prerogative; you, whom our university respects as chancellor; whom the whole state celebrates as the father of your country; whom the church recognises as a son serviceable both to its interest and safety. I pray God that he may preserve you ever in safety and prosperity to our church, state, university, and college. Farewell.

Your most devoted servant,

WILLIAM WHITAKER.

Cambridge. From the College of St John
the Evangelist. April 30, 1588.

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