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CALVIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
HERMENUETICS AND THEOLOGY IN NTHE 17TH CENTURY:
THE CONTRIBUTION OF ANDREW WILLET
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF CALVIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
FOR THE DEGREE OF
MATER OF THEOLOGY
THEOLOGICAL DIVISION
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL THEOLOGY
BY
PETER WILLIAM VAN KLEECK
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
MAY 1998
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Willet’s Works Cited
HG Hexapla in Genesin.
HE Hexapla in Exodum.
HL Hexapla in Leviticum.
H1S An Harmonie upon the First book of Samuel.
H2S An Harmonie upon the Second book of Samuel.
ET Ecclesia Triumphans.
HD Hexapla in Danielum.
HR Hexapla: That is, a sixfold commentary upon the most divine epistle of the holy
Apostle S. Paul to the Romans.
TE Thesaurus Ecclesia.
CJ A Catholicon, that is, a general preservative or remedy against the psuedocatholic
religion, gathered out of the catholic epistle of S. Jude.
SP Synopsis Papismi.
PE King James His Judgment by way of counsell and advice.
LG Dr. Willet's Observations on King James' respect to the two tables of the Law of
God.
CS Dr. Willet's Observations on King James, his Counsell and advice to all his
Subjects.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Introductory Statements ...........................................................................................4
Statement of the Problem .........................................................................................6
Organization of the Study ......................................................................................11
CHAPTER 2: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE AND WORK OF
ANDREW WILLET
Andrew Willet's Life (1562-1621) .........................................................................12
Andrew Willet's Emblematics and the Divine Right of Kings ..............................16
Andrew Willet's Writings ......................................................................................22
Andrew Willet's Sixfold Methodology: Hexapla ..................................................24
The Text with Its Diverse Meanings ............................................................25
Argument and Method .................................................................................36
The Questions Discussed .............................................................................36
Doctrines Noted ...........................................................................................37
Controversies Handled .................................................................................37
Moral Uses Observed ...................................................................................38
CHAPTER 3: AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
Introduction ............................................................................................................39
The Sacred Text .....................................................................................................41
Exegesis and the Authority of the Sacred Text ......................................................49
Willet's Use of the Septuagint ................................................................................60
Willet's Hermeneutics ............................................................................................64
Leviticus 7 ....................................................................................................72
Daniel 2 ........................................................................................................75
Redaction ...............................................................................................................78
2 Samuel.......................................................................................................80
Romans 16:25-27 .........................................................................................82
Exodus 24:1 .................................................................................................83
CHAPTER 4: EXAMPLES OF WILLET'S EXEGESIS
Examples of Willet's Textual Observations
Synecdoche Rendering and Consideration for the Source of the Variant
Reading in 2 Samuel 7:7 ....................................................................88
Text-Critical Concerns in Romans 1:32 ......................................................89
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CHAPTER 4, continued.
Use of the Accusative Case in Romans 8:3 .................................................92
Trajection of the Particle in Romans 11:31 .................................................94
Pleonasm in Romans 16:25-27 ....................................................................99
Examples of Willet's Contextual Observations
Identification of Persons in 2 Samuel 8:18 ................................................100
Inclusion of the Clause in Romans 11:6 ....................................................102
The Use of in Romans 11:33 ..............................................................105
Examples of Willet's Grammatical Observations
Grammatical Order in 1 Samuel 1:1 ..........................................................107
Christocentricity in 2 Samuel 7:19 ............................................................108
The Use of in Romans 5:12 .................................................................111
Translation of the Hebrew sorer in Romans 10:21 ....................................113
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ............................................................................114
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................120
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Andrew Willet (1562-1621) was arguably the most accomplished of the Church of
England’s Hebrew exegetes, specifically of the Pentateuch, and a prolific and outspoken writer
against the papacy. Most of Willet’s life has come to us in a biography composed by his son-in-
law, Peter Smith, and is adjoined to the introduction of the Synopsis Papismi.1
Except, however, for a few references to Willet as a Hebrew scholar2 and orthodox
theologian,3 modern examination of Willet’s writings has been limited to his poetry, and
specifically to his work as England’s first religious emblem writer.4 His Sacorum emblematum
centuria una (1598) was listed by Francis Meres with the emblematics of such noted writers as
Andreas Alciatus, Geffrey Whitney and Thomas Combe.5 It is lamentable that his massive
exegetical labors have never been studied.
1 HL, epistle Dedicatorie: and the rather, because the learned author dying, bequeathing it,
by his will unto your most reverend fatherhood (John, lord Bishop of Lincoln) Smith continued,
“I was not (I confess) constituted the executor of his testament: it was the office of a natural son
of his... Only (what a son-in-law may do) I come in tanquam nudus minister, craving the
administration of this legacy alone, that so I might have power to present it to your lordshi”
2 David Gay, “Milton’s Samson and the Figure of the Old Testament Giant,” Literature
and Theology, 9/4 (Dec. 1995), 55-369.
3 Richard A. Muller, “Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology,” in Post-
Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), 467f, 533f.
4 Diehl Huston, “Graven images: Protestant emblem books in England,” Renaissance
Quarterly 39 (1986), 49-66; An Index of Icons in Emblem Books, 1500-1700 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); Peter Daly and Paola Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Andrew Willet,
England’s First Religious Emblem Writer,” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance Reforme,
New Series 10:2, Old Series 22:2, 1986, 181-200; Peter M. Daly, ed., “Andrew willet: Sacrorum
Emblematum Centuria Una (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Ex Officiana Ionannis Legate, 1592?)
as published in The English Emblem Tradition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993),
245-249.
5 Daly, “Andrew Willet,” 181.
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Willet was born two years before the death of John Calvin (1509-1564) and died two
years before the birth of Francis Turretin (1623-1687). He was a contemporary of William Ames
(1576-1633) and a colleague of William Perkins (1558-1602), with whom he studied at
Cambridge. Of Willet, John Mayer and other Protestant orthodox exegetes from 1565-1640,
Muller writes,
Indeed, much of the work of the exegetes and theologians of the early orthodox
era was the establishment of a method in which the sola Scriptura of the
Reformers was clearly identified as the declaration of Scripture as the prior norm
of theology of the churchly tradition of interpretation. Their success in this work
may be measured in terms of the wide proliferation of defensible theological
systems constructed biblically and exegetically out of a burgeoning Protestant
tradition of commentary, biblically grounded confessional documents, and
exegetically grounded theological systems.6
The overwhelming thoroughness of Willet’s work is conspicuous in his methodology for
writing biblical commentaries. He draws upon every element of the exegetical tradition available
to him and to argue not merely within his contemporary exegetical era but for or against the
entire scope of the exegetical tradition. In his 877-page Exodus commentary, which he calls “a
widow’s mite,” Willet states, “I have made use in this commentary, both of Protestant and Popish
writers, old and new upon this book “as I have set them down in the margin) not rejecting the
judgment of any witness for the truth.”7 Both from his extensive citation of sources and from his
methodology, called hexapla, or a “six-fold commentary,” the studied depth of Willet’s work are
immediately evident. The one exception Willet takes to his six-fold approach is in his exegesis of
the short epistle of Jude. In the commentary on Jude, Willet followed a verse-by-verse format.
The briefer hexapla on I Samuel and the commentary on Jude are written in a more pastoral tone.
6 Muller, “Holy Scripture,” 467.
7 HE, Introduction.
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Statement of the Problem
The problem of modern appropriation of precritical exegetical theology arguably began
with J. P. Gabler (1753-1826). He is known for delivering the inaugural address as professor at
the University of Altdorf in 1787, on the distinction between biblical theology and dogmatics.
For Gabler and those who adopted his ideas, biblical theology is “historical” in the sense of
being bound to ancient sources and ancient cultural contexts, and thus within this “historical”
theology there can be no Christian dogmatic presuppositions.8 The result of severing biblical
theology and exegesis created something similar to orthodoxy, but in the end this disjunction was
so severe that no key doctrine could be derived from any single text. When biblical theology is
developed with no dogmatic pressures, it is no longer an ecclesiastical but rather a purely
academic discipline.
Succinctly stated, the appraisal of the post-Reformation dogmaticians is expressed by
certain elements of modern scholarship along two lines of thought, both of which are grounded
in the separation of biblical theology and exegesis from the religious and theological life of the
church.9 The first of these two lines is expressed by Frederic W. Farrar in History of
Interpretation. Farrar describes an inane methodology of theological work produced during the
reformation era of church history. Farrar states that there is no resolution to “moral and other
8 David S. Dockery, “New Testament Interpretation: A Historical Survey,” in New
Testament Criticism and Interpretation, ed. David Alan Black and David S. Dockery (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 52-53. Dockery is citing W. G. Kummel, The New
Testament: The History of the Investigation of its Problems, trans. S. M. Gilmour and H. C. Kee
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 98-104.
9 On the reassessment of pre-critical exegesis see David C. Steinmitz, “The Superiority of
Pre-critical Exegesis,” Theology Today 37 (1980-81), 27-38; Richard A. Muller and John L.
Thompson, “The Significance of Pre-Critical Exegesis: Retrospect and Prospect,” in Biblical
Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation: Essays Presented to David C. Steinmitz in Honor of
his Sixtieth Birthday (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996) 335-345.
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difficulties” in the Bible in the exegesis of Philo, Origen, Aquinas and Calvin.10 In chapter one
he excoriates the entire history of precritical interpretation by describing the nature of his
endeavor:
The task before us is in some respects a melancholy one. We shall pass in swift
review many centuries of exegesis, and shall be compelled to see that they were,
in the main, centuries during which the interpretation of Scripture has been
dominated by unproven theories, and over laden by untenable results. We shall
see that these theories have often been affiliated to each other, and augmented at
each stage by the superaddition of fresh theories no less mistaken. Exegesis has
often darkened the true meaning of Scripture, not evolved or elucidated it.11
Moving from a general disparagement of the history of interpretation, Farrar raised four specific
problematic historic resources intended to bolster his invective. Of the Church Fathers he writes,
The history of exegesis thus far has been in great measure a history of aberrations.
If we turn to the Fathers with the hop0e that know at last we shall enter the region
of unimpeachable methods and certain applications, we shall be disappointed...
[Though admittedly one can find much that is valuable in the Fathers] their
exegesis in the proper sense of the word needs complete revision both in its
principles and in its details.12
Farrar concludes that even St. Augustine’s exegesis
is marked by the most glaring defects. Almost as many specimens of prolix
puerility and arbitrary perversion can be adduced from his pages as from those of
his least gifted predecessors.13
The Septuagint is also blamed for much of the problem, for its “intentional variations
may be counted by scores, and their unintentional errors by hundreds; and alike their errors and
their variations were in a multitude of instances accepted by Christian interpreters as the
10 Fredric W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886) x-xi.
11 Farrar, History, 8-9.
12 Farrar, History, 162.
13 Farrar, History, 236.
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infallible word of God.”14 The medieval schoolmen were, in Farrar’s opinion, “paralyzed by
vicious methods, traditional errors, and foregone conclusions,”15 while their exegesis was
“radically defective – defective in fundamental principles, and rife on every page of it will all
sorts of erroneous details.”16 Farrar held that many of these errors were perpetuated by the
Reformation and post-Reformation exegetes “who developed elaborate systems of theology out
of imaginary emphases, and by the aid of exorbitant principles of inference” and that while some
of the causes of error have been removed “we still meet the pale and feeble shadows of the old
systems wandering here and there, unexorcised, in modern commentaries.”17
Greenslade’s essay in the Cambridge History of the Bible echoes Farrar with precision:
From now onwards Protestant dogmatic preoccupations increasingly controlled
linguistic study; for this is part of the reaction from the intransigence of the decree
on Scripture made by the Council of Trent. In the remaining half-century biblical
studies will be too often subjected to Catholic and Protestant dogmatic concerns...
It would not be too great an exaggeration to say that the theological
preoccupations and inhibitions among both Catholics and Protestants prevented
much real advance in higher and lower criticism until the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.”18
Relating specifically to the prophetic content of the biblical books of Isaiah and Daniel,
Greenslade states that the historical approach to the Bible has its liabilities but that it is
nevertheless
the best antidote to the uncontrolled subjectivism which formerly interpreted such
prophecies as if they were cryptic divine revelations of the future course and
14 Farrar, History, 39.
15 Farrar, History, 267.
16 Farrar, History, 302.
17 Farrar, History, xi-xii.
18 S.L. Greenslade, The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Reformation
to the Present Day, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 47.
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predestined end of world history. Again, genuine historical understanding
removes the very serious difficulties created by the traditional view, which held
that all parts of Scripture were equally true because they were all equally the
direct utterance of God himself.19
The immediate inference of the quote cited above would be to reject the traditional churchly
understanding that all Scripture was inspired by God. One would be hard pressed to read any
portion of Reformation-era theology that does not indicate the high view these theologians had of
Scripture and that in fact they held in their hands a book given and preserved by God. But did
that common faith so compromise the reason of these men as to warrant the characterization of
“uncontrolled subjectivism”? Did the exegetes of the 17th century turn a blind eye to grammar,
syntax and diction as well as the larger questions of authorship, redaction and hermeneutics, or
did they wink at specific details and the hard questions for the sake of their own Protestant
agenda?
The focus of this paper is to examine Willet’s commentaries and to demonstrate that,
contrary to Farrar’s and the Cambridge History’s opinion, 17th century exegesis, exemplified by
Willet, is not mere dogmatism or “uncontrolled subjectivism.” To be noted specifically is Willet’s
extensive use of the exegesis of the Church Fathers, especially Origen, Augustine, and Jerome;
the exegetical approval and scope of the Septuagint for dogmatics; the many references to the
medieval schoolmen; and a high and consistent view of the exegetical tradition of the
Reformation. A disputation of Holy Scripture written by William Whitaker (1547-1595), a near-
contemporary of Willet, is also enlisted to help decide the case. Would Willet and Whitaker
confirm the conclusion drawn by Farrar, or has he attempted to disseminate that era’s theology to
engender support for his own contemporary agenda? Were Willet and his contemporaries so
driven by faith and dogmatics as to make exegesis and reason irrelevant?
19 Greenslade, The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 3, 302.
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Willet stands as perhaps the principal example of this era to the opposite of the claim of
“nonscientific.” Ainsworth’s Annotations on the Pentateuch, Psalms and Song of Solomon,
following a Talmudic model and critical in many respects, still lack the rigor employed by Willet
to work and worry through the text and tradition. Furthermore, by the time Matthew Poole wrote
his commentary it appears that much of the discussion raised by Willet and Ainsworth had been
received as the best proved exegesis and codified. Rather than debating the text’s merits, Poole
cites the received aspects of the exegetical tradition.20 Jack Rogers qualified the 1646
Westminster Confession of Faith as a pre-scientific statement,”21 as if to say that “the ancients
were not of a mindset to describe historical events, geographical details, or the natural world in
‘precise’ terms; they did not have at their disposal categories of measurement that could mesh in
a meaningful way with those employed by participants in the ‘new science’ (post-1650?).”22 If a
work is described as prescientific one would expect a nontextual, contextual, dogmatic
spiritualization of the written document in question, which in this case is the sacred text of the
believing community. Contrary to this erroneous assertion, Willet is still arguing in his exegesis
and commentary for the history, geography, diction, phonics, grammar, syntax and manuscript
support of the given passage in question.
Rather than subjectivism, Willet catalogs the exegesis of the entirety of the ecclesiastical
tradition, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, as he sought to establish the prepositional basis
20 Richard Muller, “Prolegomena to Theology,” in Post-Reformation Reformed
Dogmatics, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987), 13.
21 Jack B. Rogers, Scripture In The Westminster Confession: A Problem of the Historical
Interpretation for American Presbyterianism (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1966), 306.
22 John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982), 28. For a theological appraisal of this new
science see Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology trans. By J. Hendrick De Vries
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989), 347-348.
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for dogmatics. His voluminous commentaries were unrivaled by any exegete of this day and
represent the intensity to which he worried through the exegetical tradition.
An initial step will be taken to document the critical inquiry utilized in the exegetical
works of Andrew Willet to illustrate the enduring worth of post-Reformation scholarship. To the
extent that such documentation establishes the error of claims to the contrary, this study serves an
apologetic purpose as well. Though lacking the recognition of Ames and Perkins, Willet’s life
and writing contribute to the wealth of theological writing of his day and, as will be shown, serve
as a historical link between the first Reformation and the work of the post-Reformation exegetes.
Organization of the Study
This essay is divided into five sections. Chapter 1 has introduced us to Willet and has
raised the question of continuing worth of the Reformation writers. Chapter 2 is an introduction
to Andrew Willet’s life and work. His obscurity in church history commends itself to a brief
exposition of his life and work as a biblical commentator. Chapter 3 contains selected segments
of Willet’s work focusing on three main topics: 1) the authority of Scripture; 2) hermeneutics;
and 3) redaction. This section will analyze the history of interpretation up to Willet and examine
the views of interpretation in his period. Chapter 4 is composed of a cross section of exegetical
work taken from Willet’s commentaries to the end that three main questions may be answered:
What is Willet’s respect for the text of Scripture? Does Willet evidence continuity with the
Reformation? Is there a reason for reappraising the contemporary evaluation of the Reformation
theological method? Or, in other words, does Willet sound like what contemporary exegetes are
saying about the 17th-century theologians? Chapter 5 draws the essay to a close and is followed
by the Bibliography.
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Chapter 2
An Introduction to the Life and Work of Andrew Willet
Andrew Willet’s Life (1562-1621)23
Andrew Willet was born in 1562 in the little town of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England into
the home of Thomas Willet, subalmoner to Dr. Cox, schoolmaster under Edward VI. During the
reign of Queen Mary, Dr. Cox was exiled, and Thomas Willet was hidden away in the house of a
noble gentleman. During this time of hiding Thomas was deprived of his service and forced to
forsake his first promotion in the church of Windsor. Thomas’ wife meanwhile lived at a farm
near Reading, the two of them secretly meeting when they could in the midst of a time of great
hardship and adversity.
With the death of Queen Mary, Elizabeth was proclaimed the queen of England. Dr. Cox,
with other members of the clergy, was recalled from his banishment by Queen Elizabeth,
whereby the queen made him the Bishop of Ely. Dr. Cox called Thomas to join him as Prebend
in his church, and he was given the parsonage of Thurkiston in Leicestershire. It was during this
time that a messenger came to Bishop Cox to inform him of the death of the parson in
Hertfordshire, to whom the bishop replied, “He is not dead.” The messenger, hoping to clear up
the misunderstanding, assured the bishop that the parson was indeed dead and buried, to which
23 SP, 43-79. This account of the life of Andrew Willet is taken from an account given by
Peter Smith, son-in-law to Willet, and is found in its entirety under the title, “The Life and Death
of Andrew Willet, Doctor of Divinity.” A condensed version of Smith’s account of Willet’s life
can be found in “Dr. Andrew Willet,” The Lives of Ten Excellent Men (London: Printed for Mark
Pardoe, 1677), 53-71.
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the bishop again replied, “I tell you the parson of Barley is not dead, for there he sits,” pointing
to Mr. Willet, who was then sitting at his table.24
Parson Thomas Willet and his wife were noted for their liberality in giving and caring for
the poor and for their unselfishness in utilizing all they had for the betterment of those less
fortunate than themselves. Though they had little, they generously gave what they had. It is said
of Thomas Willet, “The whole revenue of Thurkiston, which, as I hear, is a living of good value
(besides the stipend of his curate), he spent amongst his neighbors there, relieving some way or
other every one of them; the better sort of them by hospitality and entertainment, the poorer by
his alms.”25 This was the home life of young Andrew Willet.
At fourteen years of age, Andrew was sent to the University of Cambridge, where he was
admitted into Peter-house under the care of Dr. Andrew Perne, Master of that college and his
godfather. Not long after that he moved to Christ College, where he met Dr. Downham, the
Bishop of Derry, in Ireland, and William Perkins (1558-1602), “and others his equals, whom he
might have cause to emulate.”26
At twenty-two Willet’s broke into the public eye with his first publication, De anima
natura & viribus. For the next five years he distinguished himself as an orator and public
speaker.
After spending thirteen years in the university, Willet’s father resigned his prebend in the
Church of Ely. Having received this office, Andrew left the fellowship he had in Christs College
24 SP, 43-44.
25 SP, 43-44.
26 SP, 47. In The Lives of Ten Excellent Men, printed in 1677, Willet is listed fourth after
Dr. John Reynolds, Mr. Richard Hooker and Dr. William Whitaker. The remaining six men as Dr.
Daniel Featly, Waltar Norban, Esq., Mr. John Gregory, Bishop Duppa, Archbishop Bramball and
Bishop Taylor.
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and was married. God blessed the Willet family with eleven sons and seven daughters. Smith
gives the following account of Willet’s dedication to those in his community.
His manner was to arise early in the morning, and to get half way on his journey
before others could get out; he came down at the hour of prayer, taking his family
with him to church (after he was preferred to the rectory of Barley, upon the death
of his father) there service was publicly read, either by himself or his curate, to
the great comfort of his parishioners, before they went out to their daily labours.
Prayers being ended, he returns to his task, again until near dinner time: then he
would recreate himself a while, either playing upon a little organ, or sporting with
his young children; and sometimes he would use cleaving of wood to exercise his
body: At his table he was always pleasant to his company, telling some pretty
apothegm or facet tale, and seasoning it with some profitable application. After
dinner his custom was to refresh himself a little, sometimes sitting in discourse,
sometimes walking abroad, and now and then taking some view of his husbandry:
after which straightway to his better employments again till supper time: so that
commonly (without extraordinary avocations) he spent no less than eight hours a
day in his study.27
While engaged in the rigors of writing and study, he never omitted his regular exercise of
preaching. Early in his life, Willet lectured for three years in the Cathedral Church of Ely and
this was followed by a one-year preaching ministry at St. Paul’s in London. Sometimes he
preached in Cambridge (both Ad Clerum and Ad Populum), “discovering himself to be the only
man, Quem rui non insuscavit, whom the country had not stained: and therefore at his last degree
was chosen to answer in the Divinity Act.”28 Daly notes that Willet frequently preached at court,
and being admired by King James became chaplain-in-ordinary and tutor to Prince Henry.29
Willet was also profoundly interested in the affairs of the English monarchy, both
domestic and foreign, and sometimes raised the ire of the king. An allusion to the tension
27 Smith, Ten Excellent Men, 58-60.
28 Smith, Ten Excellent Men, 61.
29 Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” 182.
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between Willet and the monarchy is located in the Epistle Dedicatorie to Henry, Prince of Wales,
in the second book on his commentary of Daniel (1610). Defending his work, Willet says,
If any mislike my diligence in writing, as this age wanteth not carpers, I much
pass not their unfriendly centure, so that I may do good to others . . .. I have
heretofore exercised my pen in handling of controversies against the common
adultery, and as I was provoked, have written also in mine own defense, both
against foreign enemies and some domestic . . .. In which kind, as heretofore I
have exhibited to your highness a brief and compendiary treatise upon some part
of scripture, so now I make amends with a larger commentary, whereof your
princely piety, virtue, clemency (of which late I have particular experience) do
promise and even assure me of your gracious acceptance.30
Daly also writes of one instance when “Willet was opposed to the Spanish match and sent letters
to parliament through Sir John Higham of Bury arguing them to protest the proposed alliance. He
also sent copies of the arguments to the King who was sufficiently angered to have Willet
imprisoned for a month.”31
Like his parents before him, Andrew was charitable and generous to those in need; for his
neighbors and those who requested his help, he would be an advocate in behalf of those who
needed assistance in dealing with others, either personally or in writing. Andrew also served as a
judge between parties who had a dispute that they could not settle themselves. With the help of
other investors and using his influence, Andrew purchased a tenement in Barley, with the help of
other investors for the “use and benefit of the poor of that town.”32
In 1621, while Willet was returning home from London after meeting with the printer
about his Hexapla in Leviticus, Willet’s horse fell. In the fall, Willet’s right leg was broken.
30 HD, Epistle Dedicatorie.
31 Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” 182. This temporary imprisonment was in
February of 1618.
32 Smith, Ten Excellent Men, 64.
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Being placed back upon his horse, he rode a short distance to the town of Hodsdon. There he
turned into an inn and called for a doctor to set the bone. The doctor instructed Willet to rest for
ten days before continuing home. Smith writes, “His leg was thought to be well set, and no
danger feared that way; he continued to the tenth day hearty and pleasant.”33 On the tenth day,
December 4, 1621, his health worsened. After commending himself to God, encouraging his
wife, and singing Psalm 146, Willet breathed out a deep groan and fainted. Being aroused, Smith
records, he uttered his last words, “Let me alone, I shall be well, Lord Jesus.” Dr. Andrew Willet
was buried three days later in the town of Barley.
Andrew Willet’s “Emblematics” and the Divine Right of Kings.
Andrew Willet was recognized as England’s first religious emblem writer, the style and
content of his Sacorum emblematum centuria una, “One hundred Sacred Emblems,” has received
limited attention. Emblematics are “collections of self-contained verbal-visual statements, which
the author makes little attempt to organize into logical groupings” meant for religious instruction
and spiritual edification.34 That Willet would engage in this genre is not surprising, considering
the didactic manner in which he wrote and taught.
The essays of Deihl Huston, Peter Daly and Paola Valeria-Tomaszuk are valuable
resources to introduce Willet’s single volume of emblematics. Their analyses of the politics and
theology of Willet drawn from his emblematics contribute to the reconstruction of Willet’s
thought.35 However, by focusing almost exclusively on Willet’s emblematics and literary
33 Smith, Ten Excellent Men, 77.
34 Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” 186, c.f., 183.
35 See Diehl, “Graven Images,” 54-66, and Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” es
187-188.
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interpretations, the Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk article must in at least one instance be considered
preliminary. There is one point extrapolated from Willet’s emblematics, as it is presented in
Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk essay, that requires fuller consideration. This conclusion is drawn from
emblem 33:
Euen so mens rage God soone doth stay,
and tyrants always beare not sway,
God will not suffer them to stray
beyond limits set.36
Daly concludes that “Obedience to authority is evidently still required when the ruler is a tyrant,”
and that Willet’s explicit statement
is that God in his foreknowledge and providence regulates all things. The
implication is that it is given to the subject to bear patiently bad government and
an evil king … The implication is inescapable: It is for God to punish and not
man. There is no room in Willet’s world-view for political rebellion. He evidently
subscribes to the Tudor monarchist ideology, which sees in the person of the king
God’s vice regent and vice regent on earth – that is, the theory of the divine right
of kings.37
Though Willet could be characterized as a monarchist, he was a monarchist in transition. While
clearly not a Puritan, Willet was not “far removed” from Puritanism in his social and political
outlook.38 More precisely, Willet’s exegesis expressed that line of thought which would promote
the republican political plank of the superiority of the law to the king and not the superiority or
equality of the king to the law.
The duties of the civil government and of individual citizens to the civil government are
taken up at length in Willet’s commentary on Romans 13. An evil governor or tyrant is defined
36 Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” 192.
37 Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” 192.
38 Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” 192.
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by Willet as someone not attaining to the place of government “by lawful means” and those who
do not rule “according to the rules of God’s revealed will.”39 Willet asserts, “that evil governor’s
rule not by God’s permission only … but wherein God’s providence is seen, and such evil
governor’s are not sent without God’s secret will and ordinance for the punishment of men’s
sins.”40 But he qualified, “Neither is a Tyrant to be obeyed, if he command anything contrary to
the word of God”41
Willet’s patriotic allegiance to King James I would still not allow his commitment to the
monarchy and the monarchy’s commitment to the bishops to override his biblical exegesis.42 He
makes a clear distinction between the role of the civil government in deposing a tyrant king and
the role of each citizen regarding the same.
As touching upon the right of the civil government to police itself, Willet cites Pareus,
who gives four criteria whereby the inferior magistrates “may defend themselves, the
Commonwealth, and the Church, and the true faith, even by force of arms against a Tyrant”:
when the prince degenerates into a tyrant, blatantly breaks the law, fails to act equitably with his
subjects and forces them to an idolatrous and false religion; that if they do not resist, they
endanger the safety of their lives and consciences; that under the pretense of such a defense, they
seek not their own revenge; and, that all things be done in moderation for the preservation and
not the undoing of the state. A partial list of Willet’s reasons for maintaining this political
position follows:
39 HR, 582.
40 HR, 582.
41 HR, 582.
42 See PE, LG, CS.
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1. From the institution of God, and the end of the ordinance of the Magistrate,
which is to be avenged of evil doers, and for the praise of the good: they do not
bare the sword for naught: the inferior magistrates then having the sword, may
exercise their power, in restraining the tyranny of superior governors: and for this
cause inferior Magistrates are joined with the superior, not only as helpers, but to
moderate their licentious and outrageous government: and therefore where they
bridle the insolency of Tyrants, … they use the sword delivered unto them from
God by a lawful vocation.
2. Like a furious and mad man may be removed from the government, as
Nebuchadnezzar was cast forth by public authority, Dan. 4.31, so a Tyrant also
differeth not from a made and furious man.
3. They which have the power to constitute the Magistrate, as where they enter by
election of the Senate, consent of the people, or by other electors appointed, have
power also to restrain their immoderate government.43
Willet is more circumspect when addressing the issue of a citizen’s right to resist tyranny, but he
does nevertheless argue for such resistance. As touching a citizen’s response to a tyrannical king
he says,
if a man’s life be assaulted, or the chastity of his wife, or the liberty and safety of
his children, against all color of law, nature teacheth a man here to use defense.
Further the cause must be considered, for the which the subject is assaulted; if it is
a civil matter, resistance may more safely be used.44
He is extremely cautious about giving license to the citizenry to rebel against an unjust
ruler. One should resist only for conscience’s sake, never for the sake of property and only in
defense of one’s life. And while the citizenry may engage in civil resistance, they should likewise
willingly suffer for the faith.45 He argues for resistance within prescribed parameters but not
assault, and even resistance is to be avoided if in the resistance other innocent parties could be
43 HR, 592.
44 HR, 193.
45 HR, 593.
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harmed.46 Granted Willet’s high view of God’s appointment of “evil governors,” he nevertheless
avows, with these restraints and limitations, “some defense may be granted even unto private
subjects against Tyrants.”47
Though a tyrant may be sent from God to purge a nation, that tyrant is not above the law.
The sword may be applied by the lesser magistrates to that tyrant who breaks the law, and the
members of the commonwealth can in all conscience resist him and protect their lives and the
lives of their families from tyrannical intervention. Willet’s position is highlighted when
compared in the same genre to that of Matthew Poole and his commentary on Romans 13.
Commenting on verse 2, Poole says, “seeing the civil power is of God, and of His ordination;
therefore, it must not be resisted or opposed. To resist authority, is to wage war against God
himself,” and verse 4, speaking of the king or magistrate, “he is in God’s room upon earth”48
To say, “There is no room in Willet’s world-view for political rebellion” is too sweeping a
statement. Indeed, as a committed subject to King James, Willet’s exegesis represents a
reevaluation of the relationship between the bishop and the king indicative of King James’s
refrain, “No bishop, no king” and thus an openness to the role of Presbyterianism and parliament
in ruling the commonwealth. Willet’s exegesis points to a position as it relates to kings not
dissimilar from that which would unfold in Lex Rex authored by the Scottish Presbyterian
Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661).49 Willet was burdened with the conflict between parliament and
46 HR, 594.
47 HR, 594.
48 Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, vol. 3 (London: Banner of Truth
Trust, 1979), 524.
49 Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or The Law and the Prince (London: Printed for John
Field, and are to be sold at his house upon Addle-hill, near Baynards-Castle. Octob. 7, 1644;
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King James’s press to control the episcopacy and the resultant ecclesiastical encroachments upon
Presbyterianism in Scotland.50 He prays,
Lord grant that the glory of his own name be advanced, the King’s honor exalted,
agreement between his Majestie and the Parliament concluded; the flourishing of
the Church obtained; the peace of the Kingdome settled; and all divisions amongst
us reconciled, Amen.51
He laments the strife between England and Scotland, reaching back in history and finding
Such was the unity between England and Scotland, that not only the external wars
was then like to cease for ever between the two nations, but one uniform religion
was also forced to constrain them in perfect love and unity, that neither the
Church of Scotland should be jealous of the English Church, as inclining in
something to Popery, nor the English subjects the other, as affecting a popular
parity: but as loving sisters and fellow Tribles should hold on, Worship God, and
go up to Jerusalem together.52
Willet’s worldview did not include a principled methodology for a military removal of a tyrant
king and civilian resistance. He was however hard pressed to argue his principles in his time by
placing King James I, as a protector of the Church of England, in a most favorable light. Daly
has confused Willet’s personal respect for King James with his exegetically informed position on
the relationship of the king to the law and to the commonwealth.
In addition, there is one other significant index to Willet’s exegetical emphasis: his
commentaries contain no references to what was commonly called the Bishops’ Bible, while the
Geneva Bible and Great Bible are utilized liberally. If Willet were a true royalist, he would not
reprint by Harrisonville, Virginia: Sprinkle Publications, 1982). See especially, Questions IX,
XX, XXII, XXX, XXXI, XXXIII, and XXXIV.
50 Williston Walker, et al., The History of the Christian Church, 4th ed. (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983), 551-552.
51 LG, 8.
52 PE, 2. Also see Willet’s commentary on Jude, 91-92, and his appreciation for the
Scottish pastors.
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have been expected to use the Geneva Bible, which included in its margins a Puritan and
Republican commentary.53 The Bishops’ Bible was so called because it was qualified bishops
who performed the translation work and completed the first edition in 1568. A new edition with a
careful revision of the Old Testament was done in 1572. It was clear to competent scholars of the
day that the Bishops; Bible was an unsatisfactory edition of the Bible in English. Not only did it
clearly reflect the theology of the bishops, alienating the Puritans (and thus in 1603, one element
of the Millenary Petition), but also the translation itself required further revision. To compound
the problem, the scholars in England, Willet being one of them, were aware of the quality of the
Geneva Bible, its continental rival.54
Willet made his choice both on theological and on scholarly grounds. Both a loyal subject
of King James and a minister of the Church of England, Willet was prudent in his honor of the
king and in his exegesis and practical application of the Bible.
Andrew Willet’s Writings
In his day Andrew Willet was known “as a Protestant divine and prolific writer of
theological works and Bible commentary.”55 In the preface of the Hexapla in Leviticus is the
catalog of Willet’s writings, with three of his printed works, Contra Bellarminum, Limbomastix
and Loedoromastix, omitted. The full list taken from his commentary on Leviticus is as follows:
53 Olga S. Opfell, The King James Bible Translators (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland and Co.,
Inc., 1982), 22. An example of the notes can be found at Rev. 9:3 which describes the coming of
the locusts: “Locusts are false teachers, heretics, and worldly subtle prelates, with monks, friars,
cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, doctors, masters, which forsake Christ and maintain false
doctrine;” Ira Maurice Price, The Ancestry of Our English Bible (Philadelphia: The Sunday
School Times Co., 1923).
54 Price, Ancestry, 268.
55 Daly/Valerie-Tomaszuk, “Emblem Writer,” 181.
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A. Printed books in Latin: 1. De anima; 2. Sacra Emblemata; 3. De universali vocatione
Judaerum; 4. Do concilys; 5. De universali gratia; 6. De antichristo; 7.
Epithalamium; 8. Funebres Conciones; 9. Apologie Serenissimi Regis defensio.
B. Printed books in English: 14. Synopsis Papismi, in five books; 16. Hexapla in
Genesis, in two books; 18. Hexapla in Exodus, in two books; 20. An Harmonie upon
the 1 and 2 books of Samuel; 21. Hesapla on Daniel; 22. Hesapla upon the epistle to
the Romans; 23. Upon the 122 Psalm; 24. Upon the 17 of John; 25. Upon the epistle
of S. Jude; 26. Epithalamium in English; 27. The said funeral sermons in English; 28.
An English Catechism; 29. A Retection; 30. An Antilogie; 31. Hexapla upon
Leviticus.
C. Unpublished works in Latin: 32. Comment. In Jonam; 33. Sacri Paralli; 34. Scali
Coeli; 35. Heptaphonon; 36. Catechismus Latinus; 37. Antithesis Pontificiae &
Evangelicae Doctrinae; 38. Variae Lectiones in Pentateuch.
D. Unpublished works in English: 39. An Exegesis, or exposition upon Genesis; 40
Marginal annotations upon the Pentateuch.56
Some comments on Willet’s labors are in order. Willet’s massive work, Synopsis Papismi
is 1,352 folio pages exposing the error of Roman Catholicism. It went through five editions, the
fifth being published by special commendation of King James I.57 Willet characterizes his work
as “A general view of the Papistrie: Wherein the whole mystery of iniquity, and sum of anti-
56 HL, Preface. Of the forty-three books written by Willet, nine were in process at the
time of his death.
57 Smith, Ten Excellent Men, 60. Willet’s commentaries are full of dedications to officers
of state and principally King James I. For example, Willet’s first tome of his Genesis
commentary, the first tome of his Exodus commentary, his commentary on Psalm 122, Ecclesia
Triumphans, upon the king coming to the throne, and his Romans commentary are all dedicated
to King James I.
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Christian doctrine is set down which is maintained this day by the synagogue of Rome against
the Church of Christ. He then describes the first section of the work, “The first book or
controversy: Wherein are handled the chief and principle controversies of the Scriptures, the
church, general councils, the Pope, the clergy, monks and the civil magistrate.”58 In short, this
book is a survey and an analysis of all the doctrinal controversies of the era.
Willet’s renown reached far beyond his life’s calling as a country pastor. Willet’s
popularity in England was complemented by his readership on the continent. The auction catalog
of the library of Gomarus lists the Synopsis Papismi, Hexapla in Genesin and Contra
Bellarminum as parts of his collection.59 It is said of Willet that “Justly is he numbered by Bishop
Hall (sometime his colleague in the service of Prince Henry) among the Worthies of the Church
of England, to whom he gives this Elegy, Stupor mundi clerus Britannicus.”60
Andrew Willet’s Sixfold Methodology: Hexapla
Willet’s sixfold exegetical methodology, followed in most commentaries, was probably
his most significant contribution. Willet designed his commentaries to address the text from six
perspectives, calling the six “Hexapla: that is, a six fold commentarie.”61 For Jude and his
commentary on John 17, Willet also included a fold-out flow chart of his discussion to illustrate
58 SP, 1-2.
59 The Auction Catalogue of the Library of F. Gomarus, a facsimilie edition with an
introduction by E. Dekker, J. Knoop, C. M. L. Verdegaal (Utretcht: Hes Publishers, 1996), 16,
49.
60 Smith, Ten Excellent Men, 60-61.
61 HR, title page.
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the logical and grammatical connections within the passage. The six categories, though they are
not always listed in this order, are briefly described below.
1. The Text with Its Diverse Readings.
Here Willet addresses both textual critical and alternative readings specifically as they
address the Hebrew, Latin, Syriac, Greek and cognate languages. Willet utilized an extensive
nomenclature and system for noting the diction, grammar, or syntax of the passage in question.
In the preface of his commentary on Genesis, under the heading “Certain directions to the reader
to be observed in the reading of this book” he informs the reader of his commentary’s continuity
with past writers drawing from the commentaries of Mercerus and Pererius after the manner in
which Jerome utilized the writings of Origen: “I have caused that our country men should know
the best things, and be ignorant of his worst.”62 Willet then describes the textual apparatus for the
critical references he would cite throughout the work. First letters represent the various
resources, and abbreviations represent grammatical or syntactical observations: S for Septuagint;
H for the Latin thought to be Jerome’s; C for the Chaldee; P for Pagnius; A for Arius Montanus;
B for the Great English Bible; G for the Geneva Bible; T for Tremellius, he for the Hebrew text
and cat. For cateri, the rest.63
It is also important to note Willet’s detail in marginal notes. The full list follows: ad.,
addeth; differ. ver., different words; diver. Accep., divers takings; app. F. pr., appellative for
proper; plu. f. sing., plural number for singular; de., detract or take away; cor., corrupt; div. sig.,
divers significations; nega. F. affir., negative for affirmative; invert., inverting of order; al, alt.,
62 HG, Preface.
63 HG, Preface.
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altering of the text; differ. pron., difference of pronunciation; mut pers., change of person; differ
temp., difference of the tense; simil. Voc., likeness of the words; interp., interpret, when the sense
is kept and not the workds; transp., transposing of words; mut. Temp., change of the tense; mut.
Voc., change of the voice, as when the active is put for the passive, or contrariwise; r., right; c.,
corrupt.64
In his commentary on Exodus, he provides this list of sources that span the scope of
church history and cross confessional boundaries: Josephus, Origen, Cyprian, Cyril, Chrysostom,
Jerome, Augustine, Gregory, Theodoret, Damascene, Lyranus, Thomas Aquinas, Hugo
Cardinalis, Isidore, Hugo de S. Victor, Burgensis, Rupertus, Rabanus, Luther, Calvin, Pagnine,
Junium annot., Arias Montanus, Junius analysis, Pellican, Simlerus, Gallasius, Marbachius,
Pelargus, Borrhaus, Osiander, Aretius, Zeiglerus, Cajetanus, Lippomanus, Tostatus, Ferus,
Pereius, Vatablus, Oleaster, Piscator, Genevens.65
Willet’s work is an expression of the historic ecclesiastical and exegetical tradition. His
commentaries served a winnowing purpose for identifying orthodoxy in the labors of his
patristic, medieval and Reformation counterparts. The section following provides brief
descriptions of dates and accomplishments of the less well know exegetes and theologians Willet
cross-referenced in his commentaries.
64 HG, Preface.
65 The reference to the “Genevens” in the margin of the commentary is directly adjacent
to Willet’s list including Luther, Calvin, Simlerus, Junius and Genevens and “other worthie
writers among Protestants.” By “Genevens” Willet probably means the consensus of the Genevan
exegetes.
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Cyprian (beginning of the 3rd c. - 258), bishop of Carthage; Cyprian’s most import work
was De unitate ecclesiae. He is also known for reworking two of Tertullian’s works, De oratione
and De patientia.66
Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444); results of his exegetical labors against Nestorius produced
seventeen books “On Worship in the Spirit and Truth” and thirteen books of “Elegant
Expositions” on the Pentateuch as well as numerous other commentaries on the Old and New
Testaments. His hermeneutical method that took prominenece in his exegesis was “the typico-
allegorical interpretation characteristic of the Alexandrian school in opposition to the Antiochian
school.” His most important work was a comprehensive commentary on the Gospel of John.67
Theodoret (393-457), bishop of Cyrrhus and an Old and New Testament exegete. Before
430 he wrote a commentary on the Song of Solomon; before 436 commentaries on Psalms,
Daniel, Ezekiel and the minor prophets; before 448 commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah and the
Pauline epistles. Between 452-453 he published Quaestiones dealing with the books of Samuel,
Kings and Chronicles. Theodoret was not familiar with the Hebrew and used the Syrian
translation, Greek versions and the Septuagint. He is noted for his grammatical/historical method
of exegesis.68
Isidore of Seville (560-636), archbishop of Seville, like Willet he was an encyclopedist,
collating the writings of the church. He produced the first dogmatics of the Latin church Libri
Sententiarum, and the Etymologiae, “the source of linguistic and practical knowledge for
66 Samuel Macauley Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge, vol. 3 (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1908), 330-332. 67 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 3,
333-334.
68 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 11,
323-325.
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centuries, so that he became the schoolmaster of the middle ages.”69 His Etymologiarum sive
originum libri viginti was the culmination of all his seventeen major writings. Isidore’s chief
sources were Cassidorius, Boethius,Varro, Solinus, Pliny, Hyginus, Servius, Lactantius,
Tertullian and especially Prata of Suetonius. “The Etymologiae remained the great work of
reference for hundreds of years, and was practically copies by Rabanus in his encyclopedic De
universo (844)”70
John of Damascus (c. 700 – c. 754); the last of the Greek Fahters and the most
authoritative theologian for the whole of the Eastern Church.71 His three earliest writings were
“Apologetic treatises against those denying the holy images.” His chief dogmatic work was
“Fount of Knowledge,” his favorite sources being Gregory Nazianzan, Basil, Dionysius the
Areopagite and Leontius. Of Damascene it is said that “he presents a convenient and instructive
summary of what the ancient Greek Church accomplished in the field of dogmatics.”72
Rabanus (between 776-784-856); “one of the most important churchmen of exegesis in
the Carolingian period.”73 At a time when allegorical interpretations were prominent, Rabanus
wrote a commentary on Matthew (814-822?) that was the compilation of Jerome, Augustine, and
Gregory the Great. His commentary on the Pentateuch also followed the same manner of
compiling the works of his predecessors. He wrote commentaries on the Old Testament historical
69 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 6, 47.
70 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 6, 48.
71 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 6,
208.
72 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 6,
209.
73 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 9,
376.
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books, adding Maccabees but excluding Ezra and Nehemiah. His commentaries also included
works on Proverbs, the Pauline epistles and the Gospel of John. Rabanus also produced the
Allegoriae, a collection of terms used allegorically in Scripture, with explanations and
examples.74
Oecumenius (died around the end of the 10th century); medieval exegete. He is the
“supposed author of a commentary in the form of a catena on the Acts, the epistles of St. Paul
(including Hebrews), and the Catholic epistles, together with a brief exposition of the
Apocalypse.”75 Phoius is the reference most frequently cited by Oecumenius.
Lyranus (1270-1340); the French exegete Nicholas of Lyra in 1322 published a
commentary on Genesis and in 1326 a commentary on Isaiah. He also wrote commentaries on
Peter Lombard. His voluminous Postillae went through numerous editions and “enjoyed extra-
ordinary popularity in the middle ages.” The Postillae consisted of fifty books of running
commentary on the entire Bible, including the Apocrypha, followed by thirty-five more books of
moralie; the whole was preceded by three prologues. Lyra utilized the literal sense in his
exegesis and a strong connection with Rashi the Hebrew exegete. Luther consulted Lyra for his
interpretation of Genesis, as did Melancthon and other Reformers for their exegesis. A
Reformation axiom read, “If Lyra had not played the lyre, Luther (or, those learned in the Bible)
would not have danced.”76
74 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 9,
376-377.
75 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 8,
226.
76 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 7, 99.
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Rupertus (middle 11th century, 1135); Rupert of Deutz. His most important writing was
De trinitate (1114), which is occupied with the mystical interpretation of the Old Testament
ceremonial law and sacrificial system. Of Rupert it is “far more important to know that he was,
in his teachings, a mirror of the church history of the twelfth century. In philosophy he was a
platonizing mystic, a follower of Augustine, Johannes Scotus Erigena, Bernard of Chartres, and
Odo of Cambray.”77
Hugo of St. Victor (c. 1097-1141); one of the three most influential theologians of the
12th century. His writings include a commentary on Ecclesiastes, a commentary on the
Pentateuch based largely on Bede, commentaries on Judges and Kings, 19 homilies on the first
four chapters of Ecclesiastes, an allegorical-mystical commentary on Lamentations and a more
literal work on Joel and Obadiah, Annotationes elucidatorie in quosdam Psalmos and Allegoriae
in vetus et novum testamentum. His principal dogmatic work was Summa sententiarum.78
Hugo Cardinalis (born toward the end of the 12th century, 1263), Hugh of St. Cher; he
was the first to write a commentary on Peter Lombard. He also wrote a commentary on the
whole Bible and the oldest biblical Correctorium, which was a list of improved readings of the
Latin text of the Bible. By so doing he wished to go back to the original text for the restoration of
the genuine text of the vulgate and the restoration of the most correct Latin version. Hugh’s
principles were adopted by most of the later medieval correctors. His activity as a theological
writer was evidence further with the production of a Bible study help, Sacrorum bibliorum
77 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 10,
113-115.
78 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 5,
390-392.
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concordantiae, an alphabetically arranged compilation of the inflected works found in the
ecclesiastical translation of the Bible, with all the passages in which they occur.79
Alonzo Tostado (1400?-1455); Roman Catholic exegete and theologian. Tostatus wrote
some 70 works in 60,000 pages. He concentrated mostly on the exegesis of Scripture and
theological interests.80 His work is often that which Willet focuses on disproving.
Thomas Cajetan (1469-1534); in 1517 Pope Leo X made him a cardinal and in 1518
appointed him as a legate to the Diet of Augsburg to examine Luther’s teachings. Cajetan on
Luther exclaimed, “I do not want to have any further parley with that beast; for he has sharp eyes
and wonderful speculations in his head.”81 He wrote commentaries on the greater part of the Old
and New Testaments, which he treated critically, and “allowed himself considerable latitude in
departing from the literal and traditional interpretation.”82
Vatablus (d. 1547); French Hebraist and theologian, Vatablus was never a published
author. Rather, his research and notes were incorporated in the publications of others. His notes
on the Psalms are found in the Liber Psalmarum Davidis printed by Stephens in 1557. “From the
lecture notes of the numerous scholars of Vatablus, Robert Stephens drew the material for the
notes which he added to his edition of the Bible of Paris, 1545 . . ..”83
79 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 5,
389.
80 William J. McDonald, ed., New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 14 (New York: McGraw-
Hill Book Co., 1967), 209.
81 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 2,
338-339.
82 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 2,
338.
83 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 12,
143-144.
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Santes Pagnini (1470-1536); a philologist and biblical scholar who taught oriental studies
in Rome until 1521. His most important work is Veteris et novi testamenti nova translation
(1528). The fruit of twenty-five years of labor, it was the first Latin translation of the Hebrew
since that of Jerome.84
Konrad Pellikan (1478-1556); in 1499 Pellikan began his Hebrew study and subsequently
wrote a Hebrew glossary for the Stern Meschiah. In 1501 he wrote De modo legendi et
intelligendi Hebraeum. As an exegete and translator while at Zurich from 1532-1539 he authored
Commentaria Bibliorum.85
Andreas Osiander I (1498-1552); Lutheran exegete. In 1522 Osiander translated a Latin
version of the Bible by means of the original text with marginal annotations. In 1527, against
Eck, he wrote “The Remarkable Prophecy,” and against Rome, Conjecturae de ultimis
temporibus.86
Martin Borrhaus (1499-1564), known as Cellarius, in 1515 he was made Magister
articum at Tubingen, where he became close friends with Melancthon, two years his senior. His
first work, De operibus Dei was published in 1527. In 1544 he was appointed professor of the
Old Testament at Basel.87
84 McDonald, ed., New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 10, 862.
85 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 8,
444-445.
86 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 8,
280-281.
87 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 1,
236.
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Aretius (1505-1574); his chief work, Theologiae problemata (1573), was a compendium
of the theological knowledge of the era and was highly valued. Another of his works, Examen
theologicum (1551) ran through six editions in 14 years. He also wrote a commentary on the
New Testament (1538, 1616), on the Pentateuch (1602), the second edition with the Psalms
added (1618).88
Marbachius (1521-1581); a Lutheran Reformer who lived in the same house with Luther
while in Wittenberg, Marbachius was an outspoken Lutheran. He addressed issues surrounding
the nature of the Eucharist and ubiquity. His polemic was aimed against Calvinists,
Schwenkenfeldians and Anabaptists alike. In 1551 he was an envoy from Strasbourg to the
Council of Trent. His three principal writings in these debates were published in 1565, 1567 and
1579.89
Josias Simler (1530-1576); a Swiss Protestant who translated Protestant writings into
Latin. In 1552 he was installed as professor of New Testament at Zurich. His Commentarii in
Exodum was published posthumously in 1584. Among the many books produced by this prolific
writer were Oratio de vita et obitu . . . Petri Martyris Vermilli (1563) and De ortu vita et obitu . .
. Henrici Bullingeri (1575). Simler also wrote against Italian antitrinitarianism and in the defense
of orthodox Christianity.90
Franciscus Junius (1545-1602); a Reformed theologian. Junius was a genuine pupil of
Calvin, holding his same theological convictions. In 1573 he assisted in a Lating translation of
88 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 1,
277.
89 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 7,
166-167.
90 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 10,
417-418.
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the Old Testament. His Parallela sacra (1588), a treatist of Old Testament quotations in the New,
“was epoch making for biblical exegesis.”91 Against Bellarmine in defense of Protestantism he
wrote Animad versions (1602). In another polemic work he attacked the antitrinitarians in
Defensio catholicae doctrinae (1592).
Johannes Piscator (1546-1625); from 1595 to 1609 Piscator prepared Latin commentaries
of the New Testament. In 1612 and 1618 he published commentaries on the Old Testament and
from 1605-1619 he worked on a German translation of the Bible. Piscator “left a multitude of
text-blocks in philosophy, philology, and theology, of which Aphorismi doctrinae Christianae
was much used.”92
Luigi Lippomano (1550-1559); a papal diplomat and theological writer. His literary
activity was voluminous and essentially apologetic in nature. Best known of his work is the
hagiographic anthology Sanctorum priscorum patrum vitae in eight volumes (1551-1560).93
Willet writes in the introductory pages of his commentary on Exodus, “I have made use
of this commentary, both of Protestant and Popish writers, old and new upon this book (as I have
here set them down in the margin) not rejecting the judgment of any witness for the truth,” and
quotes Ambrose as saying, “Sometimes we read that others should not read them; we read them,
not to be ignorant of them; we read them, not to retain them, but to reject them.”94
Under the heading, “The text with its diverse readings,” Willet provides the reader with a
thoroughly informed account of the churchly tradition as it relates to the subject at hand. He
91 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 6,
266.
92 Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 9, 73.
93 McDonald, ed., New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8, 783-784.
94 HE, introduction.
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begins by cataloging the textual variants and various renderings. For example, in his commentary
on Romans Willet cites (Vatabulus (V.), vulgar Latin (L.), Beza (Be.), Syriac (S.), Tremellius
translation (T.), Great Bible (B.), Geneva (Ge), Greek (Gr.) and sometime Original (Or.).95 To
briefly illustrate Willet’s method, four verses from Romans 1 are given:
1:4: Declared to be the sonne of God (not known, T. or presdestinate, L. or
destinate to bee the Sonne of God V.) in power, L. (not mightily, G.Be. or by
power, V. according to the spirit of sanctification, G. Be.V. not according to the
holy spirit, T. or the spirit of the sanctifieth, R.) by the resurrection of the dead:
T.B.G.Be. (not of the dead) even Jesus Christ our Lord: Be.T. (not of Jesus Christ
our Lord, L.V.R.B. for it must be referred to the beginning of the third verse and
all that followeth must be enclosed in parenthesis: so the Genevens doe transpose
it: but it is safest to put it in the last place, according to the original: with
reference, as is said before.)
1:11: For I long to see you, that I might impart unto Be.L. (bestow among you,
B.G.) some spiritual gift; that ye may be stablished, B.B. (or confirmed, T.V. to
confirm you, L.R. but the word is in the passive.)
1:22: When they professed themselves to be wise: B.G. (saying themselves to be
wise, L.R. counting, B. thinking, T. but is better translated
professing) they became fools.
1:29: Being full of unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness, (rather than, iniquitie, malice, fornication, and wickedness, L.B.
for the order is inverted: for the Greek copies, and the Syriak put fornication in
the second place. See qu. 23 following) full of enview, murder, debate, deceit, evil
conditioned, V.B. (taking things in the worse part, G. full of evi thoughts, T.
malignity, L. Be., the word is, churlishness, morosity).96
Noticeable weight is given by Willet to the renderings of the various versions. The
version had already ungone the grammatical and syntactical scrutiny of exegetes an thus lent
itself to a fuller explication of the apographa. To begin again with the raw data would be to
reinvent the exegetical and interpretive wheel.
95 HR, Preface.
96 HR, 29-30. “See qu. 23 following,” should read qu. 73. Here Willet catalogs the words
listed in verses 29 and 30.
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2. Argument and Method
This segment provides a cursory running commentary of the chapter’s contents. It
presents the argument as would a sermon in pointing out the logical and grammatical
connections and dependencies within the passage, thereby constructing a suitable framework
from which to work. For Romans 1, Willet breaks the chapter down into the following four
divisions which he develops: 1) vv. 1-8, the inscription; 2) vv. 9-16, the exordium or introduction
to the matter; 3) vv. 17-18, the proposition and argument concerning justification by faith; 4) vv.
19-31, the confirmation or proof.97
3. The Questions Discussed
Reminiscent of the methodology of Thomas’s Summa Theologica, Willet presents salient
arguments representing the diversity of views for the interpretation of a passage. He quotes the
churchly tradition from the citations of the Church Fathers and, where applicable, rabbinical
sources, and he argues the textual and translation questions of each passage. This portion of the
commentary is usually quite lengthy, the questions of each passage. This portion of the
commentary is usually quite lengthy, the questions asked in Romans 1 being 77.98 While
carefully negotiating the variations, Willet methodically eliminates those he shows to be illogical
or exegetically inconsistent with the churchly tradition and brings the discussion to a conclusion
by showing a logically consistent interpretation and an exegesis couched within an ecclesiastical
and redemptive context.
97 HR, 31.
98 HR, 86.
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4. Doctrines Noted
Here Willet deals principally with those elements of the passage that have come under
scrutiny in the churchly tradition and the interpretation of those passages. This part of the
hexapla corresponds most closely to the discussion of the passage, as would Melancthon’s Loci
communes, “common places (seats),” or Calvin’s commentaries. Willet addresses only the
doctrinal concerns as they had come into question throughout the exegetical tradition. In Romans
chapter 3 Willet comments on verses, 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 19, 21, 24 and 25 under 13 headings.
5. Controversies Handled
This category is the primary vehicle to weave a polemic based on his exegesis against the
papacy or Ubiquitarians, separatists and Judaism, but Willet also includes attacks upon the
Manichees and Nestorians and individuals such as Gregorius Eniedinus, “a Samosatenian heretic
in Transulvania.”99 Readily evident throughout Willet’s writing, to the point in some cases of
permeation, is Willet’s passion to dismantle the doctrine and practice of Roman Catholicism and
any doctrinal system opposed to that espoused by the Church of England.
From the three Hebrew boys ordeal in the fire, the Ubiquitarians extrapolated a
philosophical premise for the omnipresence of Christ’s flesh in the Eucharist void of the essential
properties of size, quantity, visibility and life.100 They argued that the burning heat was an
essential property of the fire and yet the boys survived. Thus they concluded that the essential
99 HR, 89.
100 HD, 115.
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property of burning was separated from the fire, but the essence of the fire remained. “Therefore
the essential properties of a thing may be separated from it, the nature still remaining.”101
Willet had a threefold response: 1) “The burning faculty of the fire is not an essential
property, but an effect of the heat, which is an essential quality of the fire.” 2) The heat was not
separated from the fire and was only restrained for the sake of God’s servants, because the same
fire killed the king’s ministers. Following Polanus, he says, “If the fire had lost the heat, the
miracle had not been so great, for a thing not being hot, not to be burnt.” 3) “If all this were
admitted, it serveth not their turn, for here the scriptures testifieth that there was a fire and yet it
burned not. They must then show the like warrant for their miracle in the Eucharist, that a body
should be there without the due properties.”102
“Controversies handled,” while broader in scope than polemical, including apologetics, is
the platform utilized to attack heterodox doctrines as they relate to individual passages and
singular interpretations.
6. Moral Uses Observed
This perspective makes practical applications of the passage that may be learned and
utilized in the life of the reader. For instance, in Exodues 24:1 Willet quoting Ferus, observes that
honor in this life is no sign of God’s continuing favor. He illustrates this by showing that Nadab
and Abihu
Are bidden to come up with Moses and Aaron, [but] afterward were slain with fire
from heaven which showeth that preferment in this life is not always a sign of
God’s favour; but that the wicked are often exalted and lifted up, that they may
have the greater fall, as the Lord said he had appointed Pharaoh, to shew his
power in him.
101 HD, 115.
102 HD, 115.
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Considering Willet’s approach in light of the Reformation exegetical tradition, Muller writes,
The locus method did not disappear in the seventeenth century nor was it
practiced to the exclusion of textual and exegetical study. This interpenetration of
exegetical and theological approaches, with its fundamental interest rising from
the critical examination and establishment of the text through exegesis to
doctrinal and homeletical statements useful in the church appears clearly in the
pentateuchal work of Andrew Willet.103
While the central thesis of this essay is to illustrate “the critical examination and establishment of
the text through exegesis,” it is important to understand what Willet and others thought about the
text they worried through. Willet’s comprehension of the nature of the text is that which guided
not only his hermeneutics but also his understanding of redaction and inerrancy. Before those
exegetical elements of Willet’s commentary are considered, Willet’s respect for the authority of
Scripture with Support from leading elements of the Reformation is examined in the next
chapter.
Chapter 3
Authority of Scripture
Introduction
This chapter addresses the question of whether traditional belief in inspiration and
authority of the sacred text implies an essentially dogmatic and subjective exegetical result. To
answer this question, it is first important to reflect upon the historical conditions within which
the debate for Scripture’s authority was couched. The formulation of theology during the
Reformation was done bearing the worries and tensions of the Reformation church. Rather than
approaching the apographa dogmatically or hypothetically, the infallible authority of sola
103 Muller, “Holy Scripture,” 533.
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Scripture was raised against the authoritas of Rome in a bloody and vulnerable birthing process
of extant texts. Dogmatics was of little significance if the case could not be proven exegetically.
Likewise, to argue for the infallibility of the original autographs and not for current copies of
Scripture () was irrelevant. The Reformation was in this respect the least dogmatic era
of church history. It was a time of tedious, mundane research and writing, a time when martyrs
burned for the truths they proclaimed.104
Willet’s massive hexaplas contain the three elements fundamental of the Reformation
concept of Scripture’s authority, those three elements being, 1) the Reformation commitment to
the inspiration of Greek and Hebrew texts then available; 2) the constant effort to present an
exegetical base that was congruent with the historical tradition of church’s theological debate and
formulation; and 3) the textual debate within the tradition for identifying the inspired words or in
the case of redaction, the placing of verses or periocopes within the proper context. As Muller
puts it,
Indeed, much of the work of the exegetes and theologians of the early orthodox
era was the establishment of a method in which the sola Scriptura of the
Reformers was clearly identified as the declaration of scripture as the prior norm
of theology in the context of the churchly tradition of interpretation.105
No part of the church’s exegetical tradition is ignored by Willet. His writings show a high
degree of continuity across an imposed line whereby some neatly divided pre- and post-
Reformation thought. For Willet, there had always been consistent elements of the exegetical
tradition. Throughout the history of the church there have been exegetical errors, doctrinal
104 For Willet’s consciousness of the high price paid for the Scripture in the vernacular
see SP, 148, “I will adjoin the testimony of three godly learned martyrs, unto whose judgment I
think as much ought to be given, as unto any man’s beside, who sealed the truth they possessed
with their blood; these three martyrs are Tindal, Lambert, Bradford.”
105 Muller, “Holy Scripture,” 467.
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infractions and heresies, but the marrow of theology, to use William Ames’s term, has remained
the same.
The Sacred Text
In his commentary on Leviticus, Willet introduces the two principal and conflicting
sacred texts in the Western ecclesiastical tradition. He gives Rome’s position of Bible texts,
stating,
the church of Rome holdeth the Latin vulgar text to be authentical, and prefer it
before the Hebrew, in the Old Testament, and the Greek in the New, as it was
decreed in their late tridentine chapter.106
Continuing to develop his argument, he wrote,
So that it appeareth to be an unreasonable opinion to prefer a translation full of
corruptions before the pure Originals … and it is against all reason to give greater
authority to a translation compiled by one, who was not a prophet or apostle,
before the Original which was penned by the apostles and prophets. Our blessed
Savior saith, ‘Moses wrote of me,’ but Moses wrote in Hebrew. We should then
have recourse unto the Hebrew writings of Moses, as being the fountain, out of
which all other translations of the Old Testament were derived.107
Willet’s singular reason for arguing for the superiority of the Hebrew and Greek texts was
because these were the languages the Holy Spirit used to inspire the sacred text. Not having gone
through the human enterprise of translation, the original biblical languages were superior to
every other written document or manmade tradition.
These findings are completely consistent with those of Calvin, who wrote how God,
through the Jews “did preserve for us the doctrine of salvation embraced in the Law and the
106 HL, 101.
107 HL, 101. Jerome: “vt veterum librorum fides de hebraeis voluminibus examinanda est,
ita nonarum graeci sermonis formam desiderat, as the credit of the books of the Old Testament
must be examined by the Hebrew volumes, so the New must follow the rule and form of the
Greek tongue.”
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Prophets, that Christ in His own time might be made manifest (Matt. 22:37-40).”108 In spite of
the tribulation and adversity the word of God has endured throughout the ages, Calvin argued,
“Rather, by this very fact it is proved to be from God, because, with all human efforts striving
against it, still it has of its own power thus prevailed.”109
The doctrine of Scripture’s “own power” is taken up by Willet in his commentary on
Romans 10:11, controversy 13, entitled “The Scriptures the only sufficient rule of faith.”110
Willet in his usual polemic manner argues, “We are then only in matters of faith to have recourse
unto the Scriptures, not unto written traditions, whether the papists would send us, for they are
uncertain, mutable, variable, and therefore can be no rule of faith.”111 Against the claim made by
the papists that church tradition is necessary Willet writes,
And further, whereas the Apostle addeth, the “Scripture saith,” as before, c.9.17
hereby that cavil of the Jesuits is removed, which say that the scripture is mute
and dumb, and cannot be a judge of controversies. But the Ap9ostle saith, the
“scripture speaketh,” that is, God speaketh in the scriptures, and it speaketh and
proclaimeth the truth to everyone. Therefore it is not a dumb but speaking Judge,
and therefore is sufficient to determine all controversies of religion, and matters of
faith.112
108 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. By Ford
Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 1.8.10.
109 Calvin, Institutes, 1.8.12.
110 HR, 479.
111 HR, 479.
112 HR, 480.
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At Romans 9:17, controversy 15, Willet concludes, “and this the Apostle evidently sheweth, by
the frequent alleging and citing of scripture in this chapter, shewing that he appealeth thereunto,
as the supreme and highest judge of all truth.”113
Willet’s Cambridge classmate William Perkins reiterated his high view of Scripture in his
commentary on Galatians. This was Perkins’s last book, posthumously edited by Ralph
Cudworth.114 In The Epistle Dedicatorie Cudworth writes this of the word of God:
They being of such perfection that nothing may be added unto them, nor anything
taken away from them: of such infallible certainty, that heaven and earth shall
sooner pass away, than one tittle fall to the ground.115
Located within Perkins’ commentary on Galatians 1:11 is one of the 55 “Commonplaces
Handled in this Commentarie,” entitled “How a man may be assured that the Scripture is the
word of God.” The term “common places” or “common-places” is a translation of the Latin loci
communes, which is “the collection of the basic scriptural loci and their interpretations into an
ordered body of Christian doctrine.”116
The first point of two made by Perkins is that “it is a thing most necessary, that men
should be assured and certified that the doctrine of the Gospel, and of the Scripture, is not of
man, but of God.”117 In the tradition of Calvin, Perkins states that assurance of this truth comes
by the testimony of the Holy Spirit “imprinted and expressed” in the Scriptures and the
113 HR, 451.
114 William Perkins, A Commentary on Galatians, ed. Gerald T. Sheppard (New York:
Pilgrim Press, 1989).
115 Perkins, Galatians, The Epistle Dedacatorie.
116 Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn
Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,
1985), 179.
117 Perkins, Galatians, 27.
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“excellency of the word of God.”118 Under the heading of the excellencies of the word of God,
Perkins lists thirteen points, the ninth point being “the protection and preservation of it
[Scripture], from the beginning to this hour, by a special providence of God.”119
Willet’s apologetic for the inspiration and authority of Scripture began with the premise
that the extant copies of Scripture available to him possessed the qualities of the “pure
Originals.” Fully cognizant of the textual questions raised in both the Hebrew and Greek texts,
Willet held that the words of the autographa before him were the source of his exegesis. This
commonly held belief and critically proven fundamental element of reformation exegesis was the
basis for all discussion relating to the authority to make the exegetical and subsequent doctrinal
claims of Protestantism. Scripture was the practical thing, necessary for the spiritual life of the
church and the authoritative bulwark against attempts for continued, nonexegetically-based
inclusiveness.
To show the significance of the words “pure Originals,” the writing of a central figure in
the formulation of reformation thought is enlisted. William Whitaker (or Whitacre, 1547-1595),
Regius Professor of Divinity and Master of St. John’s College in the University of Cambridge
wrote a treatise entitled A Disputation of Holy Scripture Against the papists especially
Bellarmine and Stapleton.120 Whitaker’s reputation as a scholar was recognized even by his
ecclesiastical nemesis, Bellarmine. It is reported that Bellarmine kept a picture of Whitaker in his
study. When asked by other Jesuits why he kept a picture of a heretic in his study he would
118 Calvin, Institutes, 1.9.3. For a parallel to “imprinted,” Calvin writes, “ . . . and we in
turn may embrace the Spirit with no fear of being deceived when we recognize him in his own
image, namely, in the Word.”
119 Perkins, Galatians, 28.
120 William Whitaker, A Disputation of Holy Scripture Against the papists especially
Bellarmine and Stapleton, 1588 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1849).
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answer, quod quamvis haereticus erat et adversaries, erat tamen doctus adversaries, that
“although he was a heretic, and his adversary, yet he was a learned adversary.”121
When engaged in his doctoral research in the unpublished minutes of the Westminster
Assembly Dr. Wayne R. Spear tabulated the frequency with which the names of various authors
were mentioned in the debates at the Assembly.122 According to Spear’s findings, Whitaker was
cited more times during the formation of the Westminster Confession that any other single
author.123 This finding alone illustrates Whitaker’s service as a bridge of contiguous exegetically
informed theology between Calvin and Willet, to the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)
and Francis Turretin (1623-1687).
In his Disputation Whitaker fervently defends the writings of Calvin and utilizes him
extensively in some places as the principal basis for his discussion.124 Whitaker’s congruity with
Calvin extended the influence of Calvin’s governance over future theological formulation. Built
as it was upon the work of Calvin, even Whitaker’s diction to describe the Protestant view of
Scripture was adopted by the Westminster Divines.125 Not only do his writings bring continuity
121 Whitaker, Disputation, 359.
122 Wayne R. Spear, “William Whitaker and the Westminster Doctrine of Scripture,
Reformed Theological Journal 7 (Nov. 1991), 38-48.
123 Spear, “William Whitaker,” 40.
124 Whitaker, Disputation, 193, defending Chemnitz’s and Calvin’s objections to the
Vulgate. “We proceed to break the force of this portion also of Bellarmine’s defense, and to shew
that the Greek original () in the new testament is purer than the Latin edition;” 293-
294, Calvin’s external evidences proving the scriptures to be inspired; 340-351, extensive use of
the Institutes 1.7.1-1.7.5; 514, defending Calvin; 619 we find Whitaker’s defense of Chemnitz,
Bremtus and Calvin against Bellarmine.
125 Whitaker, Disputation, 148: “For Authentic scripture must proceed immediately from
the Holy Ghost himself; and therefore Paul says that all Scripture is divinely inspired, 2 Tim. Iii.
16;” 296: “We confess that God hath not spoken by himself, but by others . . .. For God inspired
the prophets with what they said, and made use of their mouths, tongues, and hands: the
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between Calvin and the Westminster Divines but he also uses language that later Francis Turretin
would borrow in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology almost 100 years later.126 Arguing the
question of authority, Whitaker writes,
For we gladly receive the testimony of the church, and admit it is authority; but
we affirm that there is a far different, more certain, true, and august testimony
than that of the church. The sum of our opinion is, that the scripture is autopistos,
that is, hath all its authority and credit from itself; it is to be acknowledged, is to
be received . . . because it comes from God; and that we certainly know that it
comes from God, not by the church, but by the Holy Ghost.”127
Whitaker held that the Greek edition in his possession “is no other than the inspired archtypical
scripture of the new testament, commended by the apostles and evangelists to the Christian
church.”128 Against Jerome’s Latin he argued that “Much more ought the Greek to be concluded
authentical, which the churches of the Greeks have always used from the apostles times in the
public liturgies, homilies, commentaries, and books,”129 and “That all these virtues (weightiest,
Scripture, therefore, is even immediately the voice of God.” See Westminster Confession of
Faith, Ch. 1, art. 8, “being immediately inspired by God . . .”
126 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed James T. Dennison, Jr., trans.
George Musgrave Giger (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1992), 71, of
the original language copies, autopistian; 126, of versions, autopiston.
127 Whitaker, Disputation, 279-280.
128 Whitaker, Disputation, 142. Also see 280: “The state of the controversy, therefore is
this: Whether we should believe that these Scriptures which we now have are sacred and
canonical merely on account of the church’s testimony or rather on account of the internal
persuasion of the Holy Spirit; which, as it makes the Scripture canonical and authentic in itself,
makes it also to appear such to us, and without which the testimony of the church is dumb and
inefficacious.”
129 Whitaker, Disputation, 143.
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purest, most venerable and impartial) must needs still be greater in the Greek edition, which is
that of the apostles and evangelists, and finally, of the Holy Ghost himself.”130
Willet was 33 years old when Whitaker died at 47. As one of his near contemporaries
Willet utilized Whitaker’s work and appealed to his writings in his Synopsis Papismi.131
Whitaker reinforced Calvin’s work, as did Willet, and Whitaker with Willet had a common
understanding of the authority of Scripture.
Turretin in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology defined “original texts” as used by the
reformers exactly as did Whitaker and Willet. Perfectly consistent with the exegetical tradition
and theology, Turretin explains to another generation of readers,
By original texts, we do not mean the autographs written by the hand of Moses, of
the prophets and of the apostles, which certainly do not exist. We mean their
apographs which are so called because they are set forth to us the word of God in
the very words of those who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy
Spirit.132
The authority of Scripture as principium cognoscendi argues the certitude (certitude, q.v.)
and infallibility (infallibilitas) of Scripture in view of its divine origin.133 So while the
dogmaticians struggled with the textual imperfections of the apographa, they nevertheless
assumed that the apographa was essentially correct. Under the heading of authoritas canonica or
normativa the canonical or normative authority of the apographa
Is such that it requires assent to the doctrines and demands of Scripture and the
use of events and actions in Scripture as moral examples for imitation. Not only is
this an authority of authenticity that is subject either to argument or proof; it rests
130 Whitaker, Disputation, 144.
131 SP, s 1, 168, 171, 173, 194.
132 Turretin, Elenctics, 106. Also see Muller, Dictionary, 40.
133 Muller, Dictionary, 52.
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upon the res, or thing, given in the text, from their very substance, apart from any
collateral or external testimony to them.134
The Protestant dogmaticians read the apographa and from their exegetical study sought to
imitate the lives of those approved by God in the text. Because Christ Himself sanctioned the
text of Scripture and placed his full confidence in the promises of God, arguing the validity of
His equality with the Father on the words and the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), so
then should all men.135 Their lives of piety and adherence to the moral dictates of the apographa
did not wait until after their textual critical work had been completed. They worked on critical
matters while believing the apographa was both morally binding and in fact the preserved
inspired words of God. The Protestant scholastics
do not press the point made by their nineteenth-century followers that the
infallibility of Scripture and the freedom from error reside absolutely in the
autographa and only in a derivative sense in the apographa; rather, the
scholastics argue positively that the apographa preserve intact the true words of
the prophets and the apostles and that the God-breathed (theopneustos, q.v.)
character of the Scripture is manifest in the apographa as well as in the
autographa.136
The interaction between exegesis and dogmatics found in Willet and those of his era is
illustrated by the tenacious manner to see that every word of the sacred text was accounted for.
Before there could be doctrine or systematic theology, there was the necessity for exegesis to
provide the exegetical boundaries for limits of historic Christian theology. As Muller writes,
The Reformers had developed, on the basis of their exegesis of Scripture, a series
of doctrinal issues that were embodied, as the distinctive concerns of
Protestantism, in the early confessions of the Reformation … The Protestant
134 Muller, Dictionary, 53.
135 . John Calvin, New Testament Commentaries, vol.
4, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 1979), 276. “‘The Scripture cannot be broken’ means that the doctrine of Scripture is
inviolable.”
136 Muller, Dictionary, 53.
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orthodox held fast to these Reformation insights and to the confessional norms of
Protestantism and, at the same time, moved toward the establishment of an entire
body of “right teaching” in continuity both with the Reformation and with the
truths embodied in the whole tradition of Christian doctrine.137
Willet’s commentaries are indicative of an era when questions of exegesis and theology
were still being rigorously debated to the end that a codified body of orthodox doctrine could be
articulated. To accomplish this task, the entire scope of the exegetical tradition was embraced
with the expectation of proving only the most exegetically sound interpretation of each passage.
Exegesis and the Authenticity of the Sacred Text
As Willet cataloged, collated, and examined the exegesis of the scope of the churchly
tradition’s commentators, his constant effort was to prove the extant Greek and Hebrew texts to
be infallible.138 Not dealing with infallibility as a separate locus of theology, infallibility in the
sense of inerrancy was essential to Willet’s exegesis. To be theologically informed, all dogmatic
formulations must necessarily be derived from a sacred source. If the sacred source has been
corrupted, the exegesis on the way to formulating dogmatics would be skewed. Exegesis for the
sake of developing a theologically informed Church was irrelevant to Willet if there were no
sacred text to exegete.
137 Richard A. Muller, “Prolegomena to Theology,” in Post-Reformation Reformed
Dogmatics, vol. 1. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987), 12-14.
138 SP, 176. Quoting the English Confession, art. 9, “Whereupon (namely the Scriptures)
is built the Church of God, they be the sure and infallible rule, whereby may be tried whether the
Church doth swerve.” Willet’s application of the word “infallible” correlates with the
contemporary views of inerrancy like that the the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.”
See Ronald Youngblood, ed., Evangelicals and Inerrancy: Selections from the Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 230-239; also see
Jack B. Rogers, Donald McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical
Approach, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), 235. Rogers and McKim argue that the
English word “inerrancy” was not used until after the Westminster Confession in 1652. Rogers
and McKim miss the point by focusing on a particular word rather than the concept.
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Rather than giving a dogmatic definition of infallibility or “inerrancy,” Willet provides
careful exegetical comparisons of the Latin textual tradition with the Hebrew and Greek.
Defenders of the exclusive use of the Latin version argued for its authenticity and superiority to
the Hebrew and Greek. Some of Willet’s citations seem almost trivial and could be said to have
little or no theological significance for the formation of orthodox doctrine or in the battle against
ecclesiastical opponents, Genesis 3:15 being the exception. Yet, what we learn from these
obscure references is at the crux of the Reformation’s claim to an authentic and authoritative text.
Indeed, if the text is in fact God’s Word, then any modification to the text, no matter how
subjectively insignificant, must be investigated with the most serious rigor for the sake of that
passage’s exegesis and doctrinal significance. If the text were errant, it would not qualify as
God’s Word, the exegesis would be distorted and the doctrine in error. He goes to great lengths at
every level of his exegetical inquiry to confirm the authenticity and veracity of the text.
This same understand and approach to Scripture is later taken up by Turretin. If the
apographa was untrustworthy in the minutest sense, the integrity of the whole, not in the sense
of some ecclesiastical abstraction called a sacred text but the source of exegesis within the
history of interpretation, would be in question. If the text could not engender a sense of
confidence in the reader, this deficiency would render the apographa an unreliable source of
faith, as Turretin states:
Unless unimpaired integrity characterizes the Scriptures, they could not be
regarded as the sole rule of faith and practice . . .. For since nothing false can be
an object of faith, how could the Scriptures be held as authentic and reckoned
divine if liable to contradictions and corruptions?139
Turretin, like Willet before him, is here ascribing “unimpaired integrity” to the apographa as the
sole rule of faith and practice. He considers them authentic and divine because of their veracity
139 Turretin, Elenctic, 71.
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and absence of falsehood. Dealing with the issue of degree of purity or compromise, Turretin
continues,
Nor can it be said that these corruptions are only in smaller things which do not
affect the foundation of faith. For if once the authenticity (authentia) of the
Scriptures is taken away (which would result even from the incurable corruption
of one passage), how could our faith rest on what remains? And if corruption is
admitted in those of lesser importance, why not in others of greater? Who could
assure me that no error or blemish had crept into fundamental passages?140
Turretin also addresses the Church’s inability to reply to those who claim that the reformation
texts were corrupt:
Or what reply could be given to the subtle atheist or heretic who should
perniciously assert that this or that passage less in his favour had been corrupted?
It will not do to say that divine providence wished to keep it free from serious
corruptions, but not from minor. For besides the fact that this is gratuitous, it
cannot be held without injury, as if lacking in the necessary things which are
required for the full credibility (autopistian) of Scripture itself.141
As an exegetical precursor to Turretin’s work, Willet’s Synopsis Papismi gives specific details
citations for preventing even the “minor” corruptions of “smaller things” from compromising the
text.
Willet shows where there “are many and great errors in the vulgar [Latin] translation, and
contrary to the original; ergo, it is not authentic.142 Though not authentic as a sacred text, it
nevertheless contains many proper renderings. Indeed, at times Willet sides with the Latin
rendering against the interpretation drawn by Reformation exegetes working from the Hebrew or
Greek. The following examples should not therefore be considered an attack on the Latin per se
but as individual examples for the claims of its deficiencies that could be substantiated; this was
140 Turretin, Elenctic, 71.
141 Turretin, Elenctic, 71.
142 SP, 138.
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done in an effort to protect the apographa on the level of words and phrases from disparagement.
Willet cites the following examples:
Genesis 3: Vulgate, “she shall break the serpent’s head” for, “the woman’s seed shall
break his head.” Ainsworth, “bruise,” or pierce, crush: the Hebrew word is of rare use, only here,
and in Job 9.17.143
Genesis 6:6: Vulgate, “the thoughts of man’s heart are inclined to evil” for “the thoughts
of man’s heart are evil.” Ainsworth, “was only evil every day.”144
Genesis 8:4: Vulgate, “seven and twentieth day” for “the seventeenth day.”
Ecclesiastes 16:14: Vulgate, “after the merit of his works” for “a man shall receive
according to his works.”
Esdras 19:1: Vulgate, pax illius for paxillus.
Proverbs 18:11: Vulgate, “stones of the world” for “stones of the bag.”145
Psalm 2:12: Vulgate, “apprehend, discipline, or instruction” for “kiss the son.”146
143 Henry Ainsworth, Annotations upon the five bookes of Moses, the booke of the
Psalmes, and the song of Songs, or Canticles (London: Printed for John Ballarmie, 1627), 17.
144 Ainsworth, Annotations, 30, “wickedness,] or malice, evil. Every imagination,] or, the
whole fiction; the word is general, for all and everything that the heart imagineth, formeth,
purposeth, 1 Chr. 28.9 and 29.18. Luke 1:51. every day,] or, all the day: that is continually. The
Greek translateth thus, ‘and everyone mindeth in his heart carefully for evils, all days.’” So also
Poole, Commentary, 17.
145 SP, 138. At this reference Willet comments that “though Bellarmine here
acknowledges a fault in the copies by mistaking some letter, yet are those words retained in the
vulgar Latin still without correction. In their Latin translation of the Psalms there are many
corruptions.”
146 SP, 138-139. Willet notes, “And thus an evident place against the Jews for the Second
Person in Trinity, is obscured and overthrown by the corrupt Latin text.” Ainsworth, Annotations,
3. Ainsworth’s willingness to give the Greek and Chaldean greater latitude that would Willet is
seen in this passage: “The Greek translateth, ‘receive nurthure’ (or instruction) and the Chaldee,
“receive doctrine”: both are implied in ‘kissing of the Sonne,’ Prov. 24.26.”
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Psalm 132:15: Vulgate, “I will bless his widow” for “I will bless his victuals.” Having
given these citations Willet goes on to say,
Many such oversights are committed in the vulgar Latin translation of the Old
Testament, which are, for the greater part, of three sorts, either by adding to the
original, subtracting from it, or in changing and altering it.147
Due to the number of modifications to the Hebrew, Willet says, “I will give instance of all these
only in the book of the Judges, and thereby we may see what is done in the rest.”148 Under the
heading of additions Willet cites 1:11, “which is the city of letters”; 1:35, “which is interpreted
witnessing”; 4:5, “which is called by her name”; 9:25, while they staid his coming”; 9:45, “and
drove him into the city”; 14:11, “the citizens of that place saw him”; 15:9, “the place that was
afterward called Lochi.”
Under the heading of places that are defective Willet cites 1:24, the omission of “spies”;
1:35, the omission of “the Amorite”; 3:18, the omission of “and the Lord was with the Judge, and
delivered them out of the hands of their enemies all the days of the Judges”; 4:10, the omission
of “on his feet”; 6:2, omission of “for fear of the Midianites”; 8:10, omission of “in Karkar”;
12:12, omission of “in Aijalon.”
The following places with others are changed: 1:14, “when she had sighed, sitting upon
her ass,” for, “when she had lighted down from her ass”; 1:16, “the kinsman of Moses,” for, “the
father-in-law of Moses”; 5:8, “God hath chosen new battles,” for they choose new gods”; 6:31,
“he that is his adversary,” for “(He that will contend for him,) let him die ere the morning”; 7:12,
“three hundred men went with him, for, “an hundred men”; 9:34, “they lay in wait against
147 SP, 139.
148 SP, 139ff.
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Sichem, in four places, for, “in four bands”; 10:12, “amalek and Canaan,” for, “the Amalakites
and Maonites”; 11:26, “the cities by Jordan, for, “the cities by the coasts of Arnon.”
To make his point as to the importance of individual words, or what we may characterize
as the Reformation struggle for verbal inerrancy, Willet takes several approaches. The first in the
Synopsis is to show where Jerome supports the readings of the Hebrew and Greek against the
Latin Vulgate.
In Matthew 5:22, Jerome reads, “he that is angry with his brother without a cause,”
though in many Latin books “without a cause” is not added, and so it is left out of the vulgar
Latin.149 In Matthew 6:34 Jerome reads, “sufficient unto the day is the afflictio, the affliction or
grief thereof,” rather than militia the malice thereof, as in the vulgar Latin.150 In 1 Corinthians
15:51 Jerome opposes the Latin rendering in this passage which reads, “We shall all rise, but not
all be changed.” Again in 2 Chronicles 35, the vulgar Latin reads that Josias was buried in the
mausoleum or tomb of his fathers. Jerome says that this rendering “is a profane, and heathenish
term.”151 In 1 Timothy 3:2 Jerome reads, “that is able to teach, the vulgar Latin, a doctor, or
teacher, or docilis, teachable.” Willet notes that in this place Jerome comments that the “Latins
have as many translations as books.”152
Willet’s labors in the Hebrew Old Testament were complemented by his New Testament
commentary on the book of Romans. In his dedication of this commentary, and indicative of his
high view of Scripture, Willet states,
149 SP, 129.
150 SP, 129.
151 SP, 129.
152 SP, 129-130.
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And thus having made entrance into the apostolic writings, I have made choice of
S. Paul’s epistles, and among them of this to the Romans which is the key to the
rest: which as Augustine saith of gospel of S. John . . . is against all heretics. This
one epistle beateth down all both old and new heresies, and that which Cyrian
affirmeth to the scriptures in general, that God speaketh here as verily, as if he
spake unto us face to face. So in this epistle such heavenly oracles are uttered, as
if they were delivered with God’s own mouth.153
As his only New Testament commentary written in hexapla, the introduction to Romans served
as a platform for Willet to exposit his position on the authority of the New Testament text. “Of
the language and tongue wherein the New Testament was originally written” Willet writes that
the New Testament was “set forth by the Apostles and Evangelists in the Greek tongue, which
was then general, and used of the most famous nations, because it concerned the Church of God,
which was dispersed in all countries.”154
Having made this assertion, Willet presents the contentions of others that either Hebrew,
Syriac or Latin languages were the primary languages in parts or for the whole of the New
Testament. Iraneaus, for instance, held that the Gospel of Matthew had been initially written in
Hebrew and subsequently translated into Syriac.155 Athanasius also thought that Matthew was
again translated into Greek by either St. James or St. John. Willet also says that others (whom he
does not name) thought the Epistle to the Hebrew had been first written in Hebrew and adds,
“but neither of these is certaine.”156
153 HR, Dedication.
154 HR, 1-2. Notice the similarity of Willet’s wording to that of the Westminster
Confession. This discussion over the “authentical and most approved edition of the scriptures” is
also taken up in SP, 129ff.
155 HR, 2. Irenaeus: “Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their
own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the
Church.”
156 HR, 2.
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In response to these ideas, Willet looks to the Septuagint for support. Rather than
following the Hebrew, which one would expect to be the case if Matthew were translated from
the same, “in many places,” Willet says, the New Testament follows the Septuagint in
translation. He cites the quotation of Isaiah 40:3 in Matthew 3:3, Psalm 22:18 in Matthew 27:35
and others to be found elsewhere as evidence for Matthew not having been written initially in
Hebrew. He also notes that the interpretation of Matthew 27:46, “Eli, Eli, Lama sabacthani,”
would have been superfluous if the text had been written originally in the Syriac or Hebrew.
Another example was the necessity to render Melchisedek in Greek, the king of righteousness, an
unnatural addition if the text was first written in Hebrew. From these observations and others that
he chose not to enlist, Willet concluded that the New Testament was not originally written in
Hebrew but in Greek.
The second language that Willet cites as a rival to the Greek was the Syriac. Those who
held this view thought that St. Mark wrote the Gospel named after him in Syriac. Looking to the
church fathers for collaborating support for the claim of Syriac priority, Willet finds that neither
Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Epiphan, Jerome, Theodoret of Damascene nor any of the
bishops and presbyters in Syria or Egypt, make any mention of this assertion in any of their
writings. Accepting the great antiquity of the Syriac translation, Willet concludes that it “must
give place unto the authentical Greek, whereout it was translated.”157
The third language taken up for consideration was the Latin. It was Bellarmine’s
contention that St. Mark wrote his Gospel first in Rome and that afterward it was translated into
Greek at Aquilea. Considering this claim “very improbable,” Willet produced the following
reasons. Arguing from continuity of methodology among the penmen of Scripture, Willet
appealed to the writings of St. Paul, who wrote to the church in Rome in Greek because it “was
157 HR, 2.
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then more commonly used than the Latin.”158 If Paul wrote in Greek, it would seem reasonable
that Mark would do the same. Willet also posed the following questions, “If the Greek were
translated out of the Latin, why then do the Romanists use a Latin translation answerable to the
Greek?”159 The term “answerable” was used in the sense of correspondence or by way of
equivocation. Because, as Willet states, “their vulgar translation much differeth from the
Greek,”160 that is, the Latin, he raises the question why the Latin and the Greek do not
correspond with one another as one would expect of the exemplar and translation. Three
examples are presented to illustrate the discontinuity between the Latin, which was held to be
primary, and the Greek, which was alleged to be a translation of the Latin, by showing that the
Latin adds to the Greek, subtracts form the Greek and changes the Greek. An illustration of
addition is given by Willet in Mark 1:1 where the name “(Isaiah) the prophet” is inserted, rather
than “the prophets.” Mark 6:11 is listed where the entire clause is omitted: “Verily, verily, I say
unto you, it shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.”
And thirdly, Willet says that the Latin “sometime choppeth and changeth” the Greek as in Mark
5:1, “Garasenes” for “Gadarenes.”161
In his Synopsis, Willet gives a “taste” of the corruption of the vulgar Latin. His entries are
as follows.162 Matthew 20:9, “they took every penny” for “every man a penny”; 21:30, “I go,
Lord,” for “I, Lord”; Luke 1:28, “hail Mary, full of grace,” for “freely beloved”; 15:8, “she
overthrew the house,” for “she swept the house”; 1 Corinthians 15:51, “we shall not all be
158 HR, 2.
159 HR, 2.
160 HR, 2.
161 HR, 2.
162 SP, 140.
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changed,” for “we shall all be changed”; Ephesians 2:10, “created in good works” for “created
unto good works”; Romans 16:23, “Gaius, mine host and the whole church,” for “of the whole
church”; 1 Corinthians 9:22, “that I might save all,” for “that I might save some; Hebrews 12”8,
“wherefore ye are adulterers, and not children,” for “ye are bastards, and not children.”163
After having given this short list of minute but crucial variants between the vulgar Latin
and the apographa, Willet lauds the advantages of the Protestant Bibles.
And as the vulgar Latin is imperfect and full of corruptions, and maketh the
Scriptures dark and obscure, so, on the contrary side, the originals of the Hebrew
and Greek are exceeding profitable, and doth bring great light and perspicuity to
the Scripture; for never were the Scriptures better translated, or more plainly
understood, than since they were translated out of the originals. Hear the
judgment of a reverend and learned man, sometime a bishop in this land, who, in
a certain conference and disputation of bishops, when some of them stood
mightily for unwritten tradition, standing up, made an oration, using among other
things, these words: “The Germans have made the text of the Bible so plain and
easy by the Greek and Hebrew tongues, that now many things may be better
understood without any glosses at all, than by the commentaries of the
doctors.”164
Under the heading “Places of confutation,” Willet engages in discussions with those who stand
opposed to major Christian doctrines. The first controversy was “Against those which think it is
against the nature of the New Testament to be committed to writing.” Willet has those with a
“fanatical spirit” in mind, those who held that the writing of the law in one’s heart and through
the Spirit (Jer. 32:33; 2 Cor. 3:3) make a written testament unnecessary. To this Willet replies that
the writing of the Scriptures was given by the direct command of God (Rev. 14:13), “and St. Paul
163 SP, 140. At his juncture Willet invites the reader to investigate the writings of William
Whitaker. Willet states, “An hundred more errors and over, you may find noted in the readings of
our learned countryman, Dr. Whitaker, 2 quest. De scrpt. 10, 11, 12, ca”
164 SP, 141.
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saith, that all Scripture is given by inspiration: 2 Tim. 3:6,”165 and that “[T]he Spirit of God then
moved them to put in writing these holy books of the New Testament; which are part of the
Scripture.”166 Reinforcing his answer, Willet writes,
It followeth not because the Lord writeth the Gospel in our hearts by his Spirit,
that therefore it is not to be written: for by the writing thereof which is preached
and read, faith is wrought in the heart by the operation of the Spirit: As the
Apostle saith, Rom. 10:17, that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
word.167
Willet concludes his discussion by summarizing the three primary reasons the word of God was
committed to writing: “1. Both in respect to that age present, for the preventing and stay of
heresies, which might be more strongly resisted and gainsaid, by an evident and extant rule of
faith; 2. In regard of those Churches, to whom the Apostles preached not by lively voice, it was
necessary that they should have some perfect direction in writing; 3. And that the ages also to
come might have a rule of their faith.”168
For Willet there was an inseparable connection between exegesis and dogmatic interests.
Sola scriptura was clearly identified as the prior norm of theology. There could be no dogmatics
if there was no exegesis of Scripture. Dogmatic claim sby either Protestants or Roman Catholics
were deficient if void of the academic and scholarly exegetical basis. Furthermore, unreasonable
exegesis as the basis for dogmatics could not be theology. Theology, to be such, was necessarily
the result of the interaction between sola Scriptura and biblically consistent exegesis. Willet’s
work stands not merely as a link in the tradition between Calvin and Whitaker before him and the
165 HR, 5. Read 3:16.
166 HR, 5.
167 HR, 5.
168 HR, 5.
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Westminster Confession and Turretin that followed but also as a collector of exegetically proven
dogmatics throughout the history of the Church.
Willet’s Use of the Septuagint
The Septuagint was a persistent referent of Willet’s writings. Throughout his
commentaries he is relentless in his attack upon the general validity of canonical authority of
both the LXX and the Latin translations of the Bible. In his commentary on the book of Daniel,
of the LXX he writes,
But Jerome sheweth that the translation of the Septuagint, whatsoever was the
cause thereof, whether they did not express the Chaldee phrase, or some one
ignorant of the Chalde tongue did set it forth under their name, multum discordat
a veritate, doth differ much from the truth and recto judicio repudiatus est, etc.
and therefore was upon right judgment rejected by the church.169
Roman polemicists argued that the New Testament penmens’ use of the LXX established the
precedent for the authenticity of the vulgar Latin translation and its superiority to either the
Hebrew Old Testament or the Greek New Testament.170 To debunk these claims of canonical
authority, the Reformation exegetes described the manner in which the LXX was utilized by the
penmen of Scripture and from their exegesis qualified the extent of the LXX’s hermeneutical
significance in both Testaments.
Willet was comfortable quoting church fathers usually considered supportive of the
papacy, and Jerome was one such exegete. Of Jerome, Willet writes that he held the notion that
the LXX was written in seventy-two separate cells and miraculously arriving at the same
169 HD, 2.
170 HG, 443. On Genesis 47:31 Willet writes, “Further, whereas the Apostle seemeth to
follow the translation of the Septuagint, rather than the Hebrew text. The Rhemists do infer
thereupon, that after the same manner the vulgar Latin text may be received as authentical,
though it does vary from the Hebrew.”
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translation to be a fable.171 Jerome succinctly captured the distinction between the reception of
Scripture and its interpretation with the words, “It is one thing to be a prophet, another to be an
interpreter.”172 The evaluation of Willet with Jerome was that the “ancient and true translation of
the Septuagint, is corrupted and violated, which, as Jerome saith, was agreeable to the Hebrew;
but so is not the Greek copy now extant, which is full of corruptions, and seemeth to be a mixed
and confused translation of many.”173
Willet takes exception with the translation of the LXX of 1 Samuel 9:5, “of the land of
Zuph.”174 He corrects the LXX rendering “the land of Ziph” for two reasons.175 First, the LXX
failed in pronouncing the letter tsaddi, which expresses the sound tz, and pronounced it with the
letter samech, which gives the sould of a single “s.” Also, there was a mispronunciation of the
vowel shuree, not chirec, which corresponds to our “u.”176
In this regard, Willet made exclusive recourse in his commentaries to pointed Hebrew
texts, although he maintained that the points were later added to the sacred text.177 This is
171 SP, 130.
172 SP, 130.
173 SP, 130.
174 H1S, 27-28.
175 H1S, 27. See the variety of consonantal and vowel changes in the LXX as cited in
James Orr, ed., International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1978), 3158-3159. Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 2nd ed. Amended (Stuttgart:
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1984), 1470, 1 Chr. 6:20 reads, “Many manuscripts and versions
have ziph has the Qere. Compare with v. 11 (zophai), Ketib, zeph.” At v. 11 the BHS entry reads,
“the LXX reads zuphi at 1 Samuel 1, 1a . . .”
176 H1S, 27-28.
177 SP, 132. Citing Bellarmine favorably, Willet writes, “the alteration is in the pricks or
points, which as Bellarmine himself saith … were added outwardly; that is, by other writers and
interpreters of Scripture, and do not change the text, which consisteth of the letters, not of the
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consistent with Ainsworth’s view that the LXX translators worked only from consonantal
texts.178 Willet argues for the traditional pointing against the LXX phonetically, by showing the
conjectural error of the Greek translators to properly translate the sound of the vowel from the
consonantal text they had as their exemplar.179
Along the same line of argumentation within the consonantial text in 1 Samuel 12:11,
Willet surveys the identification of Bedan. He points to the LXX entry, which reads Barak,
“being deceived by the similitude of the letters for between daleth and resh, there is no great
difference in the Hebrew characters.”180
This evaluation and many others like it throughout his commentaries do not displace
Willet’s endorsement of either the LXX or Latin in many individual instances. For Willet to
advance the superiority of the apographa, it was necessary for him to argue for the particulars of
the issue. To accomplish this required a clear exegetical delineation of the hermeneutical limits
of the LXX. For instance, when commenting on the translation “Israel worshipped toward the
points.” Also see Richard A. Muller, “The Debate over the Vowel Points and the Crisis in
Orthodox Hermeneutics,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 10/1 (1980), 53-72.
178 See Ainsworth, Annotations, 56, fn. 141.
179 H1S, 28. Appealing to Josephus and the rendering of the Chaldee paraphrase Willet
understands “Zuph” to be interpreted “the land where was a prophet.” He concludes that Zuph
was the country where Ramah, Samuel’s city, was located, and therefore was called “Ramah of
the Zophims” (1:1); Poole, Commentary, 533. “The land of Zuph; in which was Ramah, called
also Ramah, or Ramathaim-zophim, the place of Samuel’s birth and habitation, 1 Sam. I.1; vii.
17.”
180 H1S, 41. Willet thinks that Junius’s opinion is more probable. He thinks Bedan was
Jair the Menashite of Judges 10:3 because it is consistent with the order of time. Jair was before
Jepthah, and there is one Bedan of Machir of Manesseh mentioned in 1 Chr. 7:17. Jair might be
called Bedan beside his ordinary name by way of distinction, because there was an elder Jair,
Num. 32:41 of Manesseh of whom certain towns were called havoth Jair; Biblica Hebraica
Stuttgartensia, 463: Septuagint, Jerubaal (--boam), Barak, Jefta (Septuagint, codex versionis
Graecea, + Simson), Samuel; Syriac, Debora, Barak, Gideon, Jefta, Simson; Targum, Gideon,
Simpsin (codex Reuchlinianus, Bedan), Jefta, Samuel. The Heb. Reads bedan.
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beddes head” (Gen. 47:31), Willet includes a marginal heading entitled, “How and when the
Apostles do follow the Septuagint.”181 To this issue Willet writes,
The apostles indeed do sometime follow the Septuagint, because it was a common
translation, and of great authority, but they therein approve their errors, nor yet
make it if equal authority to the original, citing only such testimonies, wherein the
Greek translation keepeth the sense, though not the words. As in this place,
whether, we say “Jacob leaning upon his staff” or, “turning to the bed’s head and,
worshipped.” The principle sense is kept, that Jacob worshipped God, especially
seeing the same word, with very little alteration in the points, signifieth both a
bed, and a rod, or a staff.182
Willet has a special appreciation for Jerome, citing him often and likewise reinforcing the
renderings of the Latin church fathers. Jerome observes that where the apostles and evangelists
cite testimony out of the Old Testament “they follow not the words but the sense.”183 Similarly
Ainsworth at this place writes that, the
Greek interpreters, having a copy without vowels (mtth) did read mitteh which
signifieth “staff” and so translated it: whom the Apostle followeth, saying “on the
top of his staff,” Heb. 11.21 which might also well be, that he helped himself, by
leaning on his staff, and resting on the bolster of his bed. Howbeit the two
Chaldean paraphrases, and other Greek versions (save that of the LXXij) translate
to the voweled Hebrew, “bed.”184
Where the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew, the penmen of scripture expressed the
Hebrew sense. Willet concludes by saying,
181 HG, 443.
182 HG, 443.
183 HG, 443.
184 Ainsworth, Annotations, 161. Poole, Commentary, Vol. 1, 105. “Israel bowed himself
… to God… Others read bed for staff.” Vol. 3, 864, Commentary on Heb. 11:21, “For having
sent for Joseph, he raised himself on the pillow at the bed’s head, and for his support, used his
staff, leaning on the head of it.”
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This then is no good argument the apostles follow the Septuagint, where they
keep the Hebrew sense, though not the words, ergo, the Latin text must be
received, where it differeth both in sense and words from the original.185
Willet can isolate the two issues involved by quoting the LXX: rejecting the LXX
canonically because of its blatant inadequacies while arguing for exegetical and interpretive
continuity between the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testament penmen who utilized the
LXX. Finding no common ground for the LXX and the original language texts canonically,
Willet argued that when the LXX is cited in the New Testament there is no continuity between
the sense of the LXX usage between the Greek in the New Testament and the Hebrew original in
the Old Testament.
The preceding section has briefly examined Willet’s sense for the authority of Scripture;
the following section will consider his interpretive method. For Willet this was far more than a
theological loci. It struck at the very foundations of the Reformation. Hermeneutical method was
an essential element for maintaining the good of the English commonwealth so close to Willet’s
heart. It also determined ecclesiastical control. An allegorical approach to the text diminished the
emphasis upon the perspicuity of Scripture and heightened the significance of an external
authoritative source of interpretation.
Willet’s Hermeneutics
The issue of the apostle Paul’s use of allegory in Galatians 4 is taken up in Willet’s
Genesis commentary. For Willet there can be only one proper interpretation of Scripture, the
sensus literalis.186 In refuting the Roman Catholics who referred to Galatians 4 and Paul’s use of
185 HG, 443.
186 On the broader implications of sensus literalis in precritical exegesis, see Brevard
Childs, “The sensus literalis of Scripture: An Ancient and Modern Problem,” in Beitrage zur
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allegory as a precedent for their use of a normative allegorical hermeneutic throughout Scripture,
Willet instructs,
Though saint Paul, having the instinct of God’s Spirit, doth allegorize the history
of Sarah and Hagar, it is therefore no warrant to every expositor and interpreter to
make allegories of Scripture, which corrupt use the Roman synagogue alloweth,
and others practice.187
He notes that Paul is rare in using allegories which should be a lesson that use of allegory should
be “very sparing.”188 Furthermore, unless the papists could say as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 7:4
that they have the Spirit of God, they could not take the liberty to expound Scripture as did the
Apostle.189
Essential to Willet’s understanding of the interpretation of scripture is his confidence in
the text’s inspiration. Paul had the liberty to allegorize because the allegory was given by divine
inspiration as no other noncanonical allegory could be. Furthermore, quoting Perer, inspiration is
the only means by which the type and antitype can be property related to one another
hermeneutically. Perer writes,
It only belongeth to God, which inspired the scriptures, perfectly to know all
things, that were to come, and not only to know them, but to dispose and direct
them, as it pleaseth him, wherefore he only can appoint that things formerly done
… should bear a true and certain type and figure of things afterward to be done.190
alttestamentlichen Theologie, ed. H. Donner, R. Hanhart, and R. Smend (Gottingen:
Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1977).
187 HG, 231.
188 HG, 231.
189 HG, 231-232. Willet cites Luke 9:55, “You know not, what spirit you are of.”
190 HG, 232.
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Willet concluded that “Man, therefore, cannot dispose of things to come, is not to make types
and figures, according to his own device.191
The hermeneutical difficulties in the book of Leviticus revolved mainly around the
relevance of the Levitical priesthood, sacrifices and the tabernacle as it applies to the New
Testament church. At this level of interpretation, inspiration is inadequate to settle the difficulty
of determining the value of the Pentateuch and the Levitical code for the New Testament. The
content of the Old Testament, Willet believed, were “figures of spiritual and heavenly things to
be exhibited out of the New Testament and to be perfected and fully performed in the kingdom of
God.”192 So while not allegorizing the Old Testament text, Willet understood the spiritual and
eschatological significance of the Old Testament figure. His position was not to “wrest all things
to a mystical sense; and yet where the scripture doth warrant, in the chiefest points, to search out
the mysteries of the gospel as Ambrose giveth instance of these.”193
Moses saw the spiritual circumcision, but He hid it by an outward sign of
circumcision; He saw the unleavened bread of sincerity and verity, but He hid it
under the material unleavened bread; he saw the passion of Christ, but hid it in the
sacrifice of the lamb or calf.194
Confutation number 8 is entitled “Against the mystical application and interpretation
wholly of this book of Leviticus.”195 This introductory material presents Willet’s basic
hermeneutic, and throughout the book he gives specific exegetical instances of how the
scriptures themselves supply the hermeneutical principles for a congruent biblical interpretation.
191 HG, 232. Also see SP, 184-189.
192 HL, 13.
193 HL, General Observations; cf. Muller, “Holy Scripture,” 491-499.
194 HE, General Observations.
195 HL, 13.
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Anticipating objects to argument against the regular use of allegory, Willet begins by
citing four separate allegorical readings found in the text. In Ezekiel 4:1 Ezekiel portrays the city
of Jerusalem as a single brick; in Ezekiel 19 the two lionesses whelps refer to Jehoahaz, who was
carried into Egypt, and Jehoiakim, who was taken by the king of Babylon. “The gospel also is
full of such similitudes and parables,” Willet states, and adds, “yet all this proveth not that every
writer may make allegories, and spiritual senses of the ceremonial law, as Origen and
Hesdychius do, every part of the ordinary gloss and of the popish sect a great many.”196
The Glosssa ordinaria (ordinary gloss) was prepared principally by Anselm of Laon (d.
1117) in conjunction with several other 12th century theologians and commentators, the glossa
“exercised enormous influence on the theology of the day.197 Muller writes of the glossa,
There we read that the four senses of the text are “historia, which tells what
happened…; allegoria, in which one thing is understood through another;
tropologia, which is moral declaration, and which deals with the ordering of
behavior; anagoge, through which we are led to higher things that we might be
drawn to the highest and heavenly.” The three latter or spiritual meanings reflect
the three Christian virtues, faith, love, andhope: allegory teaches “things to be
believed” (credenda), tropology “things to be loves” or “done” (diligenda or
agenda), and anagoge “things to be hoped for” (speranda). The speranda, it
should be noted, could be understood either in a mystical or in an eschatological
sense.198
196 HL, 13; HL, 213. Origen defined the literal sense as “the deadly understanding of the
bare letter,” and Hesychius’ method is described as having “utterly destroyed the letter and
flyether to a spiritual sense.”
197 Jerry H. Bentley, “Christian Interpretation from the Middle Ages to the Reformation,”
in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 316.
198 Muller, “Holy Scripture,” 17-18.
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Bentley notes that most of the theologians of the Middle Ages “recognized the literal sense as the
foundation of scriptural exegesis.”199 It was common to that era’s exegetes to consider the literal
interpretation fully compatible with a moral, allegorical, or mystical interpretation. Bentley states
that in the absence of linguistic skills and philological concerns, “expositors had little alternative
but to develop the various spiritual senses of scripture.”200
Willet gave four reasons why a normative allegorical method of interpreting Scripture
was unacceptable. He argues first that the true sense of the reading may be lost if rendered
allegorically because an allegorical interpretation calls the literal and historical sense into
question.201 The logical soteriological result of confusing the commentary with the text is that of
losing one’s faith in the true sense if lost. Willet warns, “whereas our faith is grounded upon the
scripture, and the true sense thereof, who will build his faith upon their spiritual devised senses,
which showeth they are no part of the Scripture, as the true sense is.”202 This leads to the view of
the Reformation writers that any passage of Scripture had only one interpretation. Willet writes,
“Thirdly, divers interpreters of the same place, do propound divers spiritual senses, which cannot
all be the meaning of the Spirit.”203 In the Synopsis Willet writes, “The literal sense is the only
sense of the place, because out of that sense only may an argument strongly be framed . . ..”204
The effort to come to a single interpretation of Scripture is perhaps no where more
evident than in Willet’s commentary on Romans 7. Willet presents ten different historic,
199 Bentley, “Interpretation,” 316.
200 Bentley, “Interpretation,” 316.
201 HL, 13.
202 HL, 13.
203 HL, 13.
204 SP, 186.
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ecclesiastical interpretations oriented toward defining the nature of the man described as “sold
under sin”: 1) Paul speaks in the present tense – Theophylact; 2) the distinction between bonum
natural, morale, and spirituale, naturally good, morally good and spiritually good and that only
those in which God works can be spiritually good – Gregory contra Tolet; 3) there is nothing
spiritual in an unregenerate man – Augustine contra Tolet; 4) Paul says, “I give thanks to God” –
Augustine contra Tolet; 5) the carnal cannot delight in the law but his mind is defiled –
Augustine/Parues contra Tolet; 6) deliverance is by the resurrection, not justification – Augustine
contra Tolet; 7) only the regenerate are in a conflict with the flesh – Pareus; 8) the unregenerate
praise themselves – Faius; 9) only those led by the Spirit can hate those things done against the
law – Hyperius; 10) why should the apostle argue as he does if it regards those who care nothing
for the law – Faius.205 After dividing the specific perspectives into three general categories Willet
argues at length in a fashion reminiscent of the medieval schoolmen between the varying options.
He arrives finally at a logical, scriptural, exegetically sound conclusion.206 Of the ten renderings,
Willet concludes “that S. Paul speaketh in the person of a man regenerate.”207
Finally, Willet argued that Scripture must be interpreted by the aid of the Holy Spirit. He
writes that the Scripture
Is not interpreted, but by the same Spirit, whereby it was first written. This Spirit
is not to be found but in the scriptures themselves by the conference and
comparing whence of the scripture sheweth himself, and therefore Procopius well
saith as he is cited by Lorinus … “it is not of man’s strength to expound, and
205 HR, 336-338.
206 HR, 338; cf. Poole, Commentary, Vol. 3, 500. Poole writes, “They that list to be
further satisfied in this point, may find it fully discussed in our own language, by Mr. Anthony
Burgess, in his excellent discourse on original sin, part iv.c.3, and by Dr. Willet, in his Hexalta in
locum.”
207 HR, 338.
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unfold everything in particular, but his only who has gone to heaven, and hath
seen all these things.”208
Commenting on John 17:26 he says, “Here our Saviour promises the perpetual assistance of his
Spirit and continual declaration of his word to his church, that as he had preached and declared
it, so he would still instruct his servants, and not leave the church destitute of the ministry of his
word.”209
Willet translated into rhyme a Latin verse penned by a Roman Catholic to illustrate the
perspicuity of scripture.
No age so young, no wit so small,
Which Scripture doth not fit;
There’s milk for babes, and yet withal,
There’s meat for stronger wit.210
Another example of Willet’s passion to embarrass the papists with contradictory
statements is found in this part of his discussion in the Synopsis. With polemic style he mocks
them by saying that not every man can have access to the Pope for the proper rendering of
Scripture, “but the Word of God is amongst us, the Scriptures themselves and the Spirit of God
opening our hearts, do teach us how to understand them.”211 He denies that the interpretation of
Scripture has been delivered to a succession of pastors or is tied to any place or persons and that
Scripture is of “private men to expound Scripture according to the sense and meaning of the
Spirit, and to discern between the orthodox and heretical interpretations … the Spirit of God
208 HL, 13.
209 TE, 82.
210 SP, 182.
211 SP, 193.
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speaking in the Scriptures is the interpretation of himself.”212 Willet then cites a decree
prescribed by a papal synod,
the Church doth discern the catholic sense from the heretical, the true from the
false. It hath no power to make or coin interpretations beside Scripture, but to
discern and distinguish.213
He maintained that Scripture was itself the “true sense and meaning thereof.”214 He argued that
only that which generates faith in the believer has the power to give the sense of the Scripture,
that only the Spirit generates faith and that faith comes by hearing the word. Therefore, the Spirit
of God is the only interpreter of Scripture.215 Willet cites Augustine, the Confession of Helvetia,
the Confession of Bohemia, the Confession of Wittemberg, c. 30, and the Confession of
Augsburg, art. 7, to prove his point and closes that section with the following quote:
The Church hath the gift of interpretation, that is, of understanding the heavenly
doctrine, but that is not tied [t]o the name or degree of bishop, etc. But those that
are [l]earned in the word of God, and born again by his Spirit in what place soever
they be, they assent unto the Word of God, and understand the same, some more,
some less.216
Following are examples drawn from Willet’s Hebrew exegesis in the books of Leviticus
and Daniel. In these passages Willet presents exegetical and historic evidences for his method of
interpretation.
212 SP, 193.
213 SP, 193.
214 SP, 194.
215 SP, 194.
216 SP, 198.
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Leviticus 7
Within the exegesis of Leviticus 7, Willet illustrates the medieval fourfold method of
interpretation by showing first how it was dogmatically developed and then why it was faulty.217
At 7:9, Willet shows how Origen interpreted the three practices for preparing the meat offering:
1) oven; 2) gridiron; and 3) frying pan. From these methods of preparation Origen extrapolated
“that there is a threefold way of understanding the divine scriptures, the historical, the moral and
the mystical,” which he then proceeded to elucidate.218 The plain and open or historical and
literal interpretation of Scripture is that to which the gridiron referred. The frying pan, “by often
turning may be understood, as that which is tossed and turned in a frying pan,” referred to the
moral interpretation.219 The oven represents “the third more profound, as the oven or furnace,
which is the mystical.” To this Willet adds, “The same is the opinion of the papists, of a threefold
send of the scripture, beside the literal.”220
Again anticipating those who would accuse his hermeneutics of being overly wooden,
Willet agrees that the content of Scripture deals with historical matters and mysteries but those
elements in themselves do not prove diverging senses in interpretation. He succinctly addressed
the crux of the matter by explaining,
There is a difference between the literal, or historical sense, and the application,
or accommodation of it. That is the proper sense of the scripture, which is
perpetual and general; it is therefore dangerous for men, of their own brain, to
217 HL, 120.
218 HL, 120. triplicem in scriptures divines intelligententia midum, historicum, moralem,
mysticum.
219 HL, 120. “The tropological, which is applied to moral things, allegorical, to spiritual
things, and anagogical, to heavenly things, as Jerusalem signifieth the soul of man; allegorically,
the church militant; and anagogically, the church triumphant in heaven.”
220 HL, 120.
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pick out every place mystical senses. It belongeth only to the Spirit whereby the
scriptures were written, to frame allegories and mysteries.221
Of particular significance Willet makes clear that there is a literal or historical sense to the words
of scripture. Gridiron, frying pan and oven all have distinct, inherent meanings before those
meanings are applied or accommodated within the context. Secondly, Willet defines what he
means by literal or historical by saying that the “proper sense” is “perpetual and general.”
Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, after defining how words are to be interpreted, Willet
appeals to the Author of scripture to provide the context for a rendering other than the literal. The
meaning of the words may be taken in ways other than literally if the Holy Spirit has “framed”
the discussion, for instance, prophetically, within a given context. Citing 2 Timothy 3:16, Willet
states that there are four profitable uses of inspired Scripture: to teach, to improve, to correct, and
to instruct in righteousness. And thus, he says, “To devise and frame allegories and mysteries
(wherein the Spirit intended them not) is none of them.”222 Willet concluded his disputation by
saying, “This much we grant, that one whole and entire sense of Scripture may have divers
applications, subordinate and included one in the other, but not divers, different, and disparate
sense” but also opposed those whom “will have it altogether literally and carnally to be taken.223
The perspicuity of Scripture and the right of Scripture to interpret itself is taken up in
Romans 11:8, where Scripture reads, “According as it is written.” In this passage the apostle
presents what Willet calls “this often allegation of scriptures”: of collating Scripture with
Scripture as Paul does here by comparing the writings of Isaiah with those of David. From this
221 HL, 120.
222 HL, 120. Also see SP, 184.
223 HL, 120. Willet says of Hesychius that in following of the mystical sense, he will not
do as, “some which do only select some special places and heads” but he will, “discuss all things
in order, even unto the end.”
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reference Willet gathers a double use of Scripture. First, all doctrine of faith must be derived
from Scripture, since the apostle throughout the book for “the proof of his doctrine only allegeth
Scriptures.” Citing John 5:39, Willet closes this first point by saying that “Christ admitteth no
other witness of him, and his doctrine, but the Scriptures.” The second use of Scripture is that
one portion of Scripture will “illustrate and interpret” another portion of Scripture. In this
process we see that the Scripture is its own best interpreter. Following this exegetical format the
reader will find that “which in one place is obscurely insinuated, otherwhere it may be found
more plainly and perspicuously expressed.”224 Augustine said, “We are nourished with the easier,
and exercised by the harder places of Scripture: there are we kept from famishing, here from
loathing.”225 Willet’s held that proper interpretation was “to use only Scripture for interpretation
of Scripture if we would be sure, and neither swerve from the analogy of faith in expounding.”226
Ainsworth likewise emphasized knowledge of the literal sense of the Hebrew as the
prerequisite for determining the principal interpretation. Subsequent to “the natural meaning of
scripture being known, the mysteries of godliness therein applied may be better discerned.” He
goes on to say that this discernment “may be achieved in a great measure, by the scriptures
themselves; which being compared do open one another.”227 Later in the preface Ainsworth staes
why such serious investigation must be pursued by the grammarian. He says,
224 HR, 523-524.
225 ET, 5.
226 CS.
227 Ainsworth, Annotations, Preface.
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For by a true and sound literal explication, the spiritual meaning may be better
discerned … Our Savior hath confirmed the Law, unto every jot and tittle, Matt.
5.18. that we should think that any word or sentence to be used in vain.228
Daniel 2
Commenting on Daniel 2, Willet presents the varied interpretations of the exegetical
tradition for the rendering of “the stone cut out without hands.”229 In verse 45 Willet works
through the ecclesiastical interpretations given by some of the churchly tradition’s leading
theologians. The history of interpretation may be roughly followed through the tradition of the
church as follows. The mountain has been thought to be 1) the kingdom of the Jews; 2) God the
Son’s eternal generation; 3) Christ’s second coming; and 4) the virgin birth of Christ. Heinrich
Bullinger’s ecumenical approach was to accept all of the interpretations, except that of
Augustine, as collectively correct.
Finding generally for the least exorbitant and most mundate interpretation of the exegetes
considered, Willet is careful to assure a reasonable interpretation. He works with the material
before him in an effort to come to the singular interpretation that is demanded by the grammar,
syntax and context.
Augustine understood the mountain from which the stone was cut as the Jewish people –
de quo monte exiditur, nisi de regno Judaeorum, “out of what mountain is he cut, but out of the
kingdom of the Jews?”230 Willet cites this reference without comment by way of beginning his
catalog of exegetes and their perspectives on this passage.
228 Ainsworth, Annotations, Preface.
229 HD, 77.
230 HD, 77.
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Ambrose (340-397) modified the text and thus the exegesis to read instead of “the stone
cut out of the mountain,” the “mountain cut out of the mountain without hands.” With the
inclusion of the second “mountain” he taught that this passage referred to the eternal generation
of Christ of the Father, mons de monte sine minibus, hoc est filius de patre sine aliquot creationis
accessu, “the mountain cut out of the mountain without hands, that is the sone of the Father
without any creation.” For three likely reasons, Ambrose would have maintained this rendered:
1) he held to a threefold sense of interpretation: the literal, the moral and the mystical, with
greater emphasis on the latter; 2) his ongoing polemic with the Arians of his day, and 3) his text
was a “very barbarous” Latin recension of a Greek version, to which he “seems to have been
very independent, and to have used several versions of the holy Scripture, translating, as it would
seem, often for himself from the Septuagine.”231 Justin Martyr also understood this passage to
speak of the eternal generation of Christ.
Willet counters by saying that Daniel is speaking of a kingdom raised up by God and
therefore, rather than being eternal, it had then a beginning.232 The kingdom of Christ as the Son
of God had no beginning, and therefore this image must be understood as Christ’s kingdom.
Hyppolytus refers the “cutting” to Christ’s second coming and the caluse “without hands”
to signify secundum Christi adventum fore improvisum, that the second coming of Christ will be
sudden.233 Osiander also held that Christ the rock, subito superventurum, would come suddenly
231 HD, 77. For an introduction to the life of Ambrose see Philip Schaff and Henry Wace,
eds., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 10, “St. Ambrose: Selected Works and
Letters” (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 1989), xi-xxii. See es his dogmatic
work, De Incarnationis Dominicae Sacramento, “The Mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.”
232 HD, 77-78.
233 Also for Hippolytus see The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson, vol. 5, “The Refutation of All Heresies” (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1995), 51.
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to judgment. Willet rejects this interpretation “because this stone after it is cut out shall grow into
a mountain, and fill all the earth, before his second coming.”234
Jerome, Theodoret, Lyranus and Vatabulus, representing “most interpreters,” understand
the “stone cut out without hands” to refer to the miraculous generation of Christ by the virgin
Mary. The words “without hands” signifying, sine operatione humana, “without the help of
man.” For Pintus, the virgin Mary is compared to a mountain, proper excellentiam, because of
the excellence of her virtue.235
Bullinger’s inclusive approach puts these three ideas together, understanding by the word
mountain, partim locum excelsum, etc. “partly the high place of heaven, partly the people of the
Jews, because he was born of the virgin Mary.”236
Willet’s response was that Mary cannot be the mountain and Christ the little stone
because “Mary was in no way greater than her son.” Furthermore, “Although Christ was born of
Mary, without the company of man, yet his natural generation was not altogether without the
help of mankind, because he was born of a woman.” Therefore, Willet admits, Justinus’s
interpretation, applying these words to “Christ’s eternal generation, which was altogether without
hands,” is more acceptable, but it is not demanded by the text. “It was non humanum opus, sed
divina voluntatis propositum, no human work, but the decree and purpose of the divine will.”237
Willet draws the reader’s attention to a portion of the verse that is excised by some of the
commentators. He says, “The words are not as they are usually read, cut out without hands, but
234 HD, 78. As was showed before in HD, ch. 2, qu. 51.
235 HD, 78.
236 HD, 78.
237 HD, 78.
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cut out of the mountain (which is not in hands) that is, which stone is not all guided or framed
with hands.”238 This rendering leads Willet to conclude that Christ’s kingdom and government
are not administered by any human policy. This passage should then be understood “not of the
manner of Christ’s birth, but of the administration of his kingdom.”239
Following Junius and Polanus, Willet concludes, “The meaning is, ‘he is cut out of the
mountain,’ that is, e coelis & loco Dei altissimi, he was sent from heaven, from the place of the
highest”; and after Calvin, divinitus missus est, “he was sent from God.” This is why it is written,
“the God of heaven shall set him up.” To this Willet adds, “Our blessed Savious also to the same
purpose saith, John 3:13, ‘No man hath ascended to heaven, but he which descended from
Heaven, the Son of man, which is in heaven.’”240
With this brief introduction to Willet’s interpretive methodology, we turn next to his
discussion on the authorship and redaction of holy Scripture. Again we ask that question, Is
Willet working from “exorbitant principles of inference” or is there cause for reevaluating this
description?
Redaction
Redaction, or the editing of the text of Scripture, both of the canon and of periocopes,
was not foreign to the churchly exegetical tradition, nor was the value of this ongoing discussion
lost in the study of Willet. One aspect of Post-Reformation redaction is the exegetical interaction
238 HD, 78. Willet translates the preposition be, “in,” to give a stilted but clearer rendering
of the text. Also see C. F. Keil, F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 9 (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976), 110: “As it is evident that a stone, in order to
be set free from a mountain without the movement of the human hand, must be set free from a
mountain.”
239 HD, 78.
240 HD, 78.
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between an inherited tradition and a later interpretive point of view. In this respect, Willet
documents the tradition’s enterprise to harmonize the text by arguing for its redaction. If it
appeared that the exegesis demanded some form of editing, then segments of the exegetical
tradition reasoned for its use, as we shall see. Where Post-Reformation exegetical redaction parts
company with the modern critical application of redaction criticism is in the creative element of
modern methodology. Rather than reconstructing or deconstructing the text, the redaction of the
Middle Ages and Reformation was for the purpose of determining the validity of what the
exegetical tradition had already substantiated. While it was not a creative process in the sense of
forming something outside the prescribed exegetical parameters of the tradition, it was applied in
the sense of being imposed as the result of a later interpretive point of view for harmonizing the
content of the passage within the tradition.
In Exodus 33:7 Willet challenges the interpretation of Calvin and Rupertus that the
tabernacle found in that passage was the tabernacle God instructed Moses to build when on Mt.
Sinai. Because of the sequence of events between Exodus 33 and the actual building of the
tabernacle, Willet says that if this interpretation is to be admitted, “the whole history of the book
should be transposed.”241 This is, the chronological harmony of the historical account given in
the text will be significantly disrupted. As it will be shown, transposition or redacting the text for
the purpose of historical symmetry was an accepted practice within the churchly exegetical
tradition. Indeed, this practice is especially evident in Exodus 24:1, where even the grammar is
changed in the Geneva Bible to indicate that passage’s congruity with past events rather than the
immediate context.
For the purposes of this essay, three passages are scrutinized by Willet as those suggested
by others, or the text itself, to have been redacted. The introduction to 2 Samuel suggests a
241 HE, 782.
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redactor or redactors collating and editing of the structure of the book. In Romans 16:25-27,
Willet deals with the textual questions of locating the proper placement of this doxology. The
third place of interpolation, as has already been said, is found in Exodus 24:102 and the ordering
of events for Moses’ reception of the moral, civil and ceremonial law.
2 Samuel
Introducing his commentary on 2 Samuel under the heading “The Inscription of the
Book,” “Samuel, it is held, was the author of the book until mention is made of his death,” Willet
writes. He continues, however, stating, “there is greater question why the second book bears his
name,” and lists the following reasons: “1. His actions are not its content; 2. He is not the
penman; 3. It is written by some of the prophets. Perhaps Nathan who followed Samuel, or
another prophet, from manuscripts collected by Hezekiah or manuscripts collected by Ezra.”
This concept of collecting and editing books of the Bible is also taken up by Matthew
Henry and Matthew Poole (1624-1679). Henry writes in the introduction to his commentary on
Judges:
The history of these judges in their order we have in this book to the end of ch.
xvi. And then in the last five chapters we have an account of some particular
memorable events which happened, as the story of Ruth did (Ruth i.1) in the days
when the judges ruled, but it is not certain in which judge’s days; but they are put
together at the end of the book, that the thread of the general history might not be
interrupted.242
242 Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Old
Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, n.d.), 120.
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Henry also calls the collator of Judges a “historian” which by definition lends itself to the idea of
systematizing a historical chain of events.243 This editorial element of the sacred texts formation
is clearly identified by Henry and poses no problem either for himself or for others of his era.244
Poole, introducing his commentary on Judges, writes, “The author of this book is not
certainly known, whether it was Samuel, or Ezra, or some other prophet, nor is it material to
know … What matters not who was the king’s secretary, or with what pen it was written, it once
be known it was the king who made the order or decree.”245 More pointed is Poole’s introduction
to the book of 1 Samuel. There he says, “It is not certainly known who was the penman of this
Book, or whether it was written by one or more hands … It may well suffice that there were in
these times divers prophets and holy men of God; as Samuel and Nathan, and Gad, and David
himself, who might each of them write some part of this and the following book.”246
No conflict is recognized by these men between the inspiration of the text and the text’s
collection and editing. That the text may have been written by a variety of godly men and copied
from other collected sources is also not in question. The idea of a historian, to use Henry’s word,
depicts a man or men who sat down to review the historical documents and arranged them in an
order that was best suited to communicate the sacred history. What each of these men is
confident to say is that this aspect of the canon’s formation is not necessary to know. The salient
element is that the words, from whomever they were penned either in an exemplar form which
they were copied or in the original document itself, were the words of God.
243 Henry, Commentary, 120.
244 Cf. Muller, “Holy Scripture,” 135-137.
245 Poole, Commentary, 456.
246 Poole, Commentary, 513.
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Romans 16:25-27
Question 23 dealing with verses 25-27 probes the doxology traditionally located in
Romans 16. Willet is first concerned about the “order and placing thereof.”247 As is his wont,
Willet first cites Origen, who observed that Marcion, “who had quite corrupted the Apostle’s
writing, putting it in and out at his pleasure, had quite cut off these last two chapters from this
epistle.”248 “Beside this,” Willet continues, “there is another difference among the orthodox
expositors, for some place this doxology at the end of the 15th [14th] chapter, immediately after
these words, ‘whatsoever is not of faith is sin.’”249 Willet adds that Chrysostom puts the
doxology after chapter 14250 while Origen places it in chapter 16.251
It is especially noteworthy that when Willet is confronted with a variation, as in this case,
it is not so much what he says but what he omits. After growing accustomed to what some may
characterize as exegetical hair-splitting style, Willet’s silence as to the placing of these verses in
either Romans 14 or 16 is conspicuous.
It seems evident by Willet’s silence that the question of the placement of the doxology
was not in question. Calvin’s commentary on this passage excludes any mention to an alternative
247 HR, 734.
248 HR, 734.
249 HR, 734.
250 HR, 734. See John Chrysostom, “Homily 27,” in Philip Schaff, ed., The Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 11, 534. “It is always a custom with Paul to conclude his
exhortations with prayers and doxologies. For he knows that the thing is one of no slight
importance. And it is out of affectateness and causation that he is in the habit of doing this. For it
is the character of a teacher devoted to his children, and to God, not only to instruct them in
words only, but by prayer too to bring upon his teaching the assistance which is from God. And
this he does here also. But the connection is as follows: ‘To Him that is of power to establish
you, be glory forever. Amen.’”
251 HR, 734.
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placement.252 Willet followed the placement of this passage as found in the Geneva and Bishops’
Bibles. He also cites the comments of a host of ecclesiastical exegetes, including Thomas,
Cajetan, Pererius, Tolet, Piscator, Osiander, Origen, Calvin, Bucer, Martyr, Faius and Haymo at
the close of Romans 14, none of which make any reference to the doxology’s inclusion.253 It may
be gathered by these testimonies that the inclusion of the doxology at the close of Romans 16
had been accepted for many across a wide spectrum of exegetical and textual thought and was
codified by Willet’s time as the authentic placement of the text. While manuscript evidence raises
the question of this placement, the ecclesiastical tradition seems to raise no doubt.254
Exodus 24:1
The question is raised as to which reading of Exodus 24:1 is correct.255 The commentaries
of Junius, Vatabulus, Arias Montanus and Pagnine read, cum caeter, “And he said to Moses,”
while the Geneva Bible reads, “now he had said … as though this were transposed, and God had
said before unto Moses.”256
Challenging the translation of the popular continental version of Scripture, Willet
demonstrates the churchly tradition’s discontinuity at this passage and that part of the
252 Calvin, New Testament Commentaries, vol. 8, 327-328. Calvin comments in the
introduction to Romans, “It concludes with a notable prayer.”
253 HR, 654-655.
254 Zane C. Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad, eds., The Greek New Testament According to
the Majority Text, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985), 506. The majority
readings of the Greek New Testament place verses 25-27 at the close of Romans 14. At this point
the Vulgate tradition of placing these verses at the close of Romans 16 took precedence over the
majority Greek reading.
255 HE, 554-555.
256 HE, 554. Marginal Note: I.V.B. cum cater.
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discontinuity was a result of a supposed redaction of some scholars to rearrange the literature to
serve some particular interpretive purpose, specifically the order for Moses’ movement
ascending and descending the mount. Because of the difficulty in interpreting this passage in the
sequence of events revolving around the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai, the Geneva Bible infers
that the events of Exodus 24:12 had transpired in the past and by transposition were being
recounted here.
To illustrate Willet’s presentation of the argument and methodology, his commentary on
Exodus 24:1 again serves as a helpful illustration. He writes,
In this chapter, there are two several commandments given expressly of the Lord,
unto Moses, with their several executions … [T]he first to vers. 12, the second
thence to the end of the chapter. The first commandment … is given, [in] vers.
1.2; both who shall come up unto God, [in] vers. 1. and in what order, vers. 2.
Moses should come near unto the Lord, the rest should stand further off.257
Willet describes the context of the passage of Scripture to be commented upon and its
contextual divisions. He then raises the issues that have been historically in question in
addressing the interpretation of this passage – in this case Willet asks two questions dealing with
the persons involved in the text and Moses’ specific part in God’s command for him to come up
the mountain. Having raised the questions, he proceeds to argue for the conclusion that is most
warranted by the text itself and the churchly tradition.
Cognizant of the historical debate, Willet’s first question is, “Whether this chapter be
transposed in part, or in whole.” Presenting first a contrary argument based on the translation,
“Now he had said to Moses,” he states that the opinion of the Hebrews is that this entire chapter
should precede chapters 21, 22 and 23. Rabbinical scholars argued that the content of the three
preceding chapters had transpired and that Moses received the former judicial and ceremonial
257 HE, 554.
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laws before the moral law was delivered on Mt. Sinai. The order of events would be as follows:
1. On the first day of the third month (Ex. 19:10) the whole host came to the base of Mt. Sinai,
and that Moses went up, and received the judicial and ceremonial laws, as they are expressed in
chapters 21-23; 2. That Moses descended on the fourth day and confirmed the covenant as is
explained here in chapter 24:3-8; 3. On the fifth day Moses went up again with Aaron, Nadab
and Abihu, 24:1-2, 9-11; 4. On the sixth day the trumpet sounded and the moral law was
delivered, Ex. 19:13.
Replying to this idea, Willet presents three reasons why the transposition of the story
cannot be admitted. His first discussion presents logical reasons because
It is not like that the people would receive the judicial and ceremonial laws before
they were washed and purged; or that Moses would sprinkle them with the blood
of the sacrifice being unclean. Bur if on the fourth day they received the laws,
they were not yet cleansed. For three days before the moral law was given, which
was, as they say, on the sixth day, they were commanded by Moses to sanctify
themselves, and to wash their clothes, ch. 19.258
Quoting Tostatus, Willet’s second reason was theological. Accenting the dependence of the
ceremonial and judicial laws on the moral law, Willet with Tostaus maintained that the “moral
law was to remain and continue forever, so were not the other positive laws, whether ceremonial,
or judicial. Therefore it is most like that the moral law was given first, and the other after, and
not the judicial and ceremonial first.”259
Third reason for arguing against the transposition of the entire chapter is one of
establishing the proper time sequence. Willet notes,
Again, after the people had heard the Lord’s terrible voice thundering out the law,
they were afraid, and desired that Moses might speak unto them from God, chap.
258 HE, 544.
259 HE, 544.
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20. Therefore it is evident, that as yet before the moral law was delivered, Moses
had not received the other laws from God to give unto the people. But God spake
unto them himself.260
After presenting three reasons why the transposition of the entire chapter cannot be
admitted, the question of whether one “can admit no transposition here at all” is raised. Cajetan
thought that at this time Moses was with God and not yet come down out of the mount. Lyranus
lent his support to this idea with the rendering, “After thou art gone down, and hast published
these laws to the people, then come thou up again, with Aaron, etc.”261
At this point in the discussion, with the help of Hugo de St. Victor, Willet counters the
interpretation of Cajetan and Lyranus and argues for the transposition of verses 1 and 2. He
writes that it is
More like that Moses received this commandment to give up again, after he had
published the laws, and performed all these ceremonies, which were rehearsed
from vers. 3. to vers. 9. For Moses was now come down, when the Lord bade him
come up, as Hugo St. Victor said, quomodo enim praecipitur ascendere, qui cum
eo est in monte? etc., how is he bid to ascend, who was already in the mount? And
again, seeing it is said vers. 9, “then went up Moses and Aaron.” It is like that
then Moses received that commandment to go up, neque accessisset Moses non
vocatus, for Moses would not have gone up unto God, not being called. The two
first verses then must needs be transposed.262
The third textual position for the rendering of this passage presented by Willet was that of
Rabbi Abraham, who held that chapters 20-22 were not transposed but placed in their right order,
that Moses remained before the Lord after the moral law was given, and received the judicial and
ceremonial laws following. Afterward he rehearsed them to the people and performed the other
ceremonies described in verses 3-9. However, Rabbi Abraham maintained that the
260 HE, 544.
261 HE, 544.
262 HE, 554-555.
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commandment that Moses should come up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, which is given to
Moses in verses 1 and 2, was transposed and transpired before the moral law was delivered in
chapter 20. Willet notes that Gallasius also held this position.
Again, Willet presents two reasons why this notion of limited transposition cannot be
admitted. First those who were invited to come up Mt. Sinai differed,
Because before the moral law was pronounced by the Lord in chapter 20, Moses
is bid to come, and Aaron only with him, chap. 19:24. But here Nadab and Abihu
and the 70 Elders he is charged to take with him, vers. 1.2.
Secondly, appealing again to Tostatus, Willet says,
Immediately after Moses had sacrificed and sprinkled the blood, he went up with
Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, vers. 9. This then was not done before the giving of the
law.
Determining that the entire chapter was not transposed and also that no transposition at
all would not fit the events, so Cajetan and Lyranus, and that the first two verses were not
transposed from chapter 20, as Rabbi Abraham held, Willet concludes that the more probable
opinion is that there is an ellipsis before verses 1 and 2 and that
the first two verses only, which in order are to be joined with the 9[t] verse, are set
out of their place. And that first Moses came down and published the laws to the
people, as the Lord commanded him to do, though it be omitted. For without
God’s commandment he would do nothing, & his factis, and these things being
done, then he was bid to come up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu etc.263
This interpretation was likewise that of Tostatus, Junius, Oleaster and Simlerus.
Whether Willet’s rendering is accepted as the best may receive continual scrutiny. The
element of this inquiring that is not in question is that the churchly tradition was always
cognizant of redaction. Indeed, it believed in the use of redaction to a greater or lesser degree
(depending on the extent of the pericope) to be necessary for the proper exegesis of the passage.
263 HE, 555.
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Though not arguing for the relocation of these verses, neither does Willet think that the grammar
should be modified to smooth out a potential discrepancy. Rather, he argues contextually that
verse 1 and 2 alone are “set out of their place” and are logically connected with verse 9.
The next chapter examines Willet’s exegesis drawn from Old and New Testament
examples. These passages were selected for their ability to illustrate Willet’s exegetical rigor in
working through the text and the exegetical tradition. The twelve passages are divided under
three headings: textual, contextual and grammatical. Under the heading of textual are 1 Samuel
9:5; 2 Samuel 7:7; Romans 1:32, 8:3, 11:31 and 16:25-27. Under the second heading of
contextual are 2 Samuel 7:19; Romans 11:6 and 11:33. Under the last heading of grammatical are
2 Samuel 8:18; Romans 5:12 and 10:21.
Chapter 4
Examples of Willet’s Exegesis
Examples of Willet’s Textual Observations
Synecdoche Rendering and Consideration for the Source of the Variant Reading in 2 Samuel 7:7
Willet asks the question whether the words, “spake I one word with any of the tribes?”
were translated properly.264 Commenting on this passage, Willet challenges the exegetical
tradition, again showing the fluidity of exegetical discovery that continued through into the
beginning of the 17th century. Most of the interpreters, Septuagint, Latin, Chaldean, and
Vatabulus “with the rest” translated the word shibtee, “tribes.” But following Junius, Willet
264 H2S, 41.
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believes that shibtee is better translated as a synecdoche as either “judges” or “governors.”
Etymologically he argues that the word properly refers to “scepters,” the scepter itself being an
adjunct of the government and an emblem of the governors themselves. Furthermore, Willet
gives four reasons why “judges” is the superior rendering: 1) This event is rehearsed in 1
Chronicles 17:6 and in that place reads, “spake I one word to any of the judges of Israel?”265 2)
The immediate context confirms the same sense; “whom I commanded to feed my people.” It
was the judges and not the tribes whom the Lord commanded to care for his people. 3) In verse
11 we read that the Lord also said “since that time I commanded judges over my people.”
Finally, 4) Willet addresses the matter on how such a variant could find its way into the
text. He notes the similarity and affinity between the words shibtee and shophtee, both in sound
and in definition. The difference in pointing being only a hireq or a holem, which Willet notes
may account for the variation.266
Cognizant of the possibility of this variant in pointing, Willet resists questioning the
authority or the pointing of the Hebrew text. Rather, he informs the reader of the issue in
question and interprets the word broadly as a synecdoche. In this manner, Willet fashioned his
own sense of the ketib, to be written “tribes,” and the qere, to be read as “judges,” touching the
text’s synecdoche translation.
Text-Critical Concerns in Romans 1:32
The rigors of textual critical work was the obligatory work of the reformation theologians
as they confronted their Roman Catholic counterparts and their own textual critical inquiry and
polemic. Rather than asserting a retardation of critical work due to this struggle, the reality of
265 There the word is shophtee. 266 H2S, 41.
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this tension stimulated and indeed demanded critical inquiry. There was no need to indulge in
nonexegetical, hypothetical formulations as did the theologians of the 18th and 19th centuries.267
Romans 1:32 serves as a splendid example of the academic and yet thoroughly theological
struggle in which the post-Reformation exegetes were engaged. What becomes evident is that
reason governed Willet’s rigor in working through the intricacies of text-critical matters.
In the Latin, the passage reads, “Who when they knew the justice of God, did not
understand, that they which do such things, are worthy of death, not only they which do them,
but they also which consent unto the doers.”268 Willet compares this with the translation of the
apographa, which reads, “the which knowing the justice of God, how they which commit such
things are worthy of death, not only to do the same, but to have pleasure in them.”
He observes that the Latin translation fails on two accounts. The first, on a textual level,
was the unauthorized addition of the words, “did not understand” and “they which do them.” The
second was that this translation fails in the sense by promulgating two contradictions. The first
contradiction is established in comparison to the Greek. According to the Greek reading, the
apostle means that it is “a more heinous thing to favor and patronize evil doers, than to be an evil
doer. But after the other reading the latter is greater,” the other reading being the Latin.269 The
second contradiction, Willet’s third point, is that the Latin translation itself concludes a
contradiction. “For when they knew the justice of God,” Willet writes, “how could they choose
267 Contra Greenslade, The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 3 47.
268 HR, 97.
269 HR, 97.
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but understand it.”270 And fourthly, citing Chrysostom, Oecumenius and Theophylact for support,
he says that they read and interpret this passage according to the Greek, not the Latin text.
Willet shows throughout his commentaries, that aside from canonical and ecclesiastical
differences, certain renderings are unreasonable. He shows that the Latin text contains logical
contradictions that no one should be expected to believe or to hold authoritatively. Indeed, these
errors in reason reflect on an absence of academic rigor indicative of an exegetical tradition that
relied on authoritative pronouncements and institutional advancements rather than a rigorous,
reasoned exegesis.
Bellarmine responds that some Greek texts had the word , “they understood
not,” as are found in Origen’s commentary and that Titlemannus affirmed that he had seen an
ancient Greek copy with those words. Secondly, it was a greater sin to do evil, as to commit
murder, than only to consent. Thirdly, they might have a theoretical knowledge and yet fail in
practice, and so not understand the effect. And lastly, Cyprian, Ambrose, Sedulius, Haymo, and
Anselm follow the Latin in this passage.271
To these objections Willet gives a fourfold reply. Allowing that some Greek manuscripts
have the words, the most ancient of the Greek manuscripts did not have them as is “evident by
the Greek commentaries and the Syriac.”272 Furthermore, the extant Greek manuscripts of the
Reformation did not have these words. As relating to Bellarmine’s notion of “consent” Willet
argues that the “Apostle speaketh not of bare consent until evil, but of savoring, patronizing, and
270 HR, 97.
271 HR, 97. Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge,
vol. 10, 333-334. Sedulius Scotus was an Irish monk (d. 828) whose writings are a compilation
of the Church Fathers and especially Origen.
272 HR, 97.
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partaking pleasure in them, which is more than to do evil; for this one they may do of infirmity,
the other proceedeth from malice.”273
Refocusing the discussion of Bellarmine’s nonexegetical insertion of the idea of practice
back to discernment, Willet responds, “the understanding is the judgment of the mind, not in
practice, and therefore to know a thing, and yet not to know or understand it, includes a
contradiction.” And finally, Willet answered by saying that the “Greek authors and commentaries
are more to be respected in this case, for the finding out of the best reading in Greek, than the
Latin writers.”274
Aware of the variant reading within this passage, Willet is not content to allow textual
matters alone to suffice for the determination of the best reading. Willet appeals to the
manuscripts upon which his Greek New Testament was founded. He argues for the sense of the
words within their context as well as the logic for inclusion or exclusion. Orthodox sense and
context informed Willet of the reasonable limits of his exegesis and interpretation. Also, in that
the Latin commentaries are one more translation away from the Greek, it is not surprising that
Willet finds the best reading in the Greek commentaries rather than the Latin.
Use of the Accusative Case in Romans 8:3
“For (that which was impossible to the law, in as much as it was weak because of
the flesh) God sending his own Son in the similitude (flesh of sin, Gr. In a form
like unto flesh subject to sin, Be.G. this is the sense but not the meaning of the
words) and for sin, (not, of sin, L. V. the word is for) condemned sin in the
flesh; (in his flesh, S. ad.).”275
273 HR, 97. Poole, Commentary, 483. “Have pleasure in them; or, patronize, applaud
such; see Psal. X. 3. This is set last, as worst of all; it is the highest degree of wickedness: and
such come nearest the devil, who take pleasure in evil because it is evil.”
274 HR, 97.
275 HR, 347.
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Here there is a question whether for the sake of the context a word should be supplied. At
this passage both Erasmus and Vatabulus supply the word, effecit or praestitit, “did,” or
“performed,” in this sense, that which was “impossible to the law, etc. God sending his Son,
did.”276 Willet notes that this reading is also followed by the ecclesiastical expositors, collected
by Marlorat. His purpose is to show that this supply is unnecessary and that the “sense is full and
perfect without it.”277
The Syriac transposes the words, “because the law was weak by reason of the flesh,” but
in the original the words , “wherein,” follow , the “law.” Willet comments that to
begin with, this setting the relative before the antecedent is a difficult grammatical
construction.278
Willet also states that there is no need with Camerius to supply the preposition _____,
“for,” or “because,” as thus to read, “because of that which was impossible to the law, etc.” This
rendering was followed by Pareus and approved of by Beza.279 Nor was there any need to admit
a Hebraism, with Tolet, who had the participle, “sending,” according to the Hebrew phrase for
276 HR, 352.
277 HR, 352.
278 HR, 352. ; “for what
was impossible for the law, wherein it was weak through the flesh . . .” For the few examples of
the antecedent following the relative see F. Blass, A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New
Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, translated and edited by Robert W. Funk
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 154.
279 HR, 352.
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“he sent.”280 Neither was it necessary to put in the nominative case with the sense
“such was the weakness of the law,” as Beza did.281
For Willet, the best reading was to put “condemned sin in the flesh” in the accusative.
The thing impossible, “to the law, in as much as it was weak,” was referred to the last clause,
“condemned sin in the flesh,” by way of opposition, in this since, “God sending his Son,
condemned sin in the flesh, which was impossible to the law.” This was the rendering of the
Latin and that of the English translations.282
Trajection of the Particle in Romans 11:31
Willet asks the question of the meaning of the words in verse 31, “So now have they not
believed by your mercy.”283
31. Even so now have they not believed, (not obeyed, Be. have been
contumacious. S. see the former verse) by the mercy shewed unto you, (your
mercy, Gr.) that they also may obtain mercy, (not believed the mercy, B. A. in the
mercy. L. not believed because of your mercy. V.S. Beza referreth it to the latter
clause, that by your mercy they might obtain mercy.
32. For God hath shut up all in unbelief, (contumacy, or disobedience, S.B.
signifieth both, the first rather here, for the Apostle still urgeth the
necessity of unbelief, as c.9.32.) that he might have mercy on all.284
280 HR, 352.
281 HR, 352.
282 HR, 352. Geneva Bible, 82: “For (that which was impossible to the law, in as much as
it was because of flesh) God sending his own Son, in the similitude of sinful flesh, and //for sin,
condemned sin in the flesh. Christ did take flesh, which of nature was subject to sin, which
notwithstanding he sanctified even in the very instant of his conception, and did so appropriate it
unto him, that he might destroy sin in it. //Or. by sin. 283 HR, 514-515. .
284 HR, 487.
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Willet divides the discussion of the clause “So now have they not believed by your
mercy” into four sections. The first section is a grammatical response in answer to the question
whether unbelief or disobedience is in view. The second section, still covering the same material,
is drawn principally from the context and theological concerns. Section three is a lengthy treatise
on the words “for your mercy” divided into four sections. The fourth section contained Willet’s
summary conclusion.
The exegetical tradition at this point has its varied interpretations. For the explication of
the words, some read, “so now have they not obeyed,” or, “are become contimaces, stubborn,
and contumacious.” So read Beza, the Peshitto, Grynaeus and others.285 Willet however held that
it is rather to be interpreted “have not believed,” as Martyr, the Latin and the English translation
for the following reasons.286
He does not debate that the word signifies both incredulity and contumacy or
disobedience, being derived from the word “to persuade.” His point is that both the
believer and unbeliever alike are disobedient. The Jews were disobedient, thus bringing the
mercy of God upon the disobedient Gentiles. To say that disobedience is at the crux of the
problem is for Willet superficial and inadequate. For Willet, the thrust of this passage is to bring
the Jews to salvation through the mercy shown to the Gentiles and not merely some sense of
obedience or disobedience. He notes that the apostle throughout this chapter makes unbelief the
cause for God’s rejection of the Jews because of unbelief, verse 20 (), and that
is being used in this specific sense in this context.
285 HR, 514.
286 The marginal note of Poole’s edition of King James Version at this verse reads, “Or,
obeyed.”
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Appealing to a collaborating portion of Scripture Willet says that the next verse is better
read, “God hath shut up all under unbelief” than “under disobedience,” as it is stated in Galatians
3:22, “The scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ,
should be given to them that believe,” where by sin is understood unbelief.287
Origen and Chrysostom interpret this place to speak of the incredulity both of the
Gentiles and the Jews.288 The words “your mercy” are not active, whereby the Jews and Gentiles
show mercy, but passive, whereby they received mercy. The cause of this mercy is put for the
effect in verse 22, “If thou continue in his goodness,” that is, in faith, received by God’s
goodness.289 Willet writes,
The Apostle saith (yours) propter efficientiam, because it was effectual toward
them, but afterward he saith, that he might shew mercy on all, propter
sufficientiam, because it is sufficient for all.290
The sense and meaning of the words “by your mercy” have been the source of a variant
of interpretations. The Latin reads, in vestrum misericordiam, “for your mercy.” Haymo and
Osiander interpret this to mean that they have not believed, vt vos misericordiam consequamini,
“that you may obtain mercy.” But Beza and Erasmus both refute this, because as much in effect
is said previously in the end of the former verse, “You have obtained mercy through their
unbelief.” Grammatically, the particles, “even as,” and “even so,” show an opposition of these
parts of speech, not a repetition.
287 HR, 515.
288 HR, 515.
289 HR, 515.
290 HR, 515.
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Ambrose reads in vestra misericordia, “in your mercy,” that is, “at this time when you
have obtained mercy” meaning at the same time. Willet states that there is no preposition in the
original to warrant this rendering; that the words are in the dative, the case, says
Willet, the Greeks used for the ablative. He says, “The Jews were unbelievers, and rejected the
Gospel, before it was preached unto the Gentiles, and therefore it was not the same time.”291
Erasmus reads “they have not believed,” per vestram misericordiam, “by your mercy,”
meaning “the mercy shewed to the Gentiles was an occasion (or cause) of the unbelief of the
Jews.” But Beza rejected this interpretation for the following two reasons: 1) the Jews were first
unbelievers, before mercy was showed to the Gentiles, therefore they were not hardened; and 2)
the mercy showed to the Gentiles, was to provoke the Jews to follow them, v. 11. The Jews
therefore would not be driven further away from God by the mercy shown to the Gentiles.292
Willet maintains that Theophylact’s interpretation comes nearer to St. Paul’s sense than
does that of the other exegetes. Theophylact thought that there was a trajection, or the
conveyance of the sense, of the particle , “that.” Although the words stand in this order in the
original, “by your mercy, that they may obtain mercy,” he argued that they must be placed thus:
“that by your mercy, they may obtain mercy.” This same trajection, or transferred sense of , is
also found in 2 Corinthians 2:4, , “but my love that ye may know me,” for
“but that you may know my love.” Beza at this passage and Tolet also argue that the words “for
your mercy” should not be joined with the former clause, “so now they have not believed,” but
with the latter, “that they may also obtain mercy” to maintain the parallel structure of the
passage. St. Paul wrote before, “you have received mercy through their unbelief,” and so it
291 HR, 515.
292 HR, 515.
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would subsequently follow that they also “should receive mercy, through their mercy.”
Chrysostom furthermore showed the reason why it was said, that the Jews should receive mercy,
through their [the Gentiles] mercy, not through their unbelief. “The Gentiles have not been
saved, vt quemadmodum Judei exire debates, as the Jews were, that you should go out (or fall
away) again, sed vt ilos manendo per aemulationem attar hatis, but that ye may draw them
[Jews] on by continuing in the faith.293
Willet comes to summarize the force of the apostle’s argument. There are three things to
be compared with another corresponding three: 1) the unbelief of the Gentiles with the unbelief
of the Jews; 2) the mercy that the Gentiles received in time past with the mercy that the Jews
shall receive; and 3) the causes of both set against the other. The cause of mercy showed to the
Gentiles was the unbelief of the Jews, and the cause of mercy showed to the Jews was mercy
extended to the Gentiles. This mercy granted the Gentiles was to provoke emulation on the part
of the Jews.
St. Paul’s argument is from the less to the greater. If the infidelity of the Jews was the
opportunity of mercy to the Gentiles, much more the mercy showed to the Gentiles shall be the
opportunity of showing mercy to the Jews. For there is greater force in that which is good than in
that which is evil, says Grynells. Tolet comments that if the Gentiles who never believed were
called to the faith, it is far more likely that the Jews which had been in the past believers should
return to their former faith.294
293 HR, 515. See Chrysostom, “Homily 19” in Philip Schaff, ed., The Nicene and Ante-
Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 11, 494. “Yet ye have not been so saved as to put away again, as
the Jews were, but so as to draw them over through jealousy while ye abode.”
294 HR, 515.
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Pleonasm in Romans 16:25-27
Willet’s high view of Scripture and his continuity with the Reformation tradition is not
liable in reducing Willet’s zeal to argue through the intricacies of the Bible’s original languages
and subsequent translations. To illustrate this point, Willet raises a “troubling” grammatical
question with Romans 16:25-27. He notes that the clause “to whom be praise through Jesus
Christ”295 cannot be grammatically dependent upon the clause in verse 25, “to him that is of
power.”296 Erasmus thought is were “great impudence” to omit the relative , “to whom,” which
is found in most Greek copies.297 The quandary of this apparent run-on sentence found in the
majority of Greek manuscripts led him to conclude that the apostle “brought forth here an
imperfect speech.”298 To Erasmus’s summary, Willet replied that Erasmus had overstated his
conjecture by saying that neither Syrian interpreter had the relative, nor did the Complutension
copy, which Beza followed in this passage.
Augustine is cited in the Glossa ordinaria as having the word “praise” or “glory” to be
twice applied, in this sense, “to him, that is of power, etc., be praise and glory, to whom be all
praise.” Willet calls this rendering a “superfluous supply.”299
Although Chrysostom includes the relative in the text, he omits it in his comment,
lectionis haec est consequentia, this is of the consequence and coherence of the reading, and
295 Hodges and Farstad, eds., The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text,
506. The text reads, ; The Textus Receptus reads,
.
296 HR, 515.
297 HR, 734.
298 HR, 734
. 299 HR, 734.
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sense, “to him, that is of power, etc. be glory.” Willet cites Ambrose in support of this
interpretation. Lyranus interprets cui, “to whom,” that is, to Christ. Tolet interprets cui, that is,
ipsi, “to him.” Still Willet argues that the sense of the words do not hang together well.
In working through this grammatical difficulty Willet sides with Beza who thinks that the
relative, “to whom,” is a pleonasm, “a filling of a superfluous word, according to the manner of
the Hebrew tongue.” Willet cites Ephesians 3:21 and 1 Peter 2:24 where the pronoun ,
“himself” is used superfluously, but says that Pareus gives a clearer instance in Hosea 10:7,
succisus est Samaria rex eius, the king of Samaria, of it, is cut off. Willet summarizes, “And so
in this place, the word, ‘to whom,’ may abound and be superfluous. But the sense and coherence
is that which Chrysostom followeth.”300
Examples of Willet’s Contextual Observations
Identification of Persons in 2 Samuel 8:18
Willet asked the question, Who were the Cerethites and Pelethites? Josephus, Martyr,
Borrhaus, Pellican, and the Geneva Bible think that these Cerethites and Pelethites are
“keepers of the kings body, the king’s guard.”301 Some thought that their
station was derived from the root of their name, the Cerethites taken from charath, to “cut out,”
because they were the king’s executioners; the Pelethites from palat, to “defend,” because they
300 HR, 734.
301 H2S, 53.
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were his body guard. Others give another derivation of carath which meant “to strike a
covenant” and pala, “excellent,” so called because they were worthy and excellent men.302
Still others thought that these were strangers from other countries. Willet said that some
considered the Cerethites to be Philistines that the king used to guard his person, “as now the
Swiss and Helvetians, and Scots are in other countries appointed for the kings guard.”303 Willet
with Martyr finds it unlikely that David would have “strange people being infidels and idolaters
so near his person.”304
Vatabulus reads here “Creti and Pleti, the Cretians and the Pletians” but does not show
who they were or from what nation they came. Willet adds that in the apostles’ time we learn
from Acts 2:11 that there were Cretes at Jerusalem, but in David’s time they were held with little
regard.
Willet concludes that Cerethite and Pelethite are proper names. These were garrison
soldiers, the Cerethites who inhabited Chereth among the Philistines, being numbered among the
Philistines, and part of those whom David had subdued (1 Sam. 30:14; Eze. 25:16); and the
Pelethites were also garrison soldiers among the Japhlethites and are mentioned in Joshua 16:2.
Both Junius and the Chaldean paraphrase confirm Willet’s interpretation. The Cerethites were
thought to be archers and the Pelethites to be slingers. Rather than always attending upon the
302 H2S, 53. Willet adds, “Chimhi expound these names by Urim and Thummim. They
were men of knowledge and integrity as some think David’s counsel. But if these were the case,
then Benaias being a man of war should not have been set over them.”
303 H2S, 53.
304 H2S, 53.
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court, these garrison soldiers were employed in the defense of the land. We find that as garrison
soldiers they also served in the defense of the king, as can be seen in chapters 15 and 18.305
Inclusion of the Clause in Romans 11:6
Willet considered the exegesis of the clause, “if of grace, it is no more of works.” Origen
thought that the apostle in this passage spoke only of the ceremonial works of the law, such as
circumcision, the sacrifices and other temple practices. Willet however, believed that the
“Apostles words are general, shewing the opposition between grace and all works, whatsoever,
whether legal, moral, natural.”306
A textual problem also exists in that the clause “if not of work, then not of grace, though
work were no more work” is omitted in the Latin. Erasmus argued for this clause’s omission
because it was not the apostle’s question, “whether work be work,” but only that grace is not of
works. Tolet also says this addition is superfluous, because the latter entails the former.307
Countering these claims Willet cites the Syrian translator and the Greek expositors Chrysostom,
Theophylact and Oecumenius, all who include this clause. Furthermore, although it is omitted by
Origen, the Greek copies generally have it.
305 H2S, 53. Also see 20 quest. V. 23, Whether Benias was one of David’s counselors is
answered in the affirmative on 137.
306 HR, 492.
307 HR, 492.
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Exegetically Willet finds it consistent with the apostle’s purpose, “who to prove the
election of grace, doth shew it by the contrary antithesis and opposition.”308 He presents the flow
of the apostle’s argument, relaying to the reader,
it is either of grace altogether, or of works altogether, but not of works altogether,
therefore of grace. The consequence of this proposition he proveth by this
inconvenience, that if grace be joined with works, then works were no more work.
For if the reward be of grace, it is not by merit of the work. And the assumption
and second part he proveth by an other absurdity, for then grace should be no
more grace, for this which is given the merit of the work, is given of debt, not of
favour, as before the Apostle reasoned, c.4.4. This clause is neither impertinent,
nor yet superfluous.309
Having stated his case, Willet points out that this passage meets with a variety of alternative, and
for Willet, faulty interpretations. For instance, “The Greek scholastics saith, that we need no
works to come unto Christ, sed sola voluntas, & Mentis intention sat est, the will and intention
only of the mind is sufficient.”310 To this Willet asks whether
this will, and intention, whether it is God’s work or man’s. If it be God’s work, as
the Apostle saith, that “God worketh both the will and the deed,” Phil. 2:13, then
it is of grace. If it means man’s, then it is a work, but all workers are excluded.311
Continuing his rebuttal, Willet quotes Osiander, who says that “grace cannot be understood, to be
a thing infused into and inherent in man, as the Romanists, for then it were a work.” “But grace,”
308 HR, 492. Geneva Bible, Romans 11:6, 84. “And if [it be] of grace, it is no more of
works: or else were grace no more grace: but if it be of works it is no more grace: or else were
work no more work.”
309 HR, 492-493.
310 HR, 493.
311 HR, 493.
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Willet says, “is here conceived to be subjective in Deo, in God as a subject, as work is subjective
in man as a subject.”312
What Willet calls “Gorrhan’s conceit” is an unreasonable interpretation, creating an
unwarranted rendering. Gorrhan’s idea was that “a work may be said to merit, and it shall be of
grace, because it meriteth grace.”313 As is his practice, Willet addresses the inherent contradiction
of uniting the two by saying that “the very opposition between grace and work, one excluding
the other, alloweth no such permission.”314 Work and grace may stand together, but not as joint
causes. Works must follow grace, ne accepta gratia sit inanis, “that the grace received be not in
vain,” as Origen says. Martyr writes,
And though the reward follow works, yet the merit of the work is not the cause,
but the grace and favor of God, which hath appointed such a way and order, that
the faithful, after they have wrought and laborer, should be rewarded. It is
consecution & ordo, a thing that followeth, and an order, which God hath
appointed, not any merit.315
Calvin likewise argued, “Though the Apostle especially entreat here of election, that is of
grace, yet because the Apostle’s rule in general, ad totum salutis nostra rationim extendi debet, it
must be extended to the whole manner and way of salvation.”316 Willet concludes, “For as
election is by grace, not by works, Rom. 9:11, so our calling is by grace, not by works, 2 Tim.
312 HR, 493.
313 HR, 493.
314 HR, 493.
315 HR, 493.
316 HR, 493.
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1:9, ‘who hath called us with an holy calling, not according to our works.’ Our justification also
is by faith without works, Romans 3:24, 28.”317
The Use of in Romans 11:33318
Some at this passage, such as the Latin, read “O the deepness of the riches, of the
wisdom, and knowledge of God,” making “wisdom” and “knowledge” dependent upon “riches.”
But in this reading the Greek conjunction , “and,” which stands between “riches” and
“wisdom,” is omitted.
Another interpretation is illustrated by Chrysostom who thought that these two words,
“depth,” and “riches,” are two names “added to express the excellency of God’s wisdom and
knowledge.”319 This nuance is taken also up by Beza, Grynaeus, Pereius and Faius, who take
“riches” here to mean abundance. Gorrhan supported this interpretation by appealing to
Colossians 2:3, which reads, “In whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Those
representing theis interpretive tradition thought St. Paul was saying, “the riches of the wisdom
and knowledge.”320 Here again the first conjunction is left untranslated.
317 HR, 493.
318 HR, 516.
319 Chrysostome, “Homily 2” in Philip Schaff, ed., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
1st Series, vol. 9, 258. “His greatness has no bounds, His wisdom is beyond reckoning, His
judgments are untraceable, His ways unsearchable.”; “Homily 61,” vol. 10, 376. “Wherefore it
were even seasonable now to say, ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God!’”
320 HR, 516.
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Origen, Theophylact, Erasmus and Tolet refer this deepness to all three, “O the deepness
of the riches, and of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God.”321 This collective rendering is
supported for the following reasons: 1. Erasmus observed that there was a comma or distinction
in all the copies that he saw, between riches and wisdom, which indicated to him that the one did
not depend upon the other. 2. Tolet added that the conjunction (, and) between riches and
wisdom also indicates that they are two distinct things. 3. Furthermore, the following three
clauses, “who hath known his mind,” “who was his counselor” and “who hath given to him
first,” are accountable to all three – knowledge, wisdom, riches. 4. Elsewhere in the text, these
three are distinguished as illustrated in Ephesians 2:17, “the riches of his grace, etc., in all
wisdom and understanding.”322
For Willet this rendering seems “the most agreeable to the scope of the Apostle, who
immediately before made mention of the mercy of God, which here he understandeth, “by the
depth of his riches,” as Ephesians 2:7, “that he might shew in the ages to come, the exceeding
riches of his grace.”
Nevertheless, though either of these readings may be followed, Haymo and Peter Martyr
propounding both interpretations, Willet believes that the former sense seem to fit best, because
of Colossians 2:3, where these “riches” are called the “treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” He
argues that the first conjunction, , can signify “both,” and “and.”
321 HR, 516-517.
322 HR, 517.
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By way of application Willet cites verse 35 which says, “who giveth unto him first.” This
for Willet is another reason to keep men from murmuring against God, as in this passage they are
confronted “by the unsearchable depth of God’s judgments.”323
Examples of Willet’s Grammatical Observations
Grammatical Order in I Samuel 1:1
Willet notes that some “read of one of the two Ramathaims” as in the Geneva Bible.”324
Word order, number and a working knowledge of the Palestinian geography all come to bear on
the proper rendering of this passage.
Willet first observes the Hebrew word order, “There was a man one of Ramathaim-
zophim.” He notes that “one” refers rather to the word going before: erat vir unm, or quidam,
“there was a certain man,” because the Hebrew preposition, min, of, is put before Ramathaim,
not before ached, one. The grammatical structure therefore dictates that the text should read
“one,” or a certain man, came from the city “of Ramathaim-zophim” and not a man of one of the
cities of Ramathaim.325
The interpretation of this passage is further complicated because Ramathaim is plural,
leading some scholars to think that there are two cities of that name and that in this place Ramath
323 HR, 517.
324 Geneva Bible marginal note, 135: “There were two Ramaths, so that in the city in
Mount Ephraim were Zophim: that is, the learned men and prophets.” “There was a man of one
of the two Ramathaim zophim, of mount Ephraim, whose name [was] Elkanah, the son of
Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite.”
325 H2S, 1.
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is meant to be a city in Mt. Ephraim.326 Willet, however, with Henry takes the position that
Ramath is put in the plural “being one and the same city, yet consisting of two towns as two
parts, the one opposite unto the other.”327 Osiander also comments that the context clarifies much
of the problem in that in verse 19 the city is called simply Ramath.328
The next textual issue weighed the etymology of the Hebrew word zophim with that of
the Chaldean rendering and the impact of the LXX upon the interpretation. Willet says first of all
that “Zophim is added, not so called, because there the prophets dwelt, which was called,
Zophim, speculators, watchmen, seers, or beholders” according to the Chaldean. Neither,
according to Pellican, does it refer to a high place, tanquam in specula, as in a watchtower, or
looking place. Rather for Willet, Junius and Borrhaus zophim is added “because it was situate in
the country or region of Zuph, c.9.6 ... which might have the name also of Zuph, of whom
Elkanah was descended, as this verse showeth, called also Zophas, 1 Chron. 6:26.”329
Christocentricity in 2 Samuel 7:19
In this passage we have the inauguration of God’s covenant with David that assured
David that a king would sit on his throne, never to be depose and the proper rendering of the
words “this is the Law of the man Lord God.” The near fulfillment of the promise was answered
326 So the Geneva and Latin Vulgate.
327 H1S, 1. Henry, Commentaries, 276. “This Elkanah lived at Ramah, or Ramathaim,
which signifies the double Ramah, the higher and the lower town, the same with Arimathea of
which Joseph was, here called Ramathaim-zophim.”
328 H1S, 1. Junius: “Yet there were two other Ramaths, one in Benjamin and one in
Naptali.”
329 H1S, 1.
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in his son Solomon, but the prophetic fulfillment could only be accomplished by someone
greater.
Borrhaus understood the clause “This is the law of man” to refer to “the chief happiness
of man in this life, and the chief scope that every one aimeth at to live in a prosperous state
himself, and to provide also for his posterity” and cited the preceding immediate context, “thou
hast spoken of thy servant’s house for a great while to come.” But Willet presses beyond this
interpretation by saying that “David did not rest in these temporal blessings; he looked
further.”330
Rabbi Chimchi by “law” understood a “condition or disposition, as if he should have said
that it is the condition of great men in this world to have their honor and prosperity settled in
their posterity.”331 Willet says Chimchi with Vatabulus would have explained their interpretation
with support drawn from 1 Chronicles 17:17, which reads in part, “thou hast regarded me
according to the state of an excellent man, or of high desire.” “But as is shown before,” Willet
continues, “David is looking higher, than to these temporal and earthly blessings.”
Rabbi Salomon, which the Geneva and Bishops’ Bibles followed, reads this as an
interrogative: “is this the law and condition of man, that though shouldest so much respect
them?” or, “doth this appertain to man?” This rhetorical change in nuance was meant to
communicate that those things that deal with man come only “by thy free mercy, not of any
330 H2S, 44.
331 H2S, 44. For David Kimchi (c. 1160-1235) see Aaron L. Katchen, Christian Hebraists
and Duth Rabbis: Seventeenth Century Apologetics and the Study of Maimonides “Mishneh
Torah” (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 8.; Peter T. Van Rooden, Theology,
Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1989); G. Lloyd Jones, The Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England: A Third Language
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983); Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature,
trans. And ed. Bernard Martin (Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1972);
See Gesenius, 436. law, torat: custom, manner, the manner of man, not of God, i.e. deal with me
as man with man.
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worthiness in man.”332 Pellican likewise reads it with an interrogative with an explanation similar
to that above. He writes it, non huc humanum, sed divinum beneficium, “this is no human, but a
divine benefit,” in that thou hast promised, that all nations shall be blessed in my seed.333
Junius interprets it ratione humana, “after the manner of men,” that is, “thou dealest
familiarly with me, as one man with another,”334 and Rupertus gives this sense: “this is the Law
of Adam, that is, we are all the children of wrath by nature, not worthy to be thine house.”335
Willet, following Martyr, in this passage departs from the various literary attempts to
make sense of this passage and draws principally from grammatical evidence and the overall
covenantal context within which these words are couched, he reads this sentence
Christologically. He says, “But these words are much better referred to Christ.” Willet reads the
sentence, “this is the law of that (excellent) man”; that the word “excellent” is supplied from 1
Chronicles 17:17. Paraphrasing, Willet gives the sense of this rendering, “That is, thou grantest
me these things, not for any merit or worthiness in me, but for the worthiness of that excellent
man Christ.”336 Osiander also gives a Christological interpretation in this place as “an evident
testimony of Christ, both God and man,” by not putting “O Jehovah God” in the vocative case
332 H2S, 44. So also the Geneva Bible.
333 H2S, 44.
334 H2S, 44. cf. Gesenius, 436. law, torat: custom, manner, the manner of man, not of
God, i.e. deal with me as man with man.
335 H2S, 45. Matthew Henry gives three possible renderings to this passage listing those
held by Junius, Rupertus, Martyr (and with him Willet), 483.
336 H2S, 45.
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but joining all these words together by apposition, “this is the law of that man Jehovah God.”
Willet finds in this rendering “the condition of the Messiah, both man and God.”337
An objection could be raised that the word Jehovi in Genesis 15:8 is taken in the vocative
case, providing scriptural warrant for the same here. Conceding the objection’s validity, Willet
relentlessly presses forward with further grammatical substantiation for his conclusion. The word
is haadam, “of that man.” The article is definite, from which Willet argues that this supply is “to
note some excellent and singular man, which title is added in 1 Chr. 17:17.” Furthermore,
contextually he urges that “David here has manifest reference to the Messiah, because he
speaketh of the continuing of his house forever, v. 19.”338
While there is rationale drawn from the diction, grammar and context of this passage for
Willett’s conclusions, he closes his discussion on a Johannine note. Looking to the next words
following in verse 21, “for they word’s sake,” Willet cites Junius, who at this place understands
these words to speak of Christ who is the eternal word of God.339
The Use of in Romans 5:12
Willet raises the question of the meaning of the apostle in these, “in whom all have
sinned,” and the best reading of verse 12. Looking first to the translation of Erasmus, he finds
that Erasmus translates the words , to be interpreted, eo quod, or quando quidem, “in so
much” or “because” and that Calvin, Martyr, Osiander and the Reformation English translations
337 H2S, 45.
338 H2S, 45.
339 H2S, 45.
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follow this rendering. Erasmus also argues for this rendering because 1 Corinthians 15:22 uses
another phrase in that sense, reading, “as in Adam all die, the words are not but .”340
Willet counters that this reason may be easily dismissed because sometimes in scripture
the preposition is taken for , as in Hebrews 9:17, “in meats.” Moreover, for
Willet this interpretation of Erasmus is unacceptable due to his understanding that led him to
interpret this passage as speaking of everyone’s “proper and particular sins,” not referring to
original sin as did Theodoret before him. And so for Willet, if we are to follow Erasmus’s
translation, “we should want a special place for the proof of original sin.”341
Having discussed the alternative renderings and the liabilities as Willet saw them, he
concludes that the better reading is “in whom,” that is, in Adam all have sinned.342 Willet lists
three things that may serve as an antecedent to the relative “in whom.” The options are either sin,
or death, or that “one man,” Adam. Willet begins eliminating the possible antecedents
grammatically by first saying that “sin” cannot be the antecedent because “sin” in the Greek
tongue , is of the feminine gender. “Death” likewise is unsuited because it is improper
speech to say in the which (death) all have sinned.343 Willet concludes
although he (Erasmus) profess, that he is an enemy to the heresy of the Pelagians,
which deny original sin, yet contendeth both by the authority of the fathers, as
340 HR, 250.
341 HR, 250.
342 HR, 250. So reads Origen, Chrysostom, Photius in Oecumenius, Theophylact, whom
Beza and Parens follow.
343 HR, 250. “For as Augustine saith, in peccato moriuntur homistine, non in morte
peccant, men die in sin, they are not said to sin in death. And so Augustine resolveth that in
primo homine omnes peccasse intelliguntur, all are understood to have sinned in the first man
Adam, etc. and to this purpose Augustine in the same place allegeth Hilarius.”
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Jerome and Origen, and by the same slope of the place, that the Apostle must be
understood to speak of actual sins.344
Translation of the Hebrew sorer in Romans 10:21
Question 30 in Romans 10 deals with the rendering of the words, “all the day long have I
stretched forth my hands” in verse 21.345 Quoting from Isaiah 65:2, Willet begins by giving the
contrasting uses of the preposition which he says
May as well signify, “against” as Beza and Erasmus, as “unto.” For this is spoken
indeed not “for” or “unto,” but “against” Israel.346
These alternative renderings are followed by a comparison among the Latin, Beza, Syriac
and Hebrew languages to determine the meaning of the word . The Latin translates
it “incredulous” or “not believing”; Beza rather “disobedient” and “immorigerous”; and the
Syriac “contentious.” The Hebrew word is sorer, which in Psalm 68:6 signifies the rebellious.347
The other word , “gainsaying,” as Origen observed is found in the LXX but
is not in the Hebrew. Willet notes that both Calvin and Beza thought that the apostle expressed
the Hebrew word (sorer) with two words “rebellious” and “gainsaying.”348 Junius, however,
thought that the Apostle used one word to express the prophet’s meaning, which is set forth in
many words in that place such as in Isaiah 65:3, “A rebellious people, which walketh a way
344 HR, 250.
345 HR, 473. Geneva Bible: “And unto Israel he saith, all the day long have I stretched
forth mine hand unto a disobedient (marg. Or. unbelieving), and gainsaying people.
346 HR, 473.
347 HR, 273.
348 HR, 273.
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which is not good after their own imaginations, a people that provoke me ever to my face.”349
Willet concludes that all this the apostle gathered together in the two words, “rebellious,” and
“gainsaying.”350
Chapter 5
Conclusion
This essay began by asking the question, “Is there a reason for reappraising the
contemporary evaluation of the Reformation theological method?” Moises Silva’s evaluation of
so-called precritical biblical exegesis is a modern representation of Willet’s comprehension of
exegesis and theology that led him to write, “we can hardly claim to have developed a
satisfactory approach if our exegesis is in essence incompatible with the way God’s people have
read the Scriptures throughout the centuries.”351 Textual, critically astute, and with a working
knowledge of the biblical languages and cognates, Willet worried through the decisions for or
against individual words, sentences and pericopes. The text’s editing and redaction of segments
of the text were not foreign to him.
The first consideration reappraising the contemporary evaluation of the Reformation
theological method is to show Willet’s continuity with the Reformation exegetical and expository
tradition. The writing style in his commentaries was pedantic and stilted, more analogous to vast
storehouse of exegetical data than to a smoothly edited commentary. In one respect little of
349 HR, 273.
350 HR, 273.
351 Moises Silva, Has The Church Misread The Bible?: The History of Interpretation in
the Light of Current Issues (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), 35. (italics in
original)
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Willet’s commentaries are original, except for his Synopsis. His most extensive labor, the
Synopsis has greater resemblance to a systematic rather than a biblical theology. Willet’s marked
contribution to the codification of Church dogmatics is extensive research as a chronicler of the
Church’s biblical exegesis.
The cogency of Willet’s research is in his scholastically argued conclusions. Having
identified the major exegetical contributors on any particular passage, he engenders a debate
where each exegetical finding must survive as the superior rendering against the whole tradition.
The inclusive form of Willet’s commentaries corresponds with function of his exegetical
conclusions to delineate from the whole the most valid exegetical rendering throughout church
history. The dogmatic claims of contemporary writers such as Rogers and McKim assume a
dichotomy between the early Reformation, specifically John Calvin on one hand and the post-
Reformation dogmaticians and the Westminster Confession of Faith on the other.352 By
bifurcating the tradition a convenient venue is created for pulling one element of the tradition out
of its historic context for the sake of discounting another. Willet, however, suspends the
credibility of his exegesis, preaching, dogmatics and politics on the exegetical continuity of the
churchly tradition. In addition, Willet gives specific examples of his continuity with the
Reformation. By so doing he demonstrates his personal affinity to his Reformation predecessors
as well as his contemporaries.
By way of example, Willet’s commentary on Jude is bound with his commentary on
Samuel and contains a compelling account of his attitude toward both the Jesuits and toward the
various traditions within the Reformation tradition. Smith gives illustrations in Willet’s
biography of his personal experiences with the disgraceful Jew, the “impostor” Roman Catholic
and the “intruder” separatist, each one feigning to be desirous of spiritual help from Willet when
352 Rogers and McKim, The Authority and Interpretation, xvii.
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in fact they were ill-mannered, lecherous vagabonds.353 Willet himself is forthright in
acknowledging his solidarity with the early Reformers and, as a minister of the Church of
England, with the Puritans as his common allies against the papacy.
The title page of his commentary on Judge reads: “A Catholicon, that is, a general
preservative or remedy against the pseudocatholic region, gathered out of the catholic epistle of
S. Jude, briefly expounded, and aptly, according to the time, applied against more than half a
hundred of popish errors, and as many corruptions of manners. With a preface serving as a
preparative to the Catholicon, and a dyet prescribed after.”354 Willet “prescribes” the Protestant’s
“diet” in the sense of “spiritual food for spiritual strength,” “in discerning the true religion and
church from the false.” This prescription is twelve pages long and precedes a one-page analysis
of the whole epistle of June, which consists of a fold-out flow chart/outline. The commentary
itself is only 49 folio pages long.
Part of the preface to Jude contains information that allows us to observe Willet’s own
evaluation of his place within the greater context of the Reformation. Here we observe both
Willet’s willingness to come to the defense of those he considers worthy advocates of the true
religion and also his patriotic spirit as a loyal subject of the king in defense of England. Willet is
able to set aside ecclesiastical differences and come to the defense of every “worthy minister” of
the gospel of Christ against the common foe of Rome. His purpose in the excerpt that follows
was to convince all readers, but primarily the king, that the supposed danger to the crown by the
Puritans was a false and trumped-up charge made by the Jesuits, who were the real culprits. All
who opposed Rome were for Willet to be defended against the scandalous accusations of the
papist. He writes,
353 Smith, Ten Excellent Men, 68-69.
354 CJ, title page.
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[W]hereas the question is moved by the Popish Priests, which of them, or the
faction are likest to the Puritans, and it is resolved, that the sect of the Jesuites
cometh nearer to them, though not so absurd in doctrine, nor yet so malicious
against either Church or commonwealth: neither yet are they such gross heads,
but much fine wits than the Puritans: for these are their own words. Let it here be
considered, that if by the name Puritans, they did understand such busy factious
heads to be malcontents, of a covetous and greedy mind, seek the havoc and spoil
of the church, not in deed or in truth, touched with any conscience of religion,
such as Martin Mareprelate might seem to be, we would greatly stand with them
for this comparison. For such a Puritan may prove a good stock to graft a papist in
as Hacket that justly suffered for his villainies, did leap as reported, out of such a
Puritan’s skin into a Papist’s hide. But whereas under this scandalous name of
Puritans, they do gal and wound the credit of many worthy ministers of the
gospel, as Calvin, Beza, etc. and the preachers also of Scotland, and diverse
among us, who otherwise, setting aside their opinion of some external usages of
the Church, are very profitable laborers, and most loyal subjects, between these
and the best learned of the Papists, for true religion and sound divinity, and
faithful obedience to the Prince, there is no comparison at all . . .. They
acknowledge a Church here in England, and themselves to be members of it . . .
those whom they [papists] call puritan ministers, have both by preaching and
writing, impugned the common adversary, as much as any, and therein have done
God good service in his Church. And this is the cause, if the truth were known,
why popish priests have such spite at them, because they stand so much in their
way, staying the spreading of their infection, by the contrary opposition of sound
doctrine.355
Willet says that there was a common gospel and polemic that continued unbroken from the
writings and preaching of Calvin until his day. His writings were so bound to those of Calvin and
Beza that to defend these men was to defend the theologians of this era. The uncritical use of
“etc.” (a common literary device for Willet) is likewise telling. The early 17th-century reader, not
requiring a litany of theologians, understood the ramifications of this method. Following Calvin
was Beza, and those who followed Beza were likewise included among those who for Willet
were valiant in the faith both for the preservation of the commonwealth and in the advancement
of reformation exegesis and dogmatics against their Jesuit counterparts. Indeed, Willet’s entire
355 CJ, 91-92.
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method, as detailed throughout this thesis, documents his concern for continuity with the earlier
exegetical tradition and specifically for continuity with the concerns of the Reformers.
There is no other single issue in Willet’s work that shows continuity with the Reformation
than his concept of Holy Scripture. Willet’s regular pastoral care of the church and preaching
duties stimulated his strong dependence upon the text and his personal accountability to its
accurate proclamation.356 The Church of England was precious to him, and in good conscience
he could not allow those under his care to be misled or ignorant of God’s message to them.
Andrew Willet, if anything, was painstakingly thorough. His six-point Hexapla in many
ways resembles and shows continuity with the fourfold interpretation of Scripture current in the
Middle Ages. Relating only one sense, the hexapla informs the reader of the many nuanced
applications of the text. This format, in conjunction with his working knowledge of the glossa
ordinaria, gives the reader a transparent bridge between the historical biblical interpretation
preceding what is formally called the Reformation. His manner of argumentation is also similar
to that of Thomas’s Summa. Arguments and counter arguments are posed and answered so as to
give the reader a sense of security in Willet’s conclusions. Medieval in use of argument,
Renaissance-oriented in his recourse to loci and Reformational in exegesis, Willet presents the
modern reader with a commentary illustrating the evolution of biblical commentaries into the
17th century. He was well acquainted with the Church Fathers and finds enduring value in the
commentaries of Origin, Jerome, and Augustine particularly. Willet leaves no stone unturned,
either Roman Catholic or Protestant, in his quest for an exhaustive commentary on the books of
the Bible. He holds the Septuagint in high regard and with conviction maintains a high view of
the authority and inspiration of Scripture. While never relinquishing his hold on the tenets of the
356 See especially H1S, 78-86, and CJ, 117.
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Reformation and Christian faith, Willet vigorously compares alternate textual readings both in
the original languages and subsequent Latin, Syriac and English translations.
Though Willet was only one of many historically obscure exegetes of the Reformation
and post-Reformation era, it is hoped that this brief introduction to him will contribute to the on-
going dialogue in relation to the character and work of the Reformation theologians.
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