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

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The Exposition.

I N C £ all Divine Worship is rather an Ad: of the Mind than of the Bo- dy, it follows, that that Worship, in which the Mind is not concerned, is impious and absurd. So agreeable is this Rea- foning to the Word of God, and the Practice of the Primitive Church, that I cannot fuffi- ciently wonder at the contrary Pradtice of the Church of Koine. St. Paul ipeaks to this Point at large, i Cor. xiv. Thus, njer. ii. he exprefles

himself in this manner , If I kucw not the

Meaning of the Voice^ J fJoall he unto him that fpeakctb a Barbarian \ and he that fpeakethjhall be a Barbarian unto me. And from icr. 14. to

the

Thirty-Nine Articles. ($31

the 2oth5 he hath these Words ; - — Jf I pray Artxxiv. in an unknown ongiie my Sprit prayeth hut my Understanding is unfruitful What is it then ? J will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the Underfiandittg also. Elfe when thou Jhalt hlefs with the Spirit how Jlcall he that occupieth the Koofn of the Unlearned fay Amen at thy giving of uhanks feeing he miderftandeth not what thou fayeft ? For thou verily gi-vest thanks welly hut the other is not edify d. I thank my Gody I speak with Tongues more than you all : Tet in the Church I had rather speak five IVords with my Understanding that hy my Voice I might teach others also than ten thousand IVords in an un- known tongue. And again, ver. 26. he faith. Let all things he done to Edifying. On the Day which is called Sunday faith Justin Martyr there’s an AfTembly ot all those who live either in the Cities or in the Country, and those Things which are written of or by the Apo- files, and the Writings of the Prophets, are read as long as Time will permit. Vl hen the Reader hath done, he that prefides in the Af- fembly admonifhes and exhorts us to put those good Things which we have heard in Fradice. And afterwards we rife up with one Consent, and fend up our Prayers to God. *

We go together, faith ^ertulllan^ into the AfTembly and Congregation, that we may, as it were, with one Consent, encompass God with our Prayers. This Force is acceptable to

God. We go together for the Reading

of the Scriptures, in order to observe what the

Apol. I. c. Sy,

R r 4 Circum*

6^1 An Exposition on the

Art. XXIV. Circumstances of the present Times ihall have *^/VN^ made neceflfary to be taken Notice of, by way of Caution, or to be treafur’d up in our Me- mories. By theie holy Words we certainly nourifh our Faith, heighten our Hope, and make our Confidence in God fix’d and fted- fast. t

Wh e n we stand at our Prayers, my dearly beloved Brethren, faith S. Cyprian * we ought to watch, and attend to them with our whole Heart ; all carnal and worldly Thoughts must be discarded , and the Mind must be exercised on nothing but what it prays for : And there- fore the Priest doth by a Preface prepare the Minds of the Brethren, by saying. Lift up your Hearts : That as the People answer, IFe lift them up unto the Lord ; they may thereby be admonifh’d, that they ought to think on no- thing but the Lord. At that Time the Breast should be shut against our nemy, and open to God only : Neither should God’s Enemy be fdifer’d to come near it in the Time of Prayer. For he frequently breaks in on us, gets within us and in a subtle manner draws off our Prayers from God , fo that we have one thing in our Mouth, and another in our Heart : Whereas we ought to pray to the Lord, not with the Sound of our Voices, but with the fmcereft Fervency of Heart and Spirit, t

f Apol. adv. Gcntes, c. 59. .

• De Oratione Dominica.

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In

Tbirty-Nine Articles. 655

I N a Word, they that can have the Face Art. xxiv. to maintain, that to have Publick Prayer in the -‘V"" Church, or to minister the Sacraments in a Tongue not understood by the People, is not contrary to the Dodlrine of St. Paul and to the Pradtice of the first Ages of Christianity, need not be ashamed to fet up for the Defence of the groffeft Falfhood in the World. Such a ftedfaft Devotion as the Fathers before-men- tioned require, is, I am sure, utterly incon- fiftent with a Man’s Praying for he knows not what, or in a Language which he does not understand.

S o true was it, as Origen tells us in the 4o2d Page of his Book against Celfus, That the Christians in his Time used several Languages in their Prayers. The Greeks^ faith he, in their Prayers ufe the Greek^ the Romans the Latin Tongue, and fo every one of us prays to God according to his own Dialed, and celebrates his Praises as he can ; and he who is the Lord of all DialedSa hears them praying in every Tongue, heading them as if it were one Voice mani- fefted from divers Tongues, according to the Things fignified by them : For the Great God is not one that hath chosen one Tongue, Greek or Barbarous, before others, as either not know- ing, or not regarding what was ipoken to him in other Languages ; fo certain is it, that this ancient Kite of every Churchy as the Trent Council calls their Latin Service^ was not in his Time become the universal Pradice of the Church of Christ.

A s to the Custom of the Catholick Church at this Day, the Learned Brerewood^ in his

Enquiries

(^34 ^^ Exposition on the

Art. XXIV. Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages

^rr>^

and Religions through the chief Parts of the World, hath very plainly proved. That the

Armenians HahaJJines Mofcovites Rujffians and Sclavonians as well as Protestants, celebrate their Liturgies in their own vulgar Tongue j that the Neftorians celebrate theirs in the Chaldee or Syriac together with the Indians and the Jacobites of Mefopotamia Babylon Faleftine Syria and Cyprus the Cophti or Christians of Egypt the Maronites and the poor Christians of the \Q oi Zocotora without the Bay o Arabia-, that the Greeks who inhabit Greece and a great Part of NatoUa Macedon and Thrace together with all the lllands of the yEgean Sea, and the other many scattered Islands about the Coasts of Greece celebrate theirs, not indeed, in the Vulgar, but in the pure and antient Greek Tongue, as likewise do such of the Syrians as are called Mekhites the Gregorians and all the Monaft:eries that are of the Greek Pvcligion, wherefoever difperfed within the i’urktjJo Do- minions in Ajrick or Afia ; as in Mount Sinai the Cities of Fetra and Eltor in Arabia in yertifalem Alexandria Damascus and in several other Places, as Bellonitis and others have re- corded : So that notwithstanding the Attempts of the Church of Rome to obtrude their Latin Service upon all Chrifiendom it is received by none befidcs those of her own Communion, and not by all of them ; for, as I observed be- fore, it is not uled by the Sclavonians in Europe ; nor is it received by the new Roman Purchases in Afia ; of the Maronites in Syria and the Christians of St. lloomas in India who still re- tain the old accustomed Language, which \ in the Liturgies of both these Nations, in the Syriac

Tongue,

Tbirty-Nine Articles. 635

Tongue *. I Ihall conclude my Observations Art. xxiv. upon this Article with the Confefiions of two OOPk.,/. very learned Persons of the Church of Ro?7se, The first is Mercer ProfefTor of Hebrew at PariSy who is fo free as to fay, I’emere fecerunt (c. They amongst us have done rafhly, that brought in the Custom of Praying in an un- known Tongue, which very often, neither they themselves, nor our People understand f. And Cardinal Cajetan faith. Melius eft &c. It is better for our Church, that the Publick Prayers in the Congregation be said in a Tongue com- mon to the Priests and People, and not in Latin %.

Article

Notes

• Brerevpood’s Enquiry, ch. 1 6. f Comment, in Ecclef. f. . In I £/). Corinth, c. 14.