e, but that the same terms may be either in translation or
exposition set out plainly, to inform the simplicity of the ignorant, by
such words as of them are better understood. Also when those terms are
abused by custom of speech, to signify some other thing than they were
first appointed for, or else to be taken ambiguously for divers things,
we ought not to be superstitious in these cases, but to avoid
misunderstanding we may use words according to their original
signification, as they were taken in such time as they were written by
the instruments of the Holy Ghost."[233]

Fulke's support of the claims of the English language is not confined to
general statements. Acquaintance with other languages has given him a
definite conception of the properties of his own, even in matters of
detail. He resents the importation of foreign idiom. "If you ask for the
readiest and most proper English of these words, I must answer you, 'an
image, a worshipper of images, and worshipping of images,' as we have
sometimes translated. The other that you would have, 'idol, idolater,
and idolatry,' be rather Greekish than English words; which though they
be used by many Englishmen, yet are they not understood of all as the
other be."[234] "You ... avoid the names of elders, calling them
ancients, and the wise men sages, as though you had rather speak French
than English, as we do; like as you translate _confide_, 'have a good
heart,' after the French phrase, rather than you would say as we do, 'be
of good comfort.'"[235] Though he admits that English as compared with
older languages is defective in vocabulary, he insists that this cannot
be remedied by unwarranted coinage of words. "That we have no greater
change of words to answer so many of the Hebrew tongue, it is of the
riches of that tongue, and the poverty of our mother language, which
hath but two words, image and idol, and both of them borrowed of the
Latin and Greek: as for other words equivalent, we know not any, and we
are loth to make any new words of that signification, except the
multitude of Hebrew words of the same sense coming together do sometimes
perhaps seem to require it. Therefore as the Greek hath fewer words to
express this thing than the Hebrew, so hath the Latin fewer than the
Greek, and the English fewest of all, as will appear if you would
undertake to give us English words for the thirteen Hebrew words:
except you would coin such ridiculous inkhorn terms, as you