Trollope on Article XXIV: Of speaking in the Congregation in such a tongue as the people understandeth

In all probability the ohang^e was made with a view to mark more expressly the object of the Article, as directed against the use of the Latin liturgy in the Romish Church, which is continued even to the present day, although per- fectly unintelligible to the great majority of worshipperB, After the fall of the Roman Empire tnis language ceased to be spoken, and Sermons were necessarily preached in the vernacular tongue : but, in order to keep the people in a state of ignorant dependence. Pope Hildebrana, (Gregory VII) interdicted the reading of tne Scriptures altogeUier, and enjoined the Mass to be still celebrated in Latin.

3. Shew that the practice of praying in an un- known tongue is both irrational and unscriptural.

As religions worship is essentially an act of the mind, to engage in it without ^ the spirit and the understandintr/ is both impious and absurd: and, although St. Paul fully appreciated the value of the g^ qf tongues as a means of preaching the Gospel among aU nations, he prohibited its use for any other purpose than that of edification f 1 Cori ziv. 6.) j ai^uing at length, throughout the whole cnapter, on the importance of onering prayers in the language of those who are to join therein*

4. What do you infer from the manner in which the hooks of the Old and New Testament were written and read; and from the teaching of our Lord and his Apostles 7

The books of the New Testament were written in the Hellenistic or Alexandrian Greek, which, at the time of their composition, was universally spoken in the countries^ where they were intended to be reaa : and the books of the Old Testament, originally written in Hebrew, were not only explained by the Cnaldee Paraphrases after the Babylonian

ABTTCLB XXr.

GaptiTity, but subsequently translated into Greek, when that langua^ became more generally understood. Hence it was to this, the Septuagint translation, rather than the original, that our Lora and his Aposties ooramonly referred ; and indeed he seems to have employed, on all occasions, the ordinary language of his hearers.

5. Shew from the Fathers, that diyine service was always performed in the primitive Churches in a language with which the people were ac- quainted.

Justin Martyr (Apol. I. o. 67.), in giving an account of the public service of the Church as it was performed in his days, manifestly implies that it was conducted in a language understood by the congregation; and all the early Liturgies were composed in the vernacular tongue of those for whom they were designed : — ^for instance those of St. James and Chrysostom in Greeks and the old Syriao and CopUo litur-

S’es. Indeed Origen expressly says (c. Cels. viii. 13.), at the Greeks use Greek words in their Prayers, the Ro- mans, Latin ; and every one prays to God in his own Lan» guage : and He that is Lord m everu tongue hears that wh4eh is asked in any tongue. It is also observed by St. Cyprian (Be Orat. Bom.) that we ought to prayt not only with the sound qf the votee, but with the sincere earnestness qf the spirit ana the understating, [See also Questions on the Liturgy ; Sect. i. qq. 8 — ^10.].