it ceases to be really on the Altar and ceases to be a sensible food as he farther explains or rather intangles it Is Christs body ever a sensible food And is its ceasing to be upon the Altar a consumption of it Then Isaac was consumed when he was took off from the Altar on which Abraham had laid him and if his Father had been as subtle as our Roman Sophisters and Sacrificers he might only have covered him with the skin of the Ram and have consumed that as an external species by fire and so Isaac had been both sacrificed and consumed and destroyed too and yet have been as live as ever for all this Such absurdities do they run into when they will make their notion suit of a true sacrifice and that which is not one and a man of sense must yet destroy his sense one would think before he can talk at this rate They are most sadly nonplust and most extremely divided among themselves about the Essence of this their sacrifice of the Mass and wherein they should place the true sacrificial act whether in the Oblation of the Elements or in consecration of them whereby they suppose them turned into Christs Body and blood and so in the express Oblation of those to God or in the fraction and commistion of the consecrated Elements or in the manducation and consumption of them Suarez and Vasquez and others are for the last of all the Council of Trent seems to be for Oblation Bellarmine is for consecration whereby instead of Bread and Wine Christs Body and Blood are placed upon the Altar and ordered for consumption Melchior Canus is for all the four last and he tells us it is the Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas †docuisse Thomam sacrificium ante fractionem hostiae esse peractum sumptionemque spectare propriè ad sacramentum oblationem verò ad sacrificium Can. Loc. Theol. l. 12. p. 833. that the sacrifice is performed before the fraction of the Elements and that the sumption of them belongs properly to the Sacrament the Oblation to the sacrifice so that they know not what to pitch upon to constitute it a sacrifice and if we examine them all we shall find no true proper sacrificial act in any of them the Oblation of the Elements before consecration can by no means make such a sacrifice as they design for that is but an offering of earthly things not of Christs body neither are they thereby changed or consumed and tho they are an offering they are not a proper sacrifice though in some sense they are a sacrifice and were accounted so by the Fathers as I have shown The Fraction of the Elements after they are consecrated which is done by the Priest not for distribution for they give them whole to the people but for another mystical reason this is not the formal Essence of the sacrifice for Christ they own did not break them in this manner at his last Supper when yet they will have him sacrifice and this is sometimes omitted by themselves neither is manducation for this is performed by the people as well as the priest when they communicate and sacrificing does not then belong to them nor is it ever their work but only the Priests and yet they then eat and consume the sacrament as well as the priest so that sacrificing cannot properly lye in this neither can it be proved that Christ did himself eat when he is supposed to sacrifice and besides both this fraction and manducation belongs only to the species they are the only proper subject of those actions but it is the Body and Blood of Christ that is sacrificed and not the species For this reason therefore consecration it self cannot well pass for the formal act of sacrificing for 't is the Bread is consecrated not Christs body 't is the bread only is changed by consecration that is supposed indeed to be destroyed when it is consecrated and if this be sacrificing it is sacrificing of nothing or at most 't is but sacrificing of bread which is a meaner sacrifice then many of the Jewish neither is this change of it visible and external but they will needs have the sacrificing action to be sensible and external or else the sacrifice will not be so and if it be only a spiritual and internal and mental offering up of Christs body and blood to God this is not proper sacrificing of it again but only by inward Faith and Devotion which we are very willing to allow But consecration must set Christs body upon the Altar and put it into the hands of the priest and then it must be visibly offered to God and visibly consumed and this is the true way of sacrificing it for Bellarmine takes in consumption as necessary together with consecration the oblation he owns is not verbal neither did Christ thus offer his Body and Blood at his last Supper but after he had blessed and brake the bread he gave it to his Disciples but placing this upon the Altar by the words of consecration is a real Oblation of it and then eating and consuming it there formally constitutes the sacrifice The Bishop of Meaux in his Exposition seems to make the whole Essence of the sacrifice consist in Consecration alone without any manducation or destruction which Bellarmine makes absolutely necessary Christ he says is placed upon the holy Table clothed with those signs that represent his death in vertue of the words of consecration which are the spiritual sword that make a mystical separation betwixt the Body and the Blood. Now if Christ be thus only sacrificed mystically and by representation he is not sacrificed truly and properly nor is there any true and proper propitiation made hereby which is the true state of the Controversie between us Christ may be sacrificed representatively as Caesar may be slain in a Tragedy without being really present and if he were present and placed upon the Altar as they will needs have him yet he is no more sacrificed by the mystical representation then if Caesars Picture were stab'd and he were behind it unhurt I see no reason why Christs presence should be necessary to make such a mystical representative or commemorative sacrifice and if Christ were present I see not how he is more sacrificed then if he were absent So that they only confound their thoughts to make a proper sacrifice where there is none and when they have boasted of a true proper visible external sacrifice they know not where to find any such thing and it comes to no more at last then a meer commemorative and representative one or in plain words to a sacramental and Mystical representation and remembrance of a past sacrifice which there is neither any need nor any possibility of renewing Their differences about the proper sacrificial act whereby they do with good success destroy one anothers notions of it and so taken together destroy the thing it self these are the more considerable
and Wine into the very substance of Christs Body and Blood and then to offer Christ up again to his Father as truly as he offered himself upon the cross which are as great as the greatest works which ever God did at the very Creation and Redemption of the World yet that he really does no such thing as he then vaunts and boasts of for these Reasons we deem it no less then a dangerous deceit †Ibid. These are high charges on both sides and it concerns those who make them to be well assured of the grounds of them And here I cannot but passionately resent the sad state of Christianity which will certainly be very heavy upon those who have been the cause of it when the corruptions of it are so great and the divisions so wide about that which is one of the most sacred and the most useful parts of it the Blessed Eucharist which is above any other the most sadly depraved and perverted as if the Devil had hereby shown his utmost malice and subtlety to poyson one of the greatest Fountains of Christianity and to make that which should yield the Waters of Life be the Cup of destruction That blessed Sacrament which was designed to unite Christians is made the very bone of Contention and the greatest instrument to divide them and that bread of Life is turned into a stone and become the great Rock of offence between them Besides the lesser corruptions of the Eucharist in the Church of Rome such as using thin Wafers instead of bread and injecting them whole into the mouths of the Communicants and Consecrating without a Prayer and speaking the words of Consecration secretly and the like there are four such great ones as violate and destroy the very substance and Essence of the Sacrament and make it to be a quite other thing then Christ ever intended it and therefore such as make Communion with the Roman Altar utterly sinful and unlawful These are the Adoration of the Host or making the Sacrament an object of Divine Worship the Communion in one Kind or taking away the Cup from the People the turning the Sacrament into a true and proper Sacrifice propitiatory for the Quick and the Dead and the using of private or solitary Masses wherein the Priest who celebrates Communicates alone The two former of these have been considered in some late discourses upon those subjects the fourth is a result and consequence of the third for when the Sacrament was turned into a sacrifice the people left off the frequent communicating and expected to be benefitted by it another way so that this will fall in as to the main Reasons of it with what I now design to consider and Examine The Sacrifice of the Mass or Altar wherein the Priest every time he celebrates the Communion is supposed to offer to God the Body and Blood of Christ under the forms of Bread and Wine as truely as Christ once offered himself upon the cross and that this is as true a proper and propitiatory Sacrifice as the other and that 't is so not only for the Living but also for the Dead The Objections we make against it and the Arguments by which they defend it will fall in together at the same time and I shall endeavour fairly and impartially to represent them in their utmost strength that so what we have to say against it and what they have to say for it may be offered to the Reader at one view that he may the better judg of those high charges which are made he sees on each side First then we say That the very foundation of this Sacrifice of the Mass is established upon two very great Errors and Mistakes The one is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or Christs Corporal presence in the Eucharist The other is the Opinion That Christ did offer up his body and blood as a sacrifice to God in his last Supper before he offered up himself upon the Cross If either or both of these prove false the Sacrifice of the Mass is so far from being true that it must necessarily fall to the ground according to their own principles and acknowledgments Secondly There is no Scripture ground for any such sacrifice but it is expresly contrary to Scripture under which head I shall examine all their Scriptural pretences for it and produce such places as are directly contrary to it and perfectly overthrow it Thirdly That it has no just claim to Antiquity nor was there any such Doctrine or practise in the Primitive Church Fourthly That it is in it self unreasonable and absurd and has a great many gross Errors involved in it First we say That the very Foundation of this sacrifice is established upon two very great Errors and Mistakes the first of which is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or which may be sufficient for their purpose the corporal presence of Christs natural body and blood in the Eucharist though they disclaim the belief of this without the other but if Christs body and blood be not substantially present under the species of bread and Wine they have no subject matter for a sacrifice for 't is not the bread and wine which they pretend to offer nor the bare species and accidents of those nor can they call them a proper propitiatory sacrifice but 't is the very natural body and blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine or together with them for they with the species make one entire subject for sacrifice and one entire object for Adoration as they are forced to confess †Panis corpus Domini Vinum sanguis Domini non sunt duo sacrificia sed unum neque enim offerimus corpus Domini absolutè sed offerimus corpus Domini in specie panis Bellarm de Miss l. 1. c. 37. So that according to their own principles they must both sacrifice and adore something in the Eucharist besides the very body and blood of Christ which is a difficulty they will never get off but I design not to press them with that now but Transubstantiation upon which their sacrifice of the Mass is founded is so great a difficulty that it bears down before it all sense and reason and only makes way for Church Authority to tryumph over both Their wisest men have given up Scripture for it and frankly confest it were not necessary to believe it without the determination of the Church and if so then without the Churches determination there had been no foundation it seems for the sacrifice of the Mass for there can be none for that without Transubstantiation and 't is very strange that a sacrifice should be thus founded not upon Scripture or a Divine institution but only in effect upon the Churches declaration and should have no true bottom without that as according to those men it really has not But Transubstantiation is a Monster that startles and affrights the boldest Faith if the Church be not by to encourage
and support it 't is too terrible to be looked upon in its self without having a thick mist of Church Authority and Infallibility first cast before a mans eyes and then if there were not a strange and almost fascinating power in such principles one would think it impossible that any man who has both eyes and brains in his head should believe a Wafer were the body of a man or that a crum of bread were a fleshly substance they do not indeed believe them to be both but they believe one to be the other which is the same thing there is nothing can expose such a doctrine for nothing can be more uncouth and extravagant then itsself it not only takes away all evidence of sense upon which all truth of miracles and so of all Revelation does depend but it destroys all manner of certainty and all the principles of truth and knowledge it makes one body be a thousand or at least be at the same time in a thousand places by which means the least atome may fill the whole World Again it makes the parts of a body to penetrate one another by which means all the matter of the whole World may be brought to a single point it makes the whole to be no greater then a part and one part to be as great as the whole thus it destroys the nature of things and makes a body to be a spirit and an accident to be a substance and renders every thing we see or taste to be only phantasm and appearance and though the World seems crouded with solids yet according to that it may be all but species and shadow and superficies So big is this opinion with absurdities and inconsistencies and contradictions and yet these must all go down and pass into an Article of Faith before there can be any foundation for the sacrifice of the Mass and let any one judge that has not lost his judgment by believing Transubstantiation what a strange production that must be which is to be the genuine of-spring of such a doctrine It is not my province nor must it be my present task to discourse at large of that or to confute the little sophistries with which it is thought necessary to make it outface the common reason of mankind There never was any paradox needed more straining to defend it nor any Sceptical principle but would bear as fair a wrangle on its behalf there is a known Treatise has so laid this cause on its back that it can never be able to rise again and though after a long time it endeavours a little to stir and heave and struggle yet if it thereby provokes another blow from the same hand it must expect nothing less then its mortal wound I pass to the next Error and Mistake upon which the sacrifice of the Mass is founded and that is this that our blessed Saviour did at his last Supper when he celebrated the Communion with his Disciples offer up his body and blood to his Father as a true propitiatory sacrifice before he offered it as such upon the Cross This they pretend and are forced to do so to establish their sacrificing in the Mass for they are only to do that in the Sacrament they own which Christ himself did and which he commanded his Apostles to doe and if this sacrifice had not its institution and appointment at that time it never had any at all as they cannot but grant Let us then enquire whether Christ did thus sacrifice himself and offer up his body and blood to God at his last Supper Is there any the least colour or shadow of any such thing in any of the accounts that is given of this in the three Evangelists or in St. Paul The Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and gave thanks or blessed it and brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying take eat this is my Body which is given for you this do in remembrance of me after the same manner also he took the Cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying drink ye all of this for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Is here any mention or any intimation of offering up any thing to God Was not the bread and the cup and what he called his body and his blood given to his Disciples to be eaten and drank by them and was any thing else done with them is there any thing like an offering or a sacrificing of them yes say they Christ there calls it his body which is broken and his blood which is shed in the present tense therefore the one must be then broken and the other shed So indeed it is in the Original Greek though in the Vulgar Latin it is in the future tense and so it is also put in their Missal sanguis qui effundetur this is my Blood which shall be shed and is it not usual to put the present tense instead of the future when that is so near and certain Does not our Saviour do it more than once at other times The Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26.45 before he was so though Judas was then nigh and coming about it So John 10.17 I lay down my Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he was ready to do so as he was to have his body broken and his blood shed when he was prepared as a victim to be offered the next day so St. Paul says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I now offer up my self 2 Tim. 4.6 when as we translate it he was ready to be offered That Christ here used the present tense for the future is owned by Cardinal Cajetan †In Luc. 22. and other Learned men †Sa. Barrad of the Roman Church and Jansenius * Cancord 131. sayes the pouring out of the blood is rightly understood of the pouring it out upon the Cross Christs body was not broke nor his blood poured out till the next day nor did he offer up himself as a sacrifice to his Father until then Christ did not then command his Apostles to offer him up in the Eucharist when he bad them do this hoc facite does not signifie to sacrifice nor will it be supposed I hope our Saviour did then use the vulgar Latin the phrase in Virgil cum faciam vitula which is always quoted to this purpose shows it only to be so meant when the occasion or subject matter does require it but in our Saviours words it plainly refers to those acts of taking bread and breaking it and taking Wine and Blessing it then giving or distributing of them as he had done just before and as he commanded then to do in remembrance of him and that it does not relate to sacrificing is plain from St. Paul who applyes it particularly to drinking the Cup do this as
shall examine them only to show the weakness of them which they being very sensible of themselves endeavour to make up their want of strength by the greatness of their number and surely never were so many places brought out of Scripture to so little purpose as what they produce for the sacrifice of the Mass First then they go back as far as Genesis for it and it is very strange they should find it there this will make it very primitive and ancient indeed but where-ever they meet with bread and Wine which are things of very great Antiquity they resolve to make a sacrifice of them especially if there be but a Priest by who has the power of Consecrating for they suppose he must presently fall to his office and put on his habit if bread and wine be before him and that he cannot like other men eat and drink them as his ordinary food or entertain his friends and others with them except he not only Religiously bless them by Prayer and Thanksgiving which every good man ought to do and it was the custom even of the Heathens to do this before they ate but he must sacrifice and offer them up to God. This they will needs have Melchisedec do in the 14. of Gen. 18. verse Melchisedec King of Salem brought forth bread and wine and he was the Priest of the most High God. What is there here to show that Melchisedec offered bread and wine as a sacrifice to God the very word in their own vulgar Latin answering to the Hebrew is protulit he brought forth not obtulit he offered and if it were the latter could not he offer bread and wine to Abraham and his Company upon a Table but must it necessarily be to God upon an Altar Ver. 14 15. Abraham with his Three Hundred and Eighteen Trained Servants had been by night pursuing those who had taken away his brother Lot Captive and when they were thus weary and hungry Melchisedec hospitably and kindly entertained them with provision to refresh them and brought forth bread and wine to them thus it lyes in the Sacred History and Context and thus Josephus (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 1. c. 11. relates it and there is not the least mention or intimation of any sacrifice as Cajetan (b) Nihil hic scribitur de sacrificio sed de prolatione seu extractione quam Josephus dicit factam ad resiciendos victores Cajetan in Gen. 14. owns upon the place and so do many of their own Authors whom Possevine (c) Biblioth l. 4. c. 13. the Jesuit takes upon him to correct for it Bellarmine indeed as if he had been by at the entertainment and been one of Abraham's Souldiers tells us they had ate and drank very well before and therefore desires Melchisedec to excuse them for they had no need of his Bread and Wine at that time (d,) Quid igitur opus erat pane vino ijs qui spoliis abundabant paulo ante comederant biberant Bellarm. de Miss l. 1. c. 6. D. and yet in the same place owns that these were given to Abraham and his Companions for food (e,) At nos non negamus data illa in cibum Abrahae sociis sed dicimus fuisse prius Deo â—plata consecrata tum data hominibus ut de sacrificio participarent Ib. but that they were first offered to God and then given to them to partake of them as of a sacrifice But why were they given as Food if they had no need of Food Did Melchisedec know they had eaten Or does the Scripture say so Or might not he treat them as a King though they had victuals of their own How does Bellarmine know they were first sacrificed when there is not the least word of that Ay but it is said that he was the Priest of the most high God therefore it is likely he sacrificed why else should that be added It was added because he was so or because as it immediately follows he blessed Abraham Ver. 19.20 and Abraham gave him Tithes of all his spoils this is more likely than because he sacrificed for there is no mention of that as of the other and 't is not said he brought forth bread and wine because he was the Priest of the high God 't is only a conjunctive particle and he was not a causal for It is said also in the same place that he was King of Salem and why might not his entertaining Abraham be as he was a King because he is said there to be a King as well as a Priest and yet I suppose a Priest may be said to treat his Friends as another man without officiating then as a Priest though he be called a Priest Why Bellarmine should cite any Fathers for his Opinion I cannot imagine since the oldest of them are I suppose so much latter and at so great a distance from the times of Melchisedec that they could no more know what Melchisedec did at that time then we can now and they are very improper witnesses of a matter of fact that was so long ago which nothing but the Scripture history can give us any account of to which itis not only precarious but rash to add any of our own guesses and conjectures however tho some of the Fathers do by way of figure and allusion make this bread and wine of Melchisedec to relate to the Sacramental bread and wine as they make Manna and several other things which were not sacrifices yet none apply it to the sacrifice of the Mass nor could they well do it since they believed no such thing in the Romish sense as I shall show afterwards But after all what if Melchisedec did sacrifice bread and wine What service will this do to the sacrifice of the Mass The Priests do not there sacrifice bread and wine according to this Mystical Type nor did Melchisedec sure offer up Christs body and bloud under the species of his bread wine if we allow all that can be begged and desired that Melchisedec did sacrifice and that this his sacrifice was a Type and figure of another sacrifice why may not that be of the sacrifice of the Cross which is the true and only proper Christian sacrifice when Christ the Bread of Life was offered up unto God for us So that there is no necessity to bring in the sacrifice of the Mass to complete and answer this figure were there any thing in it besides guesse and fancy which I see no manner of reason to believe there is since there is nothing to countenance it in the New Testament and 't is very presumptuous and ungrounded to make any thing a true Type or to have a Typical meaning farther then Gods Spirit which alone could know this has given us warrant to do it by Revelation Yet without any such ground both Bellarmine †de Missâ l. 1. c. 6. and the Council
of a Debtor that he owed a great summ which he had no way fully to pay off and discharge but he raised and brought what he could and so owned the Debt and that he had not where withal to take it quite off nor to make that solution and satisfaction which was necessary But such was the value of the sacrifice of Christ that it was a perfect price and payment and made full satisfaction at once so that By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified chap. 10. verse 14. and made such full atonement and expiation by that that there is no more need nor remains no more sacrifice for sins but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God verse 12. as having fully done the work of a priest upon Earth and having no need to offer any furt her sacrifice nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entreth into the holy place every year with blood of others chap. 9. 25. For then must he often have suffered since the soundation of the world but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself verse 26. and Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many verse 28. And we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all chap. 10. verse 10. So that Christ our high priest needeth not dayly as those high priests to offer up sacrifice first for himself and then for the people For this he did once when he offered up himself chap. 7. ver 27. Nothing can be said plainer against the sacrifice of the Mass wherein Christ is often offered and that as properly and truly they pretend as the Jewish sacrifices were or as he was upon the Cross when it is here so much insisted upon that Christs sacrifice was but once offered whereas those under the Law were often and this made an argument of their weakness and imperfection and of the full vertue and value of the other Must it not appear very strange after this that it should be made the great part of some mens Religion to repeat the same sacrifice of Christ every day and to offer him up again every day upon the Altar as truly as the Jews offered their sacrifices day by day continually and as he once offered up himself upon the Cross and to make this dayly sacrifice of him in the Mass have as true a vertue to propitiate God and expiate sins as the other had and to be every way as true proper a sacrifice as the other I need not labour much to show how contrary this is to this discourse of the Authour to the Hebrews and to the true scope and design of it it appears so evidently to be so that our Adversaries are put to the greatest streights and difficulties imaginable to make themselves think otherwise and to reconcile what the Apostle here says of the sacrifice of Christ with what their Church says of the sacrifice of the Mass and that they are perfectly inconsistent notwithstanding all their pretences and evasions I shall make appear by what follows First then They tell us that their sacrifice of the Mass is but the very same with the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross and so it does not at all take off from the vertue of that or suppose that to be imperfect since this is no other nor no new sacrifice but only the same both in nature and vertue with that if it were another sacrifice indeed or were supposed to have a distinct vertue and efficacy from that of the Cross it might reflect upon that and be injurious to it but since they declare it to be the same they do not conceive how it is any way so But the Apostles discourse for it is probable an Apostle was Authour of this Epistle in the forementioned places is about repeating the same sacrifices and offering them up year by year continually and from hence he grounds the imperfection of them and that they could not make the comers thereunto perfect chap. 10. v. 1. These sacrifices indeed were many and of several sorts which they offered but they still offered them up again and again both dayly and yearly and it was their often offering of them as well as their multitude which the Apostle reflects upon their dayly ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices chap. 10. verse 11. whereas Christ by one sacrifice and that once offered chap. 9. verse 28. did fully put away sin so that had the same sacrifice of Christ been often offered as the same sacrifices of the Jews were it had upon that account been liable to the same charge of imperfection for if by one offering it had for ever perfected them that are sanctified and had obtained perfect and plenary Remission of sins and had done the whole work and had the whole effect of all that sacrifices were intended for then what need it be any further offered the offering up the same sacrifice and continuing daily to offer it shows that it was not sufficient nor did do the business at once offering as the frequent using the same medicine shows that it has not fully cured the wound nor yet perfectly done its work Secondly The sacrifice of the Mass they say is only to apply the vertue and merit of the sacrifice of the Cross for though the sacrifice of the Cross like a powerful medicament have sufficient vertue in it yet what does that signifie unless it be applyed to us which it is by the sacrifice of the Mass But is there not another way to apply that to us Is it not applied to us by Faith and by the common means of Christs own institution the Christian Sacraments and especially by the Worthy Receiving of the Lords Supper wherein as the Apostle says The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ and the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 We do hereby communicate and are made partakers of Christs Body as it was sacrificed for us that is of all the vertues and benefits of his sacrifice by being as the Apostle adds verse 17. Made partakers of that One bread that is surely by eating it sacramentally and religiously as Christ has appointed for it would sound very hard and be a very odd expression to say we are partakers of that one bread by the sacrificing or offering up of that bread when they will not own that the bread is sacrificed or if it were could we well be thereby partakers of it but 't is the eating of that bread which makes us partakers of it and 't is the eating Christs Body and drinking his Blood in the blessed Sacrament that communicates and applies the vertue of his sacrifice of the Cross to us and not the sacrificing
willing to allow in which the Scriptures we see do understand them and so do the Fathers as I shall evidently demonstrate Upon what accounts and in what sense the Fathers do call the Eucharist a sacrifice and oblation and apply the phrases of immolating and offering and the like to it I shall now particularly consider And 1. They do this upon the account of those oblations of bread and wine and other things which it was the custom for Christians to bring when they came to the Communion out of which a part was consecrated for the Eucharist and the remainder was for a common Feast of love and a Religious entertainment or for the maintenance of the Clergy and the poor to whom they were afterwards distributed This Custom the Apostle takes notice of the 1 Cor. 11. and the Antient Writers expresly mention it in several places after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Feasts of Love were for some abuses laid aside Clemens Romanus in his first Epistle the most ancient most unquestioned piece of Antiquity we have speaks expresly of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oblations and joins them with the sacred and Religious Offices †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Climens Ep. 1. ad Corinth p. 85. Edit Oxon. and commends those who make these their oblations orderly and at the appointed times * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. p. 86. The Apostolic Canons that go under his name though their credit is not so authentic speak very particularly of these offerings and of their being brought to the altar for a sucrifice (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Canon 3. Ignatius speaks also of offering and of bringing the sacrifice (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sc absque Episcopo Epist ad Smyru Justin Martyr mentions these offerings as accompanied with prayer and thanksgiving and as the way by which Christians worshipt the Creator instead of the bloody sacrifices and libations and incense that were offered by others (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Apolog. 2. and these says he we account the proper way of honouring him not by consuming his gifts in the fire but by thus offering them for the poor and for our selves Irenaeus says The Church offers to God who affords us food the first-fruits of his Gifts and the first-fruits of his Creatures not as if he wanted but that we may be grateful (*) Ecclesis offert Deo ci qui nobis alimenta praestat primitias suorum munerum primitias Deo offerre ex suis creaturis non quasi indigenti sed ut ipsi nec insructuosi nec ingrati sint Iraen advers Haeres l. 4. c. 32. And though Fevardentius in his Notes upon this and the other places of Irenaeus wherein he speaks of this oblation would have it meant of the oblation of Christ himself in the Eucharist yet that is clearly disproved by his so often calling it the offering to God of his own Creatures and the first-fruits of his Creatures (d) Primitias earum quae sunt ejus creaturarum offerentes offerens ei ex gratiarum actione ex creatura ejus Ib. c. 34. which must be no other then of bread and wine and the like and from hence he proves against the Marcionites that Christ was (e) Quomodo autem constabit eum panem inquo gratiae actae sunt si non ipsum fabricatoris mundi filium dicant Ib. the Son of the Creator and Maker of the World because that his creatures were offered in the Eucharist St. Cyprian condemning and blaming some of the rich Women who came to the Sacrament without bringing these oblations thou comest says he into the Lords house without a sacrifice and takest part of that sacrifice which the poor hath offered (f) in Dominicum sine sacrificio vonis quae partem de sacrisicio quod pauper obtuli◠sumis Cypr. de Oper. Eleemos St. Austin insists upon the same thing and bids them offer the oblations which are consecrated upon the Altar a man who is able ought to blush if he eat of anothers oblation * Oblationes quae in altari consecr antur osserte erubescere debet homo idoneus si de alienâ oblatione communicet Aug. Serm. 13. de Temp. without offering himself These oblations are expresly called a sacrifice in the Apostolic Canons in Ignatius and in St. Cyprian as Alms and Works of Charity are in the Epistle to the Hebrews chap. 13. ver 16. and these in our Churches prayer before the Sacrament we beg God to accept of In the Apostolic Constitutions where we have the largest if not earliest account of the Eucharistic office the oblation is thus described We offer to thee King and God according to thy appointment this bread and this cup and we beseech thee to look graciously upon these gifts set before thee O thou God who wantest nothing and send thy holy Spirit upon this sacrifice (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apostol Constit l. 8. c. 12. i. e. upon these oblations and make them to be the body and blood of Christ i. e. Sacrumentally and Vertually In the Ordo Romanus and in the Canon of the Mass it self (c) Te igitur Clementissime Pater per Jesum Christum Filium tuum Dominum nostrum supplicts rogamus a◠petimus ut accepta habeas benedicas haec dona haec munera haec Sancta Sacrificia illibata in primis quae tibi offerimus Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae sed cunctae familliae tuae quaesumus Domine ut placatus accipias Quam Oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quaesumus benedictam ascriptam ratam rationabitem acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis corpus sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi Ordo Romanus p. 62. Edit Hittorp Canon Missae there is this prayer over the oblations that God would accept and bless these Gifts these Presents these Holy and undefiled sacrifices which we offer to thee c. and another to the same purpose said by their Priest with his hand stretched over the oblata This oblation therefore of our service and of thy whole Family we beseech thee O Lord mercifully to receive c. And again This oblation O Lord we beseech thee to make blessed c signing upon the oblata That it may be to us the body and blood of thy dearest Son our Lord Jesus Christ All these prayers over the oblations whereby they are presented to God are made before Consecration so that the oblations which are here called Holy and pure Sacrifices are thought worthy of that Name before they are become the Body and Blood of Christ and so made a proper facrifice in the present sense of the Church of Rome the Canon of the Mass is Older then their New doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass and affords plain evidence for applying the name of sacrifice to the Eucharist upon the
and St. Peter in which there are the distinct parts of the people as well as of the Priest as when the Priest is to say peace be with you all the people are to answer and with thy spirit and the service is so framed as to suppose and require company in Communicating or else it would be nonsensical and ridiculous for the Priest alone to pray to God to breathe upon us his servants that are present to grant that the Sacraments may be to all us that partake of them the Communion of the blessedness of eternal Life and after the Communion is over after all have received for the priest to give the blessing to all and pray God to bless and protect us all who were partakers of the Mysteries The same form of speaking in the plural is in the more Authentick Liturgies of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom where it is very odd for the Priest to exhort others to pray to give thanks and the like and to pray God that they may be worthy partakers of the Sacrament if none were to partake of it but himself The Roman Missal which is much older then these private Masses or then the Doctrine of the Mass as I shall presently show speaks after the same manner and makes the Priest pray for all that are present and that all who have communicated may be filled with all heavenly benediction and Grace These must be all very improper for the Priest to say when he communicates by himself and he may with as good reason make a Congregation by himself alone as make a Communion Private Masses then which sprang up from the sacrifice of the Mass and are wholly suited and agreeable to that Doctrine these being so contrary to the best Antiquity show that that Doctrine also on which they are founded and from whence they arose is so too And I have the more largely considered these because they are another great corruption of the Eucharist of the Roman Church tho they are originally derived from the sacrifice of the Mass Fourthly The very Canon of the Mass as 't is at present in the Roman Church has very little in it agreeable to this new Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass but though it is somewhat difficult to give a certain account of the time of its composition it being made at first by an unknown Author whom St. Gregory calls Scholasticus who is supposed by some to be Pope Gelasius though had St. Gregory known this he would hardly have given him that name and it having a great many additions given to it by several Popes as is owned by their own Writers upon the Ordo Romanus * Walasrid Strabo de rebus Eccles c. 22. Micrologus de Ecclesiast Observat c. 12. Berno Augiensis c. 1. alii in Collectione Hittorpii yet it is no doubt much ancienter then their present Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass which is very near as late as the Council of Trent The first manner of celebrating the Communion was very plain and simple so that St. Gregory tells us The Apostles consecrated the host of oblation only with the Lords Prayer †Mos Apostolorum fuit ut ad ipsam solammodo orationem Dominicam oblationis hostiam consecrarent Gregorii Regist Epistol 64. l. 7. if they did so and used no other form in that sacred Office 't is certain they could not make a sacrifice of the Eucharist nor offer it as such to God because there are no words or expressions in that prayer whereby any such thing should be meant or signified so that this is a most authentick testimony against any such Apostolick practice but the present Canon Missae or Communion Office of the Roman Church does not fully come up to nor perfectly expresse or contain the present Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass there is no offering of Christs body and blood under the species of Bread and Wine in any formal words as might be expected in conformity to their Trent Doctrine nor is there any mention of Christs being there in his natural body or offered to God by the Priest as a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead for sins for punishments and for other necessities Neither this nor their great Doctrine of Transubstantiation is contained in their present office so that 't is to me a plain evidence of the novelty of both of them and that they are a great deal later then the Canon of the Mass there are several prayers indeed that make mention of a sacrifice and of an oblation but most of them and the most expresse of them are before consecration so that they plainly belong to those Gifts and Oblations which according to the Primitive custom were brought by the Communicants and which as I have shown were one great reason of the Eucharist's being called a sacrifice God is desired to accept and bless these gifts these presents these holy and pure sacrifices which we offer to thee for thy holy Catholick Church together with thy servant our Pope N. and our Bishop N. and for all the Orthodox and for all those that hold the Catholick and Apostolick Faith. * See Canon Missae and then follows the commemoration Prayer Remember O Lord thy servants and thy handmaids N. and N. and all those who are present whose Faith and Devotion is known to thee for whom we offer to thee or who offer to thee this sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all others for the Redemption of their Souls for the hope of their Salvation and their safety and render their vows to thee the Eternal Living and True God then after the memorial of the Saints We beseech thee O Lord that thou wouldst mercifully receive this Oblation of our service and of all thy Family and dispose our days in peace and command us to be delivered from eternal damnation and to be numbred in the fold of thine Elect through Jesus Christ our Lord then immediately follows this prayer which Oblation thou O God we bescech vouchsafe to make altogether blessed ascribed ratified reasonable and acceptable Ascripta and Rata are words which they are as much puzled to understand as I am to Translate All these prayers are before consecration so that they cannot belong to the sacrifice of Christs Body but only to the oblation of the gifts and the sacrifice of praise as 't is there expresly called and yet these are a great deal more full and large then the prayers after consecration wherein there is no manner of mention of offering Christs Body and Blood but only offering the consecrated Elements as they were offered before when they were unconsecrated We offer unto thy excellent Majesty of thy gifts and presents a pure host an holy host an immaculate host the holy bread of Eternal Life and the cup of Eternal Salvation The first Composers would have used other words then Bread and Cup had they meant thereby Christs very natural Body and
because 't is not the res sacrificii which makes the sacrifice though that were never so truly present but the sacrificing Act or the Actual sacrificing it for as Bellarmine says * Nam non res illa sedgei illius oblatio proprie est sacrificium sacrificium enim est actio non res permanens Bellarm de Miss l. 2. c. 4. D. A sacrifice is an action not a permanent thing and 't is not the thing it self but the offering it is properly the sacrifice So that though Christs natural Body and Blood were never so much present in the Eucharist even according to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation it self yet so long as there is no proper action there to sacrifice it or no sacrificing act it would signifie nothing to the making it a sacrifice 3. This Doctrine of the Mass makes a living body a sacrifice which requires it should be dead and yet at the same represents it dead when it supposes it present in a state of life which is as odd a jumble as making a man to be by at his own funeral and at the same time bringing in the person alive yet dressing up his picture to remember him dead and in the habit of death it self The Eucharist is to remember and represent Christ in a state of death his body and blood as separated from one another and the one broken and the other poured out and the words of consecration are the spiritual sword as the Bishop of Meaux calls them that are to do this and so to constitute the sacrifice but whilst this is a doing nay by the very doing this thing the same spiritual sword becomes a spiritual word and raises the same body living and sets it in that state upon the Altar so that by this means it destroys the sacrifice a great deal more then it made it before for it makes it be then truly living whereas it only represented it before as dead So that 't is at the same time a dead representative sacrifice and a living proper sacrifice which is in truth no sacrifice at all for a living sacrifice is just as much sense as a dead Ammal that is 't is a contradiction and one of the Terms destroys the other If a Jewish Priest had knockt down the Oxe with one hand and raised him up with the other or restored him to life after he had slew him this would have made but a very odde sacrifice and to make Christ dead by the sacramental signs and to sacrifice him thus in Effigie and to make him alive again under the sacramental signs and so to sacrifice him truly this is a strange and unaccountable riddle I would ask whether the consecrated species of Bread and Wine by which Christs blood is shed mystically and death intervenes only by representation as the Bishop of Meaux phrases it whether these would make a real sacrifice without Christs living body under them if not 't is not this mystical representation of death makes the sacrifice Or whether Christs living body without those species and signs of his death would be a sacrifice If not then 't is not the placing that upon the Altar and so a real Oblation of it there makes the sacrifice and then what is it that does so Is it not very odd that the same person must be there seemingly dead and yet really alive at the same time to make up this sacrifice 4. The making it truly propitiatory is a very great Error and inconsistent with it self All our Religious Duties and all our vertuous actions may in a large and improper sense be said to be propitiatory as they are said also in Scripture to be sacrifices for no doubt but they make God kind and propitious to us and incline him to have Mercy upon us and the blessed Eucharist as it exhibits to us all the graces and benefits which Christ hath by his death purchased for us whereof Pardon and Remission of sin which is hereby sealed to us is a very great one so far may be called propitiatory and it may be instituted for the Remission of sin so far as it is to apply to us the vertue of Christs body and blood and make us partakers of his sacrifice upon the Cross but this it may do as it is a Sacrament without being any sacrifice much less without being a propitiatory one as the Council of Trent hath determined it to be truly propitiatory (b) Vere propitiatorium esse Injus quippe oblatione placatus Dominus Concil Trident. Sess 6. c. 2. by the oblation of which God is appeased and this in opposition to a sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving (c) Si quis dixoit Missae sacrisicium tantum esse laudis gratiarum actionis non autem propitiatorium Ib. Can. 3. Now as it is a sacrifice of Praise and spiritual Devotion it is no doubt in the Bishop of Meaux's words acceptable to God and makes him look upon us with a more propitious eye (d) Exposition of the Doctrine of the Cathotick Charch p. 35. Is this then all the meaning of its being propitiatory Did ever any Protestant deny it to be thus And is not this to explain away the true meaning of the word and to give up the Controversie The true notion of a propitiatory sacrifice is this that it suffers a vicarious punishment in anothersstead that by it the punishment is transferr'd from the offender to that and so he is discharged from it and God is pleased for the sake of that not to be angry but kind and propitious to him this I think cannot be denyed and let us see if this will fit to the Eucharist If Christ be really present there yet does he saffer any punishment there in our stead does he pay any price there for our sins If not there cannot be any true propitiation then made nor can the sacrifice be truly propitiatory Christ did once upon the Cross where he suffered as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a vicarious punishment for our sins by his one oblation of himself once offered make a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole World * Prav◠of Consent at in Commun Serv. and Bellarmine is forced to own That 't is the sacrifice of the Cross is properly meritorious and satisfactory because Christ when he was then mortal could merit and satisfie but the sacrifice of the Mass is properly only impetratory for Christ being now immortal can neither merit nor satisfie * Nam sacrificium crucis fait meritorium satisfactorium impetratorium verè propriè quia Christus tunc mortalis erat mereri ac satisfacere poterat sacrificium Missae propriè salum est Impetratorium quia Chrisius nunc immortalis nec mereri nec satisfacere potest Bellarm. de Missa l. 2. c. 4. C. Thus truth will out at last though there be never so much art used to stifle and conceal it and this is
oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11.25 That the Apostles were made Priests by Christ at his last Supper by those words hoc facite do this is so precarious and senseless an opinion that it only shows what wonderful streights and extremities our adversaries are driven to who are forced to espouse this to support their ill-framed Hypothesis about the Holy Eucharist in those two doctrines of the Communion in One Kind and the Sacrifice of the Mass There is not one Father or Antient Interpreter that gives any the least countenance to it and many of their own Authors are ashamed of it as may be seen in a late Discourse of the Communion in One Kind †pag. 15. where this is so fully exposed that I shall here say no more of it but that if those words make the Apostles Priests it makes them so twice for they are twice repeated by our Saviour after giving the Cup as well as after giving the bread as St. Paul witnesses 1 Cor. 11.25 and so the character of Priesthood must be double and they must be twice ordained at the same time when there is nothing appears like any Ordination at all but if they were then made Priests they were not made so to sacrifice Christs Body and Blood or to do more then he did at that time and so this is nothing to the purpose if he himself did not then truly offer and sacrifice himself which is the plainest thing in the World he did not And what should make any man imagine that Christs body was broke and his blood shed at his last Supper or that he then sacrificed and offered up himself I cannot conceive Had he been no otherwise sacrificed nor his body any otherwise broken nor his blood in any otherway shed besides this the Jews had been liable to much less guilt but mankind had bin in a more wretched condition for Christ had not Redeemed them had he not dyed for them upon the Cross If the sacrifice of Christ at his last Supper the night before his crucifixion was a true proper and propitiatory sacrifice what needed he have suffered the next day if that was of the same nature and value with the other as they say and did truly propitiate God and procure pardon and remission of sins for mankind what need was there of the Cross of Christ it was hereby made void and of none Effect or at least of no necessity If Christ had done the work without it his sacrifice upon the Altar or the Table might have excused his sacrifice upon the Cross and thus the bitter Cup might have past from him and he might have been Crucifyed only in Effigie and slain mystically and sacramentally and his body might have been thus broken and his blood shed and yet the one have been still whole and the other in his veins For these Reasons one of their own Bishops in the Council of Trent denyed openly That Christ offered up any proper sacrifice at his last Supper * Cornelius Episcopus Bitontinus in concilio apud Tridentum qui dixerit Christum in caenâ non suum corpus sanguinem obtulisse Canus in loc Theol. l. 12. But if he did not then there was no ground for them ever to offer any in the Eucharist and therefore the Council was forced to declare he did though no such thing appears in the Evangelical History nor could any collect it from thence but it was a necessary after-thought and a groundless supposal to help out and establish the sacrifice of the Mass Secondly There is no Scripture ground for any such sacrifice but 't is expresly contrary to Scripture to sacrifice Christ over again and to have any other propitiatory sacrifice besides that of the Cross and to offer up Christs body and blood every day which was to be but once offered and that by himself I have already shown that the greatest foundation of this their sacrifice out of Scripture which is Christ offering up himself at his last Supper and commanding others to offer him there is a mistake and if it be so all their other Scriptural pretences are vain and to no purpose and must be so acknowledged by themselves for there is none other that does institute and appoint any such sacrifice or can with any colour or shadow be pretended to do so and I hope they will own that without a divine institution there cannot be a proper and much less a propitiatory sacrifice and this indeed they do they confess that it is not in the power of the Church to institute a sacrifice ‖ Non est in potestate Ecclesiae instituere Sacramentum Salmeron Tom. 9. Tract 28. And that the very being and Essence of this sacrifice depends upon the Institution of Christ * Tota Essentia Sacrificii pendet ex institutione Christi Salmeron ib. Suarez Tom. 3. Disp â—5 If that be then taken away and there be no such thing in Scripture as I have shown there is not then whatever other places they can produce to establish this are all insignificant and to no purpose for if they did mention this either by way of Prophecy or of History yet if it be no where instituted this will not do the business for the Institution ought not to be supposed but clearly proved and made out and if that cannot be every thing else that is to support it as a collateral evidence falls to the ground What will it signifie if Melchisedec did offer Bread and Wine not to Abraham only but to God and as a Priest did sacrifice them rather then make an hospitable entertainment with them is this any foundation for the sacrifice of the Mass If Christ did not institute that at his last Supper with his Disciples Melchisedec I hope did not institute it with Abraham and his Souldiers If the Prophet Malachi speaks never so much of a pure offering yet if Christ did not offer up himself in the Sacrament nor command the Apostles to offer him up there Malachi's Prophesie will not make the Eucharist to be a sacrifice or a pure offering if Christ did not make it so nor will the Priests I suppose desire their power of sacrificing either from Melchisedecs act or Malachi's prediction without Christs Institution it is not only a presumption but a demonstration that those Scriptures which they bring do not really mean or truly speak of any such thing as The sacrifice of the Mass when there is no such thing any where instituted or appointed by Christ and without such an institution there cannot as they confess be any ground for it All their little scattered forces therefore which they rally and pick up here and there out of Scripture and which against their will they press into the service of the Mass-sacrifice are hereby wholly cut off and utterly defeated by having their main strength without which they can do nothing of themselves taken away from them and I
whether it was or no but yet such a sacrifice as was offered without a priest by every Master of a Family and if the Eucharist were to agree with it in this the priests would loose a great deal of their design in making it a sacrifice for then without hiring them every house-keeper would offer it himself besides the paschal Lamb was not a propitiatory sacrifice I presume for the quick and dead so then in correspondence to that neither is the sacrifice of the Mass but only an Eucharistic one but after all the paschal Lamb was not truly a Type and figure of the Eucharist but of Christ crucified so says St. Paul expresly Christ our Passeover is sacrificed for us †1 Cor. 5.7 and that not I suppose in the Sacrament but upon the cross the Paschal figure was fulfilled says their own Jansenius when our true passeover Christ was immolated †Impleta erat sigura Paschatis quando verum nostrum Pascha immolatus est Christus Jansen Harmon c. 131. f. 895. and to show how exact a figure he then bare of the paschal Lamb a bone of him was not to be broken †John 19.33 as it was not likewise of that Exod. 12.46 and this expresly remarkt that the Scripture might be fulfilled †verse 36. The sacrifice of the paschal Lamb and the other Jewish sacrifices wherein atonement was made for sin by shedding of blood without which under the Law there was to be no Remission were all as the Apostle says shadows of good things to come †Heb. 20.1 and Types of the more perfect sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross who was the Lamb slain in Types and Figures as well as in design and intention from the beginning of the world and I cannot but think that from hence arose the universal custom of sacrificing in all Religions over all the World from an original tradition of the sacrifice of Christ and out of a primary regard and respect to that for I cannot imagine what else should be the reason or give rise to expiatory sacrifices and be the true cause of so general a practice but that any of these sacrifices had relation to the Eucharist or were intended as figures of that is very precarious and ungrounded Those Eucharistic sacrifices indeed in which part of what was offered was eaten by the offerers or in holocausts when the whole was consumed where a peace-offering was joined with them which the sacrificers used to feast and partake of as a token of their peace and reconciliation with God these may fairly relate and have some respect to or at least resemblance with the Eucharist which is a kind of sacrificial feast or sacramental feeding upon an oblatum Christs body and blood offered for us upon the Cross but that they were Types of this is more then we can be assured of for a Type is a sign or figure appointed and designed by God to signifie and mark out such a thing and we cannot know that God appoints or designs any such thing further then we have some ground from Scripture and Revelation and therefore we must restrain Typical matters within those bounds and must not let fancy loose to make what Types it pleases There may be some similitude and likeness by which one thing may be compared with another without its being a Type or a Figure of it as Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew calls * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Dialog cum Tryph. p. 260. Par. The meat-offering of fine flour which the Leper was to bring for his cleansing Levit. 4.10 an Image or likeness of the Eucharistic bread which Christ our Lord appointed to be brought in remembrance of his Passion whereby our Souls are cleansed from sin and wickedness and that we may hereby give thanks to God the Creator So that he makes the Eucharist to answer the Analogy of that meat-offering in three things in the Oblation of bread and this in commemoration of Christs passion whereby we are delivered from sin and as a Thanksgiving to God and in all these it does very well correspond with it though that it was strictly a Type of this and so intended by God is still to be questioned and he that is acquainted with the Fathers and their Allegorical way of explaining Scripture and applying all things in the Old Testament to matters in the New will have great reason to doubt whether they did not give too much scope to their fancy in many things and whether solid Arguments may be drawn from all their Allegorical discourses and applications but yet none of them that I know of do make any of the antient propitiatory sacrifices to be Types and Figures of the Eucharist but of the sacrifice of the Cross however if they should do this by some remote allusion and partial resemblance yet not as it is a proper sacrifice or truly propitiatory therefore not at all to the purpose of the sacrifice of the Mass The Prophesie of Malachi is one of the great Scripture proofs for this sacrifice but it can be at most but a collateral evidence for if Christ did not in fact institute any such sacrifice as I have proved he did not this is a much better argument to show there was none such foretold then it can be to prove he did institute it because it was foretold Predictions are best understood by the completion of them and if no such thing was done as is pretended from this prediction this demonstrates that no such thing was intended or meant by it so that by taking away that first ground of the Mass-sacrifice I have taken away all these little underprops and supporters of it but let us see what seeming assistance this place of Malachi will afford them God having reproved the Jews for their undue and unsit offerings tells them that better and purer offerings shall be made him every where by the Gentiles For from the rising of the Sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the Heathen saith the Lord of Hosts * Malac. 1.11 Thus it is both in the Hebrew and Greek Copies as Bellarmine owns but it is something different from both those in the Vulgar Latin where it is In every place is sacrificed and is offered to my name a pure Oblation * In omni loco sacrificatur offertur nomini meo para oblatio They are so in love with the Word sacrifice that they choose to use that above any other as if where-ever they meet with that in Scripture it must be meant properly and of an external sacrifice and of no other but the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass Tho the word here Mincha from which some of our Adversaries are so foolish as to derive the Latin
in that probably their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ministry consisted or as St. Chrysostom ‖ Homil. 37. in Act. and after him Oecumenius explain it in preaching but that they sacrificed there is not the least evidence The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie to sacrifice but to perform any proper function and therefore it is attributed in the Scripture both to the Angels who are called ministring spirits †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 1.14 and to the Magistrates who are called the Ministers of God ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13.6 and yet sacrificing I suppose belongs to neither of them nor does their own vulgar Latin so Translate it here The last is out of the 1 Cor. 10. for Bellarmine gives up that out of the Hebrews 13. We have an altar of which they have no right to eat who serve the Tabernacle though 't is as much to his purpose in my mind as any of the rest but some Catholick Writers he says do by altar mean there either the Cross or Christ himself †Quia non desunt ex Catholicis qui eo loco per altare intelligunt crucem aut ipsum Christum non urgeo ipsum locum Bellarm. de Mis c. 14. but if it were meant of the Eucharist that is but an Altar in an improper sense as the sacrifice offered on it is but improper and metaphorical as we shall prove but in the place to the Corinthians the Apostle Commands them not to eat of things offered to Idols for to eat of them was to partake of things sacrificed to Devils and so to have communion with Devils which was very unfit for those who were partakers of the Lords Table and therein truly communicated of the Body and Blood of Christ as those who ate of the Jewish sacrifices were partakers of the Jewish Altar Now what is here of the sacrifice of the Mass or any way serviceable to it Why yes the Apostle compares the Table of the Lord with the Table of Devils and eating of the Lords supper with eating the Jewish and the Heathen sacrifices therefore the Christians ought to have an Altar as well as the Jews and what they fed on ought to be sacrificed as well as the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the Apostle says nothing of this nor makes any such comparison between them but only shows the unfitness of Christians eating of the Heathen sacrifices who partook of the Lords Table he does not call the Lords Table an Altar nor the Eucharist a sacrifice nor was there any danger that the Christians should go to eat in the Idol Temples but he would not have them eat of their sacrifices brought home and the whole comparison lyes here the eating the Lords Supper did make them true partakers of the Lords body and blood sacrificed upon the Cross as eating of the Jewish sacrifices did make the Jews partakers of the Jewish Altar and as eating of things offered to Idols was having fellowship with Devils so that they who partook of such holy food as Christians did should not communicate of such execrable and diabolical food as the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If indeed Christians could not partake of Christs body and blood in the Eucharist unless they first made a proper sacrifice and oblation of them then the Apostles discourse would necessarily suppose and imply them to be thus offered as the Jewish and Heathen sacrifices were before they were eaten but since Christs body and blood being once offered upon the Cross is a sufficient sacrifice and oblation of them and the Eucharist is a religious and Sacramental Feast upon the sacrifice of Christ once offered this is sufficient for the Apostles scope and design in that place where there is no other comparison made between the Table of the Lord and the Table of Devils but that one makes us to be partakers of the body and blood of Christ and the other to have Fellowship with Devils and as to the Jewish Altar the Antithesis does not lye here as Bellarmine would have it between that and the Table of the Lord that both have proper sacrifices offered upon them which are eaten after they are sacrificed but the Cross of Christ rather is the Antithesis to the Jewish Altar on which sacrifices were really and properly slain which are not on the Christian Altar and the feeding and partaking of those sacrifices so offered whereby they were made partakers of the Altar this answers to the sacramental feeding upon Christs body and blood in the Christian Altar whereby we are made partakers of the Cross of Christ and have the vertue and merit of his sacrifice communicated to us Thus I have considered and fully answered whatever our Adversaries can bring out of Scripture for their sacrifice of the Mass I shall now offer some places of Scripture that are directly contrary to it and do perfectly overthrow it and though their cause must necessarily sink if the Scripture be not for it because without a Scriptural Foundation there can be no divine institution of a sacrifice which is necessary by their own confession and so essential a part of worship ought surely to be appointed by no less an Authority then of God himself so that if it be destitute of Scripture-grounds it must like a Castle in the Air fall of it self and can have nothing else to support it Yet I shall show that Scripture is plainly against it and that so strong a battery may be raised and levelled at it from thence that none of their Arts or devices can be able to withstand it it is from those known places of the Epistle to the Hebrews from whence I have already shown how contrary their Doctrine is to our Saviours Melchisedecian priesthood I shall now urge those places out of that Epistle wherein the Divine Authour of it who was probably St. Paul largely and designedly showeth the excellency of Christs sacrifice above those under the Law upon this account that it had so much vertue and efficacy in it that by one offering it obtained full and perfect Remission of sin whereas this was the great imperfection of the others and showed their great weakness and insufficiency that they were so often offered and so frequently repeated every priest of the Jews standeth dayly ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin chap. 10.11 And it was plain they could not take away sin because they were so often offered over again either every day or every year For the Law can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect chap. 10. verse 1. For then would they not have ceased to be offered because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year verse 2 3. Those sacrifices being but like the acknowledgments
of that again as the Apostle goes on verse 18. Are not they who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the Altar 't is eating and communicating that makes us partakers of Christs sacrifice We do then eat of the sacrifice and so partake of it as the Jews did of their sacrifices the communion is a feasting upon a true oblatum the body and blood of Christ as is excellently made out by a Learned man of our own we do not there sacrifice Christs body but only sacramentally eat of it as being already sacrificed and offered once for all by Christ himself upon the Cross It is not at all necessary that it should be sacrificed again by us to make us become partakers of it for cannot a sacrifice be applyed without being sacrificed again It seems a very strange and uncouth way to sacrifice the same thing over and over in order to applying the vertue of it as if the Jews when they had slain the Paschal Lamb must have slain another Lamb in order to the partaking the vertue of it no they were to eat of it for that purpose and so are we of Christs sacrifice and this is the way whereby we do communicate of it and have its full vertue applyed to us It was the weakness and insufficiency of their sacrifices that made them so often repeat them and sacrifice them anew but Christs sacrifice being perfect is to be but once offered though it be often to be eaten and partaken of by us which it may be without being again sacrificed Thirdly The Authour of this Epistle makes not the least mention of Christs sacrifice being offered again upon Earth or of its being repeated in the sacrifice of the Mass but after he himself had once offered it upon the Cross he immediately speaks of his presenting it to God in Heaven and there by vertue of it interceeding and mediating with him for us that by his own blood he entered into the holy place having obtained eternal Redemption for us chap. 9. ver 12. as the Jewish high priest on the great day of expiation after he had offered the sacrifice of atonement for the whole Congregation upon the Altar carried the blood of it into the Holy of Holies and there sprinkled it before the mercy-seat Levit. 16.15 This great Anniversary sacrifice for the whole Congregation was the great Type and Figure of Christs sacrifice for all mankind and the Holy of Holies was the Type of Heaven and the High Priest of Christ as is confessed by all Christ therefore our great High Priest to whom alone it belonged to offer this sacrifice of Atonement and Expiation for the whole World having done this upon the Cross he entred not into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us chap 9. ver 24. To appear there as our Advocate and Mediator and by vertue of his own blood there presented to his Father to make a very powerful intercession for us Now from this discourse of the Apostle we have a full account of Christs sacrifice that it was to be once offered upon the cross and then to be carried into the Holy of Holies in Heaven and no more to be offered upon Earth for this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God chap. 10. ver 12. The Apostle speaks not one tittle nor gives the least hint or intimation of this sacrifice being offered again by others upon Earth this lyes cross to the whole tenour of his discourse and the similitude and agreement which he represents between the Jewish sacrifice of Atonement and Christs is quite altered and destroyed by it for besides the High Priests offering this sacrifice this makes every lesser Priest to be still offering the same sacrifice upon the Altar when the High Priest is entred with the blood of it into the Holy of Holies and though he cannot go in there upon which the vertue and the perfection of the sacrifice does in great measure depend yet still to offer the same sacrifice and besides it makes this facrifice like to the Jewish where every priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which for the reason shewed they could never take away sins chap. 10. ver 12. in opposition to which he says this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God verse 13. that is Christs sacrifice was never to be repeated as the Jewish were for if it had been to be offered by others though not by Christ himself and the Christian Priests were to stand daily ministring and offering the same sacrifice both they and their sacrifice would have been the same upon this account with the Jewish and there had not been that difference between them which the Apostle does there plainly mean and declare Further it cannot but seem very strange that when this Divine Author does so largely and copiously and designedly treat of the sacrifice of Christ and of those of the Jews and compare them so much together and show the excellency of the one above the other that he should never say the least word of the sacrifice of the Mass when he had so much occasion to do it that it can hardly be imagined he should have so wholly omitted it had it been as others since account it as true and proper a sacrifice as any of the Jewish or of Christs himself upon the cross Fourthly The Apostle here plainly layes down a principle directly contrary and wholly inconsistent with their Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass and that is that if Christ be offered he must suffer and that without shedding of blood there is no Remission Nor yet saith he at the 25 26. verses and 9th chapter That he should offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself For then must he often have suffered if he had been often offered without suffering then Christ cannot be offered and sacrificed and indeed to sacrifice any thing is to consume and destroy it so that it be wholly parted with and given up to God and to sacrifice any thing that is living is to take away its life and to kill it and so to make it suffer death as a vicarious punishment in anothers stead this is the common and allowed notion of sacrifices but Christ cannot thus suffer in the Mass therefore he cannot be truly offered or sacrificed since according to the Apostle if he be often offered he must often suffer and they would not I hope crucisie to themselves the Lord of Life again and put him to death upon the Altar
as the Jews did upon the cross and yet without this they cannot truly sacrifice him or properly offer him according to the Apostle But this says their great Champion the Bishop of Meaux is done mystically Christ is mystically slain and doth mystically suffer death upon the Altar that is by way of representation and resemblance and the mysterious signification of what is done there as St. Paul says to the Galatians chap. 3. v. 1. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you Now so Christ may be crucified every time we hear or read his crucifixion lively represented to us as we may see a bloody Tragedy without one drop of blood spilt so Christ may be mystically slain in the Sacrament when his body is broke and his blood poured out in mystery and representation but this is not true and proper Offering which is necessary to make a true and proper sacrifice as they will have that of the Mass to be if they would be contented with a mystical sacrifice to represent and commemorate Christs death that they know we are willing to allow and then a mystical suffering that is not a real and proper would be sufficient for a mystical that is not proper sacrifice but the suffering must be as true and proper as the sacrifice and if the one be but mystical the other must be so too if the Bullock or Goat of the sin-offering which was to be offered on the great day of Atonement had been only Mystically slain and Mystically offered upon the Altar they had been as really alive for all that as any that were in the Fields and had been no more true and proper sacrifices of atonement and expiation then they were for without shedding of blood as the Apostle says there is no Remission Heb. 9.22 it was the shedding or pouring out the blood in which the Life was supposed to be and therefore the taking away the Life of the sacrifice that did really make the sacrifice to be truly propitiatory or avail able before God as a price and recompence for the remission of sins and how then can the sacrifice of the Mass be truly propitiatory when the blood is not truly shed when according to themselves it is Incruentum sacrificium an unbloody sacrifice and therefore according to the Apostle it cannot be propitiatory for the Remission of sins as will be further insisted upon afterwards Thus we see how much there is in those clear places of Scripture against the sacrifice of the Mass and how little there is for it in those dark ones which are produced by our Adversaries Thirdly It has no just claim to Antiquity nor was there any such Doctrine or Practice in the Primitive Church this is greatly boasted and vaunted of and although their cause runs very low in Scripture yet they pretend it carries all Antiquity before it where nothing is more common than to have the name of Oblation and Sacrifice and Host and Victim attributed to the blessed Eucharist and to have it said that we do there offer and immolate and sacrifice unto God this we readily acknowledge and though we can by no means allow Antiquity to take place of Scripture or to set up either an Article of Faith or essential part of Worship which is not in Scripture and our Adversaries seem to agree with us in this that there must be a divine Institution for a sacrifice or else it can have no true foundation so that if Scripture fails them 't is in vain to flye for refuge to Antiquity yet we doubt not but that Scripture and Antiquity will be fairly reconciled and be made very good Friends in this point and both of them against the sacrifice of the Mass as 't is taught and practised in the Church of Rome The name of Sacrifice and oblation is often given both in Scripture and Antiquity in an improper general and metaphorical sense thus it is applyed to the inward actions of the mind to penitence and sorrow for sin The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Psal 51.17 To the outward Thanksgivings of the mouth when we render unto God the Calves of our lips Hosea 14.2 When we offer unto him Thanksgiving Psal 50.14 or as the Apostle more fully expresses it when he commands Christians to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name Heb. 13.15 where the Metaphor is carried on in several words and in the very next verse 't is applied to works of Mercy and Charity and beneficence to others but to do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased verse 16. and St. Paul in another place calls the Philippians Charity an odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God Philip. 4.18 Nay he calls preaching the Gospel a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Adversaries earnestly contend to mean nothing less then a sacrifice and the converting the Gentiles he calls a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an offering acceptable to God Rom. 15.16 †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in another place he calls the Faith of Christians a sacrifice Philip. 2.17 †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And his own Martyrdom an Oblation Ib. 1 Tim. 4.6 St. Peter not only calls works of Piety Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ but he ascribes a holy Priesthood to all Christians to offer these up 1 Pet. 2.5 and upon that account St. John also gives them the Title of Priests Rev. 1.6 Now as the holy Spirit of God often chooses to use this phrase and metaphor which is very easie and natural so from hence and in accommodation probably both to the Jews and Heathens the greatest part of whose Religion was sacrifices the ancient Writers also do very frequently make use of it and apply it both to actions of morality and to all parts of Religious Worship but especially to the blessed Eucharist which is the most sacred and solemn of all other but they do not do this in the strict and proper sense of the word sacrifice as is plain from the foregoing instances but in a large and general and metaphorical one so that though our Adversaries could muster up ten times as many places out of the Fathers wherein the Eucharist is called a sacrifice and oblation and in the celebrating of which we are said to offer and immolate to God with which they are apt to make a great show and to triumph as if the victory were perfectly gained against us yet they are all to no purpose and would do no real execution upon us unless they can prove that these are to be taken in a strict and proper sense which it is necessary they should be to make a proper sacrifice and not in a large and Metaphorical one as we are
Christus cuique occiditur cum evedit occisum August quaest Evang. l. 2. and when we believe in Christ from the very remains of this thought Christ is dayly immolated to us (c) Cum credimus in Christum ex ipsis reliquiis cogitationis Christus nobis quotidie immolatur Id. in Psal 73. as St. Hierom says when we hear the word of our Lord his flesh and blood is as it were poured into our Ears (d) cum audimus Sermonem Domini caro Christi sanguis ejus in auribus nostris funditur Hieron in Psal 147. and so St. Ambrose calls the virgins minds those Altars on which Christ is dayly offered for the Redemption of the Body (e) Vestras mentes confidenter altaria dixerim in quibus quotidiè pro Redemptione corporis Christus offertur Ambr. de Virg. l. 2. The Minister also does not only offer to God the oblations of the faithful at the Altar and their spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise which it is his proper duty in their names to present unto God but he does offer as it were Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for the people by praying to God for the people as a public Minister in and through the merits of Christs death and passion and by consecrating and administring the blessed Sacrament which is hereby made not only a commemorative sacrifice of Christs body and blood but does with the outward sign really exhibit the thing signified to the people So that 't is no wonder to meet with the words offering and offering Christs body and blood as attributed peculiarly to the Minister as in those known places of Ignatius his Epistles 't is not lawful for the Priest to offer without the leave of the Bishop And in Tertullian when the Priest is wanting thou baptizest and offerest and art a Priest to thy self and in the Council of Nice where Deacons are forbid to offer the body of Christ Can. 14. To offer and to offer Christs body and blood is made the peculiar office of the Priest as he alone is the steward of these Mysteries of God and the proper Minister to consecrate and celebrate this Holy Sacrament and in that to offer up the peoples requests to God in the name of Christ and his meritorious cross and passion and by vertue of that to mediate for the people and present as it were Christs sacrifice on their behalf that is Christs body and blood as an objective sacrifice in heaven and as formerly truly offered upon the cross and now sacramentally and improperly upon the Altar but not as an external visible proper sacrifice subjectively present and placed upon the Altar by the hands of the Priest and by a visible and external action presented to God and offered up as the Jewish sacrifices used to be by any consumption or alteration as they hold the sacrifice of the Mass to be No such can be found in any of the Fathers or ancient Ecclesiastic Writers though they speak often of sacrifices and oblations and sometimes of offering Christ and the body of Christ in the Eucharist yet not at all in the present sense of the Romish Church or according to the doctrine of the Council of Trent or the Writers since that which how contrary it is to Antiquity I shall show by a few general Remarks and Considerations 1. Had they had any such sacrifice they might have given another answer to their Jewish and Heathen Adversaries who charged them with the want of outward Sacrifices and Altars as with a great impiety to which they made only this return in their Apologies that they had indeed no proper Altars nor visible and external sacrifices but instead of those they offered the more spiritual sacrifices of Praise and Thanksgiving and of an honest and good mind and of vertuous and holy actions which were the only sacrifices of Christians and more acceptable to God then any other this is the answer which runs through all their excellent Apologies in return to that accusation of their having no sacrifices which they owned to be true in the sense their Adversaries urged it that is that they had no proper external visible sacrifices such as the Jews and Heathens had such as the Roman Church will needs have the Mass to be but their sacrifices were of another nature such as were so only in an improper and metaphorical sense which the Romanists will by no means allow that of the Eucharist to be We are not Atheists says Justin Martyr as they were chargged to be because they had not the visible Worship of facrifices but we Worship the maker of all things who needs not blood or libations or incense with the Word of Prayer and Thanksgiving giving him Praise as much as we can and counting this the only honour worthy of him (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Apolog. 2. and we are perswaded he needeth no material oblation from men (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. And in another place he says Prayers and Praises made by good men are the only perfect and acceptable sacrifices to God (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dialog cum Tryph. We are charged by some with Atheism says Athenagoras who measure Religion only by the way of sacrifices and what do ye tell me of sacrifices which God wanteth not though we ought to bring him an unbloody sacrifice and to offer him a rational Worship (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanag Legat. pro Christ where the rational worship explains the meaning of the unbloody sacrifice Tertullian in his Apologetic answering that charge That Christians did not sacrifice for the Emperours it follows says he by the same reason we do not sacrifice for others because neither do we do it for our selves (e) Pro Imperatoribus sacrisicia non pendltis sequitur ut eadem ratione pro aliis non sacrificemus quia nec pro nobis ipsis Tertull. Apologet. adversus gentes c. 10. but in answer to this he declares how Christians prayed for the Emperour c. 30. and in another place he says they sacrificed for the Emperors health that is with a pure prayer as God has commanded (f) Sacrificamus pro salute Imperatoris i. e. purâ price sicut Dius praecepit Idem ad Scapul and I offer to God says he in the same Apologetic speaking against other sacrifices a rich and a greater sacrifice then le commanded the Jews Prayer from a chast body from an innocent soul proceeding from the Holy Spirit (g) Ei offero opimam majorem hostiam quam ipse mandavit orationem de carne pudicâ de animâ innocenti de Spiritu sancto profectam Ib. Apol. c. 30. This is the Host to be offered says Minutius Felix a good mind a pure soul a sincere conscience these are our sacrifices these are the sacred things of God in answer to their not having Altars and Shrines (h) Cum sit litabilis hostia bonus
animus pura mens sincera conscientia haec nostra sacrificia haec Dei sacra sunt Minuc Octav. Sc. delubra aras non habemus Ib. which objection made also by Celsus is after the same manner replyed to by Origen Our Altars are the mind of every one that is righteous from whence is truly sent up sweet smelling sacrifices to wit Prayers from a pure conscience (i) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen contra Celsum l. 8. p. 389. Lactantius when he proposes to speak of sacrifice shows how unsuitable any external one is to God and that the proper sacrifice to him is praise and an hymn blessing alone is his sacrifice we ought therefore to sacrifice unto God by word the chief way of worshipping God is Thanksgiving out of the mouth of a just man directed to God (k) Nunc de sacrificio ipso pauca dicemus sacrificium laus bymnus hujus sacrificium sola benedictio verbo ergo sacrificari oportet Deo summus igitur colendi Dei ritus est ex ore justi hominis ad Deum directa laudatio Lactantius de vero cultu l. 6. §. 25. Could those excellent Advocates for Christianity have no other ways assoiled the charge drawn up against them that they had no sacrifices like all other Religions but by flying to such spiritual and improper sacrifices as Praise and Thanksgiving this plainly demonstrates that they had no proper and visible sacrifice which indeed in so many express words they deny when the word sacrifice was understood strictly and properly (l) Quid ergo sacrificia censetis nulla esse omnino sacienda nulla Arnob. disput adversus Gent. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clemens Alexandrin Strom. l. 7. p. 707. Par. Had they so accounted the sacrifice of the Mass as our Adversaries do now this might have been given in as the Christian sacrifice instead of all others and yet it is strange they scarce ever mention the Eucharist in those discourses of theirs wherein if it had been a sacrifice it had been most proper and pertinent to have spoke of it and the sacrifice of a man under the species of bread and wine had outdone all the Jewish and most of the Heathen sacrifices and had been a full answer to the objection as it was made by them but say our Adversaries they would not speak of so great a mystery as the Eucharist to unbelievers which they were used to conceal even to Catechumens that were not yet perfectly initiated into the Christian Rites but surely they would not have told a downright lye and denyed that they had any proper sacrifices had the Eucharist been one as we see they did neither did they keep the service of the Eucharist so secret as not to let the Heathens be acquainted with it as is plain from Justin Martyrs Apology where he largely discourses of its whole performance to Antoninus the Emperour (a) Apolog. 2. versus sinem and to take off this little subterfuge of our Adversaries I shall adde one thing more on this head which shows beyond all dispute that the Primitive Church had no such opinion of the Eucharists being a sacrifice and that is the same charge of Julian the Apostate who very well understood Christianity and had been a Reader of it in the Church who notwithstanding objected the same thing to the Christians with the Jews and Heathens namely that they had no Sacrifices and that they did not erect altars to sacrifice upon to God (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Julian apud Cyril Alexand contra Jul. l. 10. p. 343. He knew too well the Mysteries of their Religion so as not to be ignorant that the Eucharist was a proper sacrifice had it really been believed to be so by the Church at that time and Cyril's answer to him plainly shows that it was not for he owns the charge and pleads only that we have spiritual and mental sacrifices which are much better (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. p. 345. and instead of Sheep and Oxen and the like visible sacrifices we offer says he for a sweet savour Faith Hope Charity Righteousness and Praise (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. but not a tittle of offering the sacrifice of the Mass which would have been greatly to the purpose had there been any such thing and there was no reason to have refused the mentioning it to Julian who had once been a Christian and so must certainly have known it had there been any such thing in the Christian Church 2. When the Fathers do call the Eucharist a sacrifice they adde such Epithets and Phrases to it as do quite spoil the Roman notion of it for they call it a spiritual sacrifice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 't is in Eusebius (a) Demon strat Evangel l. 5. c. 3. Cyril of Hierusalem (b) Mystagog Catech. 5. Theodoret (c) Histor Relig and others besides the Greek Liturgies and the Apostolick Constitutions where the word spiritual is generally added to it Now a spiritual sacrifice they must own is not a proper one for it cannot be an external and visible one nor is there any matter or substance to be destroyed So 't is called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable sacrifice (d) Constitut Apost l. 6. c. 23. Cvril Cat. mystag 5. Chrysost Hom. 11. in Heb. so then it cannot be an outward bodily one which the Priest takes up in his hands and sets upon the Altar 't is called an unbloody one not only by the Fathers but themselves but if it be Christs body 't is not without blood and though it be unbloody in the manner of oblation yet it could not be called so generally and in it self 'T is called a mystic and symbolic sacrifice and that is very different from a true one Christ is said to be there sacrificed without being sacrificed †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diatypos Concil Niceni apud Gelas Cvzic i. e. in sigure and representation he is offered in Image as St. Ambrose expresly says (e) Offertur in imagine Ambros de Officiis l. 1. c. 48. and as it is in the book of sacraments attributed to him this oblation is for a figure of the body and blood of Jesus Christ (b) Quod sit in sigurant corporis sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi de Sacram. l. 4 c. 5. if it be a figure it cannot be the thing it self no more then a man is his own picture 't is called also a memorial and commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ as St. Austin says Christians by the holy oblation at the Eucharist and by partaking of the body and blood of Christ celebrate the memory of the same sacrifice that was accomplished (c) Jam Christiani peracti ejusdem sacrisicii memoriam celebrant sacrosanctâ oblatione participatione corporis sanguinis Christi August contra Faust l. 20. c. 18. We offer
Blood and it is plain they were not those by what follows Vpon which vouchsafe to look with a propitious and kind countenance and to accept of them as thou didst accept the gifts of thy righteous child Abel and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham and that which Melchisedec thy High Priest offered to thee an Holy Sacrifice an immaculate Host. Now to compare Christs very Body and Blood with the sacrifices of Abel Abraham and Melchisedec and to desire God to look upon his own Son in whom he was always well pleased with a propitious and kind Countenance is very strange and uncouth to say no worse of it and to desire according to what follows that God would command these to be carried by the hands of his holy Angel into thy sublime Altar in the presence of thy Divine Majesty These cannot be meant or understood of Christs natural Body and Blood which is already in heaven and is there to appear in the presence of God for us as Menardus expresly owns in his notes upon this prayer in Gregories Sacramentary †Jube haec perferri non Christi carpus sed memoriam passionis sidem preces veta sideliam Menardi notae observat in lib. Sacrament Gregorn Papae p. 19. and if so as we have the confession of the most Learned Ritualist of their own Church then there is nothing at all in the Canon of the Mass that does truly belong to these or that does any way express or come up to the new Tridentine Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass so that we need go no further then their own office to show the Novelty of this and as in other things namely in their prayers to Saints they are forced to use very gentle and softning interpretations to make the words signifie otherwise then what they do in their proper and literal meaning so here they must put a more strong and hard sense upon them then they will really bear or was at first intended to make them speak the new meaning of the Mass-sacrifice so that they must here contrive a way to raise the sense of the Church as they do in other cases to let it down or else their Prayers and their Doctrines will never be brought to suit well together The commemoration for the dead has nothing in it but a meer Remembrance and a Prayer that God would give to them a place of refreshment light and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord not through the merit or vertue of that sacrifice which is then offered there is not the least mention or intimation of any such thing nor any expression that looks that way The Priest indeed a little before he communicates prays Christ to deliver him from all his sins and from all evils by this his most sacred Body and Blood which he may do without its being a sacrifice and I know no Protestant would scruple the joining in such a petition There is a prayer indeed deed at the last by the Priest to the Holy Trinity that the sacrifice which he has unworthily offered to the eyes of the Divine Majesty may be acceptable to it and through its mercy be propitiable for himself and for those for which he has offered it and this seems the fullest and the most to the purpose of the Mass-sacrifice and yet it may very fairly be understood in a sound sense without any such thing as 't is a sacrifice of prayer and as God is thereby rendred merciful and propitious both to our selves and others but it is to be observed that this prayer is not in the old Ordo Romanus where the others are nor in the Gelasian or Gregorian Missal nor in any other ancient one put out by Thomasius Menardus Pamelius Cardinal Bona or Mabillon but was I suppose added of later days to those old Forms Fifthly The new Addition to the form of Ordination in the Roman Church whereby * Accipe potestatem offerre sacrificium Deo Missasque celebrare tam pro vivis quam pro mortuis power is given to the Priest to offer sacrifice to God and to celebrate Masses both for the dead and living this discovers the novelty of their Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass for there was no such form of Ordination in the primitive Church nor is there any such thing mentioned in any Latin or Greek Ordinale for near a thousand years after Christ The most antient account of the manner of Ordaining is in the fourth Council of Carthage where there is nothing else but †Presbyter cum Ordinatur Epâ—scapo cum benedicente manum super caput ejus tenente etiam â—â—nes Presoyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manum Episcopi super caput illius tenent Canon 3. Concil Carthag the Episcopal Benediction and Imposition of hands by the Bishop and all the Priests In the Apostolic Constitutions there is a pretty long prayer of the Bishops over the Priest who is to be Ordained †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Constirut Apostol de Ordinat Presbyt l. 8. c. 16. that God would look upon his servant chosen into the Presbytery by the vote and judgment of all the Clergy and fill him with the spirit of Grace and Wisdom to help and govern the people with a pure heart that he may be silled with healing operations and instructive discourse and may teach the people with all meekness and may serve God sincerely with a pure understanding and a willing Soul and may perform the sacred and pure Offices for the people through Jesus Christ And this with laying on of hands is all the Form of Ordination which is so anciently prescribed St. Denis who is falsly called the Areopagite but was a Writer probably of the fifth Century before the Council of Calcedon he has acquainted us with much the like manner of Ordination in that time * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dionys Hierarch Eccles c. 5. The Priest kneeling before the Altar with the Holy Bible and the Bishops hand over his head was consecrated with holy Prayers Only there was then added the sign of the cross and the kiss of peace but no such thing as the receiving of power to offer sacrifice and to celebrate Masses for the living and the dead This was a thing unheard of in the ancient Church either Greek or Latin neither was it brought into the Latin till about the year 1000 as is confest by Morinus * de sacris Ordinat pars 3. c. 6. nor is it to this day used in the Greek In that age of Ignorance and Superstition when Transubstantiation and a great many other Errors and Corruptions crept into the Latin Church this new Form of Ordination was set up and the Priests had a new power given them and a new work put upon them which was to sacrifice and say Masses for the quick and dead which had it been agreeable to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church and had
there been any such opinion then of the Mass-sacrifice as there is now in the Roman Church there would no doubt have been the same forme of Ordination or something like this would have been specified in the consecration of a priest They now make this the great and proper office of the priest and these words with the delivery of the holy Vessels or sacred Instruments is made the very matter and form of the Sacrament of Orders and if is made a charge by them against our Ordinations that we want this essential part of priesthood which is to offer sacrifice but since the primitive Church had no such Form as is fully made out by Morinus a man of great Learning and Credit among themselves who has made a great collection of the most antient Ordinale's to show this and there is no such thing now in the Greek Churches as appears from Habertus on the Greek Pontifical we have hereby not only a full defence of our own Orders without any such Form but a plain demonstration of the novelty of that in the Roman Church and consequently of that Doctrine which is brought in by it or perhaps was the occasion of it of the sacrisice of the Mass 4. It is in it self unreasonable and absurd and has a great many gross Errors involved in it As 1. It makes an external visible sacrifice of a thing that is perfectly invisible so that the very matter and substance of the sacrifice which they pretend to offer is not seen or perceived by any of the senses for 't is Christs body and not the Bread and Wine which is the subject-matter and the sacrifice it self Now this is the strangest sacrifice that ever was in the World a visible oblation of an invisible thing had the Jews offered their sacrifices in this manner they had offered nothing at all and had Christ thus offered himself to God upon the cross only in phantasm and appearance as some Hereticks would have had him and not in the visible substance of his body it would have been only a phantastick sacrifice and we had been redeemed by a shadow 'T is contrary to the nature of all proper sacrifices to have the thing offered not to be seen and not visibly presented to God an invisible sacrifice may as well have an invisible Altar and an invisible Oblation and an invisible Priest for why the one should be more visible then the other I cannot imagine Bellarmines definition of a sacrifice is this which we are very willing to allow of but how it agrees to the sacrifice of the mass I cannot see * Sacrificium est oblatio externa facta soli Deo quâ ad agnitionem humanae infirmitatis professionem divinae Majestatis à legitimo Minisho res aliqua sinsibilis permanens ritu myslieo consecratur transmutatur Bellarm. de Miss l. 1. c. 2. A sacrifice is an external Oblation made to God alone whereby for the acknowledging of humane infirmity and owning of the Divine Majesty some sensible and permanent thing is by a lawful Minister and by a Mistic Rite consecrated and changed Now Christs Body and Blood being the res sacrificii the matter of the sacrifice and that being offered to God I cannot understand how that is a res sensipilis a sensible thing in the Eucharist and therefore how according to him it is a sacrifice so necessary is it for a great man to blunder in a bad cause when he must either weigh in a false ballance or whatever he says will quickly be found light 2. It makes a proper sacrifice without a proper facrificing Act the Consumption and Destruction of the sacrifice was always necessary as well as the offering and bringing it to the Altar and without this it was not properly given to God but kept to themselves as much as it was before if it were not either poured out or burnt or slain which was parting with the thing and transferring it wholly to God this consumption is so Essential to all sacrifices that Bellarmine puts it into the definition of a sacrifice * ut supra and says †ad verum sacrificium requiritur ut id quod offertur Deo in sacrificium planè destruatur Id. de Miss l. 1 c. 2. that to a true sacrifice it is required that that which is offered to God in sacrifice be plainly destroyed But how will this now belong to Christs body in the sacrifice of the Mass Is that destroyed there is not that the sacrifice and is not that now in a Glorious impassible State that can suffer no destruction Bellarmine is in a sad plunge to get out here and let us see how he throws himself about but sticks fast still in the mire By consecration says he the thing which is offered is ordained to a true real and outward change and destruction which was necessary to the being of a sacrifice for by consecration the Body of Christ receives the Form of food but food is for eating and by this it is ordained for change and destruction Is the Body of Christ then destroyed by eating If it be they are true Cannibals or Capernaitical feeders that eat it I had thought that Christs body was not thus grosly to be broke by the Teeth or chewed by the jaws of the priest or Communicants so as to be destroyed by them The Gloss upon Berengarius his Recantation says this is a greater Heresie then his unless it be understood of the species and not of the body it self and they generally disown that Christs body is thus carnally eaten but only the Sacramental species but the species are not the sacrifice and therefore 't is not sufficient that they be destroyed but the sacrifice that is the body of Christ must be so Christs body as it is food is not a sacrifice but a Sacrament they make two distinct things of it as it is a sacrifice and as it is a Sacrament as it lies in the Pix or is carried to the sick it is food and a Sacrament but they will not allow it to be then a sacrifice and on Maunday Thursday it is eaten but not accounted a sacrifice †Feriâ sextâ majoris hebdomadae nou censetur sacrisicium Missae propriè celebrari licet vera hostia adsit frangatur consumatur Bellarm de Miss l. 1. c. 27. B. The Consumption then by eating belongs to it not as a sacrifice but a Sacrament and the body of Christ is not then consumed but only the species nay the body of Christ is not then consumed under the species for the real consumption belongs only to the species for the real consumption belongs only to the species and not to the body of Christ which is no more truly consumed with them or under them then it is as sitting in heaven no more then a mans flesh is consumed when only his clothes or his mantle is tore tho he were in them What though
self and yet only applicatory of the vertue of another sacrifice is if not a contradiction yet a great absurdity for if it only apply the vertue and efficacy of another sacrifice viz. That of the Cross which is the only sacrifice of Redemption that made true expiation for sin how can this then be called truly propitiatory if only that other be propitiatory and this is but applicatory of that other A certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or infallible medicine for all Diseases is given and applyed to us by such a vehicle is the vehicle therefore that applies this the Medicine it self Or has that an infallible vertue because the Medicine that is applyed by it has such a vertue Is laying on a Plaister or applying it to the wound the same thing with the Plaister it self that was made up or compounded long before If the Mass-sacrifice be truly propitiatory it must be a sacrifice of Redemption if it be only Applicatory and not a sacrifice of Redemption in it self then 't is not truly propitiatory The Eucharist we all say doth apply to us the sacrifice of the Cross or the benefits of Christs death as it is a Sacrament but it is not therefore propitiatory as it is such nor is it any way necessary it should and as a sacrifice it cannot be applicatory for it must be offered to God and therefore as such it could not apply any thing to us for our giving it up or sacrificing it to God is quite another thing and very different from Gods giving or applying it to us God gives Christs body and blood to us in the Eucharist as it is a Sacrament but as it is a sacrifice we must give it to him and that would be as strange a way of applying it to our selves as a Patients returning his Physick or making a present of it to the Doctor would be a new and strange method of taking it himself And that the Priests intention should apply this is still as strange for the Priests intention in the Mass is to consecrate and so to sacrifice and that is giving the thing to God and not applying it to others if he gives them the sacrament indeed to eat then he applyes the sacrifice of Christs body and blood to them but how he can do this when he does not give it them but only give it to God that is sacrifice it I do not understand The Jews had the vertue of their sacrifices applyed to them by eating of them or by having the blood sprinkled upon them or by some such Ceremony to make them partakers of them but that another sacrifice was offered or the same sacrifice reiterated in order to applying of them is a thing unknown and unheard of Christs sacrifice is applyed to us by the sacrament of Baptism and therefore that also is called a sacrifice as it both represents Christs death and confers to us the benefits of it thus Chrysostom expounds that place of Scripture there remains no more sacrifice for sin * Heb. 10.26 that is he can be no more baptized †Chrysostom Homil. 16. in Epist ad Hebr. and Bishop Canus says * hinc illi antiqui baptisma translatitiè bostiam nuncupârunt Can. loci commun l. 2. c. 12. the antients from hence called Baptism a sacrifice but figuratively and not properly and just thus indeed they called the Eucharist Bellarmine was so sensible that this would destroy the notion of the Eucharists being a proper sacrifice that he absolutely denies that * Nusquam Patres baptismum vocant sacrificium hostiam Bellarm. de Miss l. 1. c. 15. the Fathers do ever call baptism a sacrifice but he is shamefully mistaken as appears from the confession of Bishop Canus and because I will not wholly depend upon that I will produce one or two plain Authorities for it out of St. Austin †Holocaustum Dominicae passionis to tempore pro se quisque offert quo ejusdem Passionis side dedicatur August in Exposit ad Roman Every one says he does offer for himself the sacrifice of Christs passion at that time when he is dedicated in the Faith of his passion And the sacrifice of our Lord is in a certain manner offered for every one then when in his name he is signed by Baptism * Holocaustum Domini tunc pro unoquoque offertur quodammodò cum ejus nomine baptizando signatur Ib. Baptism is then called a sacrifice as well as the Eucharist though it is only properly a Sacrament and the sacrifice of Christ is there plainly applyed to us without a sacrifice and so it may be as well in the Eucharist 7. They suppose it to be the same sacrifice with that of the Cross but not to have the same vertue and efficiency which as Bellarmin says seems very strange * mirum videtur cur valor sacrificii bujus sit finitus cum idem sit hoc sacrificium cum sacrificio crucis Bellarm. de Miss l. 2. c. 4. F. for the Council of Trent declares it to be one and the same sacrifice with that of the Cross and one and the same offerer namely Christ by the Ministery of the Priests and to be differing in nothing but in the manner of offering †Vna enim eademque est hostia idemque offerens sacerdotum ministerio sola offerendi ratione diversâ Concil Trid. Sess 6. c. 2. Now if the manner of offering be not such as makes it a sacrifice it can be no sacrifice at all if it be it can make no difference as to its value and efficacy for 't is not the way of offering but the worth of the thing offered that gives value to the sacrifice The Beasts were slain upon an Altar and had their blood spilt there as Christs was upon the Cross but his being the blood of a person of the greatest dignity even of the Son of God this made his sacrifice once offered to be of infinite value and efficacy and sufficient to propitiate God and make expiation for all the sins of the World now if the same sacrifice be as truly offered in the Mass though not after the same manner and Christ does by the hands of the Priest as truly offer himself there as he did upon the Cross why should not this be of as infinite value and efficiency as the other but if it were says Bellarmine what need so many Masses be offered for the same thing * Nam si Missae valor infinitus esset frustrà multae Missae praesertim ad rem eandem impetrandam offerrentur Ib. so many thousand for example to get a soul out of Purgatory which if it were not it would quite spoil the market and utterly destroy the Trade of them but surely this is but like paying the same full summe of a debt so many times over when one payment amounts to the whole and 't is but the same is brought so many times again It is to be
if not the whole of it or if as some think the Consumption of the Sacrifice is the great thing that makes it perfect and consummate I ask whether Christ does then eat his own Body every Mass when it is eaten by the Priest If as Bellarmine owns the Consumption of the Sacrifice be absolutely necessary to make a sacrificial Oblation and the true Offerer be Christ himself as the Council of Trent says then Christ himself must consume the sacrifice that is he must eat his own body Bellarmine is really pincht with this difficulty and he hath so wisely managed the matter that as he brought himself into this streight so he knows not how to get out of it but he is forced to confess †Tamen ipse dici potest consumere sacramentum Bellarm. de Miss l. 1. c. 27. That Christ may in some sense be said to consume the Sacrament i. e. himself for 't is Christs body and blood is the Sacrament and not the species at least not without those We always thought it a prodigious if not a horrid thing for another to consume Christs real body but now for Christ himself to be made to do this is to expose Christ shall I say or themselves or that cause which is driven to these Absurdities and which can never avoid them whilest it makes the Mass a true sacrifice and Christ himself the offerer of it 9. The Offering this Sacrifice to redeem souls out of Purgatory as it is made one of the greatest ends and uses of this Sacrifice of the Mass so is one of the greatest Errors and Abuses that belong to it for besides that it contains in it all the foregoing Errors and Absurdities of its being a proper Sacrifice and so benefitting those who do not at all receive it as a Sacrament and being properly propitiatory at least for lesser sins and for the temporal pains that they suppose due to greater sins after they are forgiven which is another cluster of Errors that grows likewise to this Doctrine though it belongs to another place to consider them I say besides all those Errors it takes in also the groundless and uncomfortable and erroniou opinion of Purgatory whereby a great many departed Souls are supposed to be in a sad state of extream pain and torment till they are delivered from it by these Masses and sacrifices which are offered for them to that purpose And this is indeed the great advantage of them I mean to the Priests that offer them who hereby make Merchandize not only of the Souls of Men but of Christs Body and Blood and are made by this sacrifice a sort of Mony-changers in the Temple and instead of Doves sell Christ himself and the souls in Purgatory are redeemed out of it by such corruptible things as Silver and Gold which are to purchase Masses that is Christs body and bloud at a certain price This is a most horrible abuse of Christianity which exposes it to infinite scandal and reproach the selling of Masses and Indulgences is so visible a blot in Popery that though nothing has more enriched yet nothing has more shamed it then these have done both those have relation to Purgatory which is an unknown Countrey in the other World that hath given rise to those two profitable Trades and to all that spiritual Traffic that is carried on by it A Late excellent discourse has so fully considered that subject that I am no further to meddle with it here then as the sacrifice of the Mass is concerned in it Our Adversaries most plausible and specious pretence for both those Doctrines is taken from the antient custom of oblations for the Dead which cannot be denyed to be of great antiquity and general use even very near the beginnings of Christianity and to have had a long continuance in the Christian Church Tertullian mentions them as made on every Anniversary of their birth †Oblationes pro defunctis pro natalitiis annuâ die facimus Tertul. de Corona militis c. 3. i. e. on the day wherein they died to this World and were born into immortality St. Cyprian speaks of them as so generally used for all persons that it was made the punishment of him who should leave a Clergyman his Executor and so take him off from his sacred employment to secular Troubles and Affairs that (a) Ac siquis hoc fecisset non offerretur pro eo nec sacrificium pro dormitione ejus celebraretur Cyprian Epist l. 1. Edit Ox. no offering should be made for him neither should any sacrifice be celebrated for his departure (b) Episcopi antecessores nostri religiose considerantes salubriter providentes censuerunt nequis frater excedens ad tutelam vel curam Clericum nominaret c. Ib. and this was an Order he sayes made by former Bishops in Council and therefore he commands that Geminius Victor who had made Geminius Fanstinus Tutor to his Will or his Executor (d) Non est quod pro dormitione ejus apud vos fiat oblatio aut deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in Ecclesiâ frequentetur Ib. should have no oblation made for his departure nor any Prayer used in his name in the Church St. Austin gives it in as the custom of the Vniversal Church in his time that a sacrifice was offered for the dead (e) Non parva est Ecclesiae Vniversae quae in hâc consuetudineclaret authoritas si nunquam in Scripturis veteribus scriptum legeretur sc oblatum pro mortuis sacrificium August cura pro mortuis and this he says is sufficient authority for it though there were nothing of it in Scripture and having shown that what happens to the dead body is of no concern to the departed soul (f) Non existimemus ad mortuos pro. quibus curam gerimus pervenire nisi quod pro eis sive altaris sive orationum sive eleâ—â—osyn arum sacrificiis solenniter supplicamus Ib. versus finem none of our care says he can reach the dead but only that we supplicate for them by the sacrifices of the Altar of Prayers or of Alms and the same thing he mentions in several other places of his works and in his own oblations at the Altar for his Mother Monica after she was dead Now what can we think of these Oblations unless with the Papists we allow such a state of departed souls as they call Purgatory that is neither Heaven nor Hell for if they were either in the one or the other of those these oblations would signifie nothing to them and how plain is it that they thought them to be some way benefitted or relieved by the sacrifice of the Mass or Altar I answer that neither of those Opinions as they are now held and received in the Church of Rome do follow from the Primitive Custom of offering for the Dead but that they were of another nature then what they account them and this I shall evince
A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS Imprimatur Guil. Needham October 24. 1687. LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCLXXXVIII The CONTENTS THE charge of the Church of England against the sacrifice of the Mass page 2 3. Sect. 1. The sacrifice of the Mass founded upon two great Errors the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Opinion that Christ offered up himself to God at his last Supper p. 5 to 11. Sect. 2. No Scripture ground for the sacrifice of the Mass p. 11 to 41 Melchisedec's offering Bread and Wine Gen. 14.18 considered p. 13 Of the Melchisedecian Priesthood p. 16 The figure of the Paschal Lamb Examined p. 19 The prophesie of Malachy Examined p. 22 Other places out of the Old Testament Answered p. 25 An Answer to the places out of the New Testament p. 28 Plain places of Scripture against the Mass-sacrifice out of the Epistle to the Hebrews p. 33 Their Evasions to them Refuted p. 35 Sect. 3. The sacrifice of the Mass has no just claim to Antiquity p. 41 to 70 The Eucharist called a sacrifice by the Ancients upon account 1. Of the Oblations there made p. 44 2. Of the Religious Acts there performed p. 47 3. As it is Commemorative and Representative of the Crosssacrifice p. 49 Christ is offered mentally by every Communicant p. 52 How the Minister may be said to offer Christ to God in the Eucharist p. 53 General Remarks out of Antiquity to prove the Eucharist no proper sacrifice p. 54 to 70 1. From the Christian Apologists p. 54 2. From the Epithets they give to it when they call it a sacrifice p. 58 3. From the Novelty of private Masses which are a consequence of this Doctrine p. 60 4. From the Canon of the Mass it self p. 63 5. From the new form of Ordination in the R. C. p. 67 Sect. 4. The Mass-sacrifice in it self Vnreasonable and Absurd and has a great many Errors involved in it p. 70 to 95 1. It makes an external visible sacrifice of what is perfectly invisible p. 70 2. It makes a proper sacrifice without a proper sacrificing Act. p. 71 Their differences about the Essence of the sacrifice p. 73 3. It makes a living Body a sacrifice p. 76 4. The making it truly propitiatory is a great Error and inconsistent with it self p. 77 5. How it is Impetratory p. 80 6. The making it a sacrifice truly Propitiatory and yet only Applicatory of another is a great Absurdity p. 82 7. The making it the same sacrifice with That of the Cross and yet not to have the same vertue and efficacy is strange and unaccountable p. 84 8. Making Christ as they do the true offerer of this sacrifice hath great Absurdities p. 87 9. The Offering this sacrifice to Redeem Souls out of Purgatory one of the greatest Errors and Abuses that belong to it p. 88 Of the Ancient Oblations for the Dead p. 90 to 95 10. The sacrifice of the Mass must be either unnecessary or else must reflect on the sacrifice of the Cross p. 95 The Conclusion and the Reason why no more of the Errors belonging to it are added ERRATA PAge 12. line â antepenult for desire read derive PAge 39. Line 8. for the read that PAge 68. To Concil Carthag in margin add 4. PAge 72. Line 8. for Maunday-Thursday read Good-Fryday A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS THE Sacrifice of the Mass is the most considerable part of Worship in the Roman Church It is their Juge sacrificium their dayly and continual Offering and the principal Thing in which their Religion does consist It is they tell us of the greatest profit and advantage to all persons and I am sure their Priests make it so to themselves for by this alone a great number of them get their Livings by making merchandise of the Holy Sacrament and by selling the Blood of Christ at a dearer rate then Judas once did The saying of Masses keeps the Church of Rome more Priests in pay then any Prince in Christendom can maintain Souldiers and it has raised more Money by them then the richest Bank or Exchequer in the World was ever owner of 't is indeed the truest Patrimony of their Church and has enricht it more then any thing else it was that which founded their greatest Monasteries and their Richest Abbies and it had well nigh brought all the Estates of this Kingdom into the Church had not the Statutes of Mortmain put a check to it The Donation of Constantine were it never so true and the Grants of Charles and Pepin were they never so large and the Gifts of all their Benefactors put together are infinitely outdone by it the Gain of it has been so manifestly great that one cannot but upon that account a little suspect its Godliness but yet if it could fairly be made out to be a true part of Religion it were by no means to be rejected for that accidental though shameful abuse of it It is accounted by them the greatest and the most useful and comfortable part of Christian Worship and if it be so it is a great defect in us that want it they charge us very high for being without it without a Sacrifice which no Religion they tell us in the World ever was before and one amongst them of great Learning and some temper in other things yet upon this occasion askes whether it can be doubted where there is no Sacrifice there can be any Religion †An dubitari potest ubi nullam peculiare Sacrisiciam ibi ne Religionem quidem esse posse Canus in loc Theol. l. 12. p. 813. We on the other side account it a very great corruption of the Eucharist to turn that which is a Sacrament to be received by us into a Sacrifice to be offer'd to God and there being no Foundation for any such thing in Scripture but the whole ground of it being an Error and mistake as we shall see anon and it being a most bold and daring presumption to pretend properly to Sacrifice Christs body again which implyes no less then to Murder and Crucifie him we therefore call it a Blasphemous Fable †See Article 31. of the 39 Articles of Religion and as it is made use of to deceive people into the vain hopes of receiving benefit by the Communion without partaking of it and a true pardon of sin by way of price and recompence is attributed to it and it is made as truly propitiatory as Christs sacrifice upon the Cross both for the dead and living and for that purpose is scandalously bought and sold so that many are hereby cheated not onely of their mony but of their souls too it is to be feared who trust too much to this easie way of having a great many Masses said for them and because when the priest pretends to do those two great things in the Mass to turn the Bread