[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_.