Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	bishop_n	church_n	rome_n	9,289	5	7.3911	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66394	A discourse concerning the celebration of divine service in an unknown tongue	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1685 (1685)	Wing W2702; ESTC R1943	35,062	62

Hebrew Greek and Latin made all to his praise c. And conformable to this is the Decree of the Council of Lateran under Innocent III. Anno 1215. that because in many parts within the same City and Diocess there are many people of different manners and Rites mixed together but of one Faith We therefore command that the Bishops of such Cities or Diocesses provide fit Men who shall celebrate Divine Offices according to the diversity of Tongues and Rites and administer the Sacraments This may be further confirmed by the very Offices of the Church of Rome but this is sufficient to shew that the Church of Rome hath departed from Scripture Antiquity and it self when it doth require that Divine Service be performed in a Tongue unknown to the people and that it was never the opinion of the Fathers nor any Church nor even of the Church of Rome that it is most expedient to have it so performed So little was it then thought that religious things the less they are understood the more they would be admired and that to preserve a reverence for them and the people from dangerous errors it is requisite to keep them from being understood So little was it pleaded that there are any Tongues sacred in themselves and that as the three upon the Cross of Christ are to be preferred before others and to exclude the rest so the Latin as next to the head of Christ is the most venerable of the three So little was it then thought that there is a certain kind of Divinity in Latin and something more of Majesty and fitter to stir up Devotion than in other Tongues So little were they afraid that Latin would be lost if the Service were not kept in it or however so little evident is it that they valued the preservation of that Tongue above the Edification of the Church Lastly So little did they think of the expedience of having the Service in one common Tongue as Latin That Christians wherever they travel may find the self same Service and Priests may officiate in it as at home As if for the sake of the few that travel the many that stay at home should be left destitute and for one Mans convenience 10000. be exposed to eternal perdition These are Arguments coined on purpose to defend the Cause and so are peculiar to the Church that needs them II. Let us consider Whether from the time of its having been a Rite it hath been the Rite of every Church To this I shall only produce their own Confessions for it is acknowledged that the Armenians Aegyptians Habassines Muscovites and Sclavonians have their Service in a Tongue known to the people And their giving them the hard Names of Hereticks Schismaticks and Barbarous will not save the Council from being fallible when it saith It is the rite of every Church But were there no such Churches in the World that herein practised contrary to the Church of Rome yet it would no more justifie her than it can make that good which is evil that expedient which is mischievous to the Church of God or reconcile one part of the Council to the other that when it hath declared The Mass contains great instruction for the people yet adds That it is expedient and an approved Rite that it be not celebrated in the Vulgar Tongue But say they this is granted If there were no interpretation but that is provided for by the Council for it is ordered That lest Christs sheep should hunger all that have the care of Souls shall frequently expound c. And that we are now to consider SECT IV. Whether the Provision made by the Council of Trent for having some part of the Mass expounded be sufficient to countervail the mischief of having the whole celebrated in a Tongue not understood of the people and to excuse the Church of Rome in the injunction of it This is the last refuge they betake themselves to confessing that without an Interpretation S. Paul is against them but with this they plead he is for them But what shall we then think of the case in their Church at a time when as the people could not understand so the Priests could not interpret and wanted both the gift and had not acquired so much as the art of it What shall we think of their case and their Church that hath neither provided nor doth use such an Interpretation as the Apostle speaks of but what differs as much from it in respect of the light it gives to the people as both that and the Tongue they use do in the way by which they are obtained If it were a translation what a ludicrous thing would it be for a Church in its constant Service to take suppose the Lord's Prayer in pieces and first pronounce it in Latin and then in English But as they do not permit their Offices not the Horae B. Virginis Breviary or Mass Book to be translated into a Vulgar Tongue So the verbal translation of it during the celebration of Mass was never thought of by the Council but was thereby condemned as the cause and seedplot of many errors as we are informed in a Letter wrote upon the occasion of Voisin's translation by the whole Clergy of France to Pope Alexander the Seventh And whatsoever the Exposition did refer to let it be what it will yet it was not to the devotional Part as Sanders declares who after he had pleaded that an Unknown Tongue with interpretation was the perfect fulfilling of S. Pauls advice perceiving a difficulty behind throws all off with this If the Interpretation of Prayers be laid aside for a season it is however not to be thought that it is to be omitted for ever c. So that at most no more was intended than a short exposition of some doctrinal Point or Ceremony which might as well be called an Exposition of the Breviary or any other Book containing much the same things as the Missal And it is probable that so much as this also was never intended which if ever is very rarely practised amongst them Insomuch as Ledesma saith That the sence of the Council was That the people should be instructed only by Sermons Indeed they would rather have this go for an Argument than dispute it They do as the Irish by their Bogs run over it lightly for fear if they tread too hard it will not support their cause but stifle it And therefore they wheel off again and then tell us That it being a known set Form in one set Language those that are ignorant of it at first need not continue so but by due attention and diligence may arrive to a sufficient knowledge As if the poor people are inexcusable if they do not arrive to a sufficient knowledge of the Tongue which must be learned before the things without other helps than their own attention and diligence when the Priests and