And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here [am] I.
Ver. 2. Here am I.] Josephus tells us, a he said, Who is there? He seems never seriously to have read the Bible; but only in transcursu, et quasi aliud agens. Is not that then a proper excuse for the Church of Rome's sacrilege, in robbing the common people of the Holy Scriptures, that she allows them to read Josephus, where they may find the history of the Old Testament more plainly and plentifully set forth than in the Bible! But Barclay, b that made this apology, was of the mind, belike, of Walter Mapes, sometime archdeacon of Oxford, who, relating the gross simony (traffic in sacred things) of the Pope, for confirming the election of Reginald, bastard son to Jocelin, bishop of Sarum into the see of Bath, concludes his narration thus: Sit tamen domina materque nostra Roma baculus in aqua fractus, et absit credere quae vidimus; c howbeit, far be it from us to believe our own eyes.
a Antiq., lib. i.
b Quod vero ad historiam Vet. Test. eam fuse et magis ex vulgi intellectu in Iosepho inveniunt. - Barcl. Paraen.
c Dr Sanderson.