_Ans._ There is no word in the text of religion. Our English translation reads it, “all such as joined themselves unto them.” Montanus, _omnes adjunctos_; Tremellius, _omnes qui essent se adjuncturi eis._ The old Latin version reads it indeed as the Bishop doth. But no such thing can be drawn out of the word _hannilvim_, which is taken from the radix _lava_, signifying simply, and without any adjection, _adhaesit_, or _adjunxit se_. But let it be so, that the text meaneth only such as were to adjoin themselves to the religion of the Jews, yet why might not the Jews have taken upon them a matter of civility, not only for themselves, but for such also as were to be joined with them in religion. Could there be nothing promised for proselytes, but only a matter of religion? Alas! Is this our antagonist’s great Achilles, who is thus falling down and succumbing to me, a silly stripling? Yet let us see if there be any more force in the remnant of his reasons. For a third, he tells us that it is expressly termed a _rite_ and a _ceremony_, at verses 23 and 28, as the fathers read them. In the 23rd verse we have no more but _susceperunt_, as Pagnini, or _receperunt_, as Tremellius reads it: but to read, _susceperunt in solemnem ritum_, is to make an addition to the text. The 28th verse calls not this feast a rite, but only _dies memorati_, or _celebres_. And what if we grant that this feast was a rite? might it not, for all that, be merely civil? No, saith the Bishop, “rites, I trust, and ceremonies, pertain to the church, and to the service of God.” _Ans._ The version which the Bishop followed, hath a rite, not a ceremony. Now, of rites, it is certain that they belong to the commonwealth as well as to the church. For _in jure politico, sui sunt imperati et solemnes ritus_, saith Junius.(846) Fourthly, saith the Bishop, they fast and pray here in this verse (meaning the 31st), fast the eve, the fourteenth, and so then the day following to be holiday of course. _Ans._ The Latin version, which the Bishop followeth, and whereupon he buildeth this reason, readeth the 31st verse very corruptly, and no ways according to the original, as will easily appear to any who can compare them together. Wherefore the best interpreters take the fasting and prayer spoken of verse 31, to be meant of the time before their delivery. Now, after they were delivered, they decreed that the matters of their fasting and crying should be remembered upon the days of Purim, which were to solemnise that preservation, _quam jejunio et precibus fuerant a Deo consequenti_, as saith Tremellius. But Fifthly, saith he, with fasting and prayer (here), alms also is enjoined (at ver. 22), these three will make it past a day of revels or mirth.