fellowship with the saints, participation of the heavenly nature, fruition of an inheritance immortal, undefiled, and that never shall fade away. Happy is the man that delighteth in the Scripture, and thrice happy that meditateth in it day and night. [Sidenote: Translation necessary.] But how shall men meditate in that which they cannot understand? How shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? as it is written, [Sidenote: 1 Cor. 14. 11.] _Except I know the power of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian to me_. The Apostle excepteth no tongue; not _Hebrew_ the ancientest, not _Greek_ the most copious, not _Latin_ the finest. Nature taught a natural man to confess, that all of us in those tongues which we do not understand are plainly deaf; we may turn the deaf ear unto them. [Sidenote: _Clem. Alex. 1 Strom. St. Hieronym. Damaso. Michael, Theophili fil. 2 Tom. Concil. ex edit. Petri Crab._] The _Scythian_ counted the _Athenian_, whom he did not understand, barbarous: so the _Roman_ did the _Syrian_, and the _Jew_: (even St. _Hierome_ himself calleth the _Hebrew_ tongue barbarous; belike, because it was strange to so many:) so the Emperor of _Constantinople_ calleth the _Latin_ tongue barbarous, though Pope _Nicolas_ do storm at it: [Sidenote: _Cicero 5. De Finibus._] so the _Jews_ long before _Christ_ called all other nations _Lognasim_, which is little better than barbarous. Therefore as one complaineth that always in the Senate of _Rome_ there was one or other that called for an interpreter; so lest the Church be driven to the like exigent, it is necessary to have translations in a readiness. Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water; [Sidenote: Gen. 29. 10.] even as _Jacob_ rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which means the flocks of _Laban_ were watered. Indeed without translation into the vulgar tongue, [Sidenote: John 4. 11.] the unlearned are but like children at _Jacob’s_ well (which was deep) without a bucket or something to draw with: [Sidenote: Isai. 29. 11.] or as that person mentioned by _Esay_, to whom when a sealed book was delivered with this motion, _Read this, I pray thee_; he was fain to make this answer, _I cannot, for it is sealed_.