PROEMIAL ANNOTATIONS.
conteyning manifest errors, or fained by Heretikes. Neither can a Christian Catholique be otherwise assured, which Bookes are Diuine and Canonical Scriptures, but by declaration of the Catholique Church, which without interruption succedeth the Apostles, to whom our Sauiour promised, and sent the Holie Ghost, to teach al truth. For if in anie thing more then others, assuredly one chief and most necessarie point is, to know and declare, which Bookes are Gods holie Word: being of most singular importance.
THE SVMME OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
as it is distinguished from the new.
Not withstanding the subiect, & general argument of both Testaments is one & the same in substance, as is already said, yet they differ in time, in maner of vttering of Mysteries, in varietie of precepts, & promises, also in meanes to obserue the thinges exalted, & to attayne to the end proposed, In regard wherof S. Ierome saith: Lex Moysi & omne vetus instrumentum elementa mundi intelliguntur, quibus quasi elementis, & Religionis exordijs Deum discimus. The law of Moyses and al the old Testament are vnderstood the elements of the world, by which, as by first rudiments & beginnings, we lerne to know God. For that in it we haue first the Law of nature: and afterwards a law written, with promises of temporal rewardes; as long life, land flowiug with milke & honie, & the like; but it brought nothing to perfection, as S. Paul saith, when giftes & hostes were offered, which could not according to conscience, make the obseruer perfect. For the helpes of that time, were but infirma & egena elemēta: Weake & poore elements. Likewise in general, touching the punishments that sometimes happened to the people of the old Testament, when they transgressed, the same Apostle affirmeth, that al the same chanced to them in figure, & are written for our correption, vpon whom the ends of the world are come. So that the old Testament, or Law was but our pedagogue in Christ. Yet it setteth forth to vs the whole course of Gods Church, for the space of foure thousand yeares, that is, from the beginning of the world vntil Christ our Redemer, which Diuines diuide into six ages, wherein was varietie & change of her state, three vnder the Law of nature, and three others vnder the written Law. The seuenth & last age being this time of grace (wherin we now are) from Christ, to the day of general Iudgement: as the world was made in six dayes, and in the seuenth God is said to haue rested, and therfore sanctified it, in other sort, then the former six. The eight wil be after the Resurrection, during for al eternitie.
Which six ages of the ancient Church, & old Testament, are thus distributed. The first from the Creation to Noes floud, conteyning the space of 1656.
years.
