12S AKlMADVEll.SIOiNS 01>r A TIlEATiSB
CHAPTER XVII.
Latin service.
Sect. XXV. p. 280. The next thing he gilds over in the Roman practice is that which he calls their " Latin service;" that is, their keeping of the word of God and whole worship of the church (in which two all the general concernments ol Christians do lie) from their understanding in an unknown tongue. We find it true, by continual exjoerience, that great successes and confidence in their own abilities do encourage men to strange attempts; what else could make them persuade themselves that they should prevail with poor simple mor- tals to believe that they have nothing to do with that wherein, in- deed, all their chielest concernments do lie; and that, contrary to express direction ot Scripture, universal practice of the churches of old, common sense, and the broadest light of that reason whereby they are men, they need not at all understand the things wherein their communion with God doth consist, the means whereby they must come to know his will, and way wherein they must worship him? Nor doth it suffice these gentlemen to suppose that they are able to flourish over their own practice with such pretences as may free it from blame ; but they think to render it so desirable, as either to get it embraced willingly by others, or countenance themselves in impos- ing it upon them whether they will or no. But as they come short of those advantages whereby this matter in former days was brought about, or rather came to pass; so, to think at once to cast those shackles on men, now they are awake, which were insensibly put upon them when they were asleep, and rejected on the first beam of gospel light that shined upon them, is, I hope, but a pleasing dream. Certain I am, there must be other manner of reasonings than are in- sisted upon by our author, or have been by his masters as yet, that must prevail on any who are not, on the account of other things, will- ing to be deluded in this. That the most of Christians need never to read the Scripture, which they are commanded by God to medi- tate on day and night, to read, study, and grow in the knowledge of, and which by all the ancient fathers of the church they are exhorted unto; that they need not understand those prayers which they are commanded to pray with understanding, and wherein lies a principal exercise of their faith and love towards God, — ''■ are the things which are here recommended unto us." Let us view the arguments where- with, first, the " general custom of the western empire, in keeping the mass and Bible in an unknown tongue, is pleaded." But what is a general custom of the western empire in opposition to the com-
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maud of God, and the evidence of all that reason that Hes against it? Have we not an express command not to follow a multitude to do evil? Besides, what is, or ever was, the western empire unto the Catholicism of the church of Christ spread over the whole world? Within a hundred years after Christ the gospel was spread to nations and in places whither the Roman power never extended itself, — " Romanis inaccessa loca," — much less that branch of it which he calls the western empire. But neither yet was it the custom of the western empke to keep the Bible in an unknown tongue, or to per- form the worship of the church in such a language. Whilst the Latin tongue was only used by them, it was generally used in other things, and was the vulgar tongue of all the nations belonging unto it. Little was there remaining of those tongues in use that were the languages of the provinces of it before they became so: so that though they had their Bible in the Latin tongue, they had it not in an unknown ; no more than the Grecians had who used it in Greek, And when any people received the faith of Christ who had not be- fore received the language of the Romans, good men translated the Bible into their own ; as Jerome did for the Dalmatians. Whatever, then, may be said of the Latin, there is no pretence of the use of an unknown tongue in the worship of the church in the western empire, until it was overrun, destroyed, and broken in pieces by the northern nations, and possessed by them (most of them Pagans), who brought in several distinct languages into the provinces where they seated themselves. After those tumults ceased, and the conquerors began to take up the religion of the people into whose countries they were come, — still retaining, with some mixtures, their old dialect, — that the Scripture was not in all places (for in many it was) translated for their use, was the sin and negligence of some who had other faults besides. The primitive use of the Latin tongue in the worship of God, and translation of the Bible into it, in the western empire, whilst tliat language was usually spoken and read, as the Greek in the Grecian, is an undeniable argument of the judgment of the an- cient church for the use of the Scripture and church liturgies in a known tongue. What ensued on, what was occasioned by, that in- undation of barbarous nations that buried the world for some ages in darkness and ignorance, cannot reasonably be proposed for our imitation. I hope we shall not easily be induced either to return unto or embrace the effects of barbarism. But, saith our authoi-, secondly, " Catholics have the sum of Scripture, both for history and dogma, delivered them in their own language, so much as may make for their salvation, good orders being set and instituted for their pro- ficiency therein, and what needs any more? or why should they be farther permitted either to satisfy curiosity, or to raise doubts, or to VOL. XIV. 9