Sence of Scripture III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible Succession 5. A Discourse concerning a Guide in matters of Faith with Respect especially to the Romish pretence of the Necessity of such a one as is Infallible 6. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Received and what Tradition is to be Rejected 7. A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Catholick Church maintained in the Church of England 8. A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with Respect to the Errours and Corruptions of the Church of Rome In two Parts 9. A Discourse concerning the Object of Religious Worship or a Scripture-Proof of the Unlawfulness of giving any Religious Worship to any other Being besides the one Supream God. 10. A Discourse against Transubstantiation 11. A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject and to Monsieur Bocleau's late Book de Adoratione Eucharistiae Paris 1685. 12. A Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints 13. A Discourse concerning the Devotions of the Church of Rome 14. A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue 15. A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession as it is Prescribed by the Council of Trent and Practised in the Church of Rome With a Postscript on occasion of a Book lately printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis 16. A Discourse concerning the Worship of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints with an Account of the Beginnings and Rise of it amongst Christians In Answer to Monsieur de Meaux's Appeal to the Fourth Age in his Exposition and his Pastoral Letter 17. A Discourse of the Communion in One Kind in Answer to the Bishop of Meaux's Treatise of Communion under both Species Lately Translated into English 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 M DC LXXXVIII 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
themselves upon the Sabbath on which they were commanded so strictly to rest it was both necessity and the reason of the Law which made this justifiable and not any Tradition or any sentence of the Sanhedrim and our Saviour when he blames their superstitious observance of the Sabbath does not reprove them for keeping it as it was commanded or otherwise than Tradition had explained it but contrary to the true reason and meaning of it and to the true mind and will of the Lawgiver As to the Christians changing the Sabbath into the first Day of the Week this was not done by Tradition but by the Apostolical Authority and whatever obligation there may be antecedent to the Law of Moses for observing one day in seven it can neither be proved that the Jews observed exactly the Seventh day from the Creation much less that the Christians are under any such obligation now or I may adde if they were that Tradition would excuse them from a Divine Law. All the instances which Monsieur de Meaux heaps up are very short of proving that and though I have examined every one of them except that pretended Jewish Tradition of Praying for the Dead which is both false and to no purpose yet it was not because there was any strength in them to the maintaining his sinking Cause but that I might take away every slender prop by which he endeavours in vain to keep it up and drive him out of every little hole in which he strives with so much labour to Earth himself when after all his turnings and windings he finds he must be run down If any instance could be found by de Meaux or others of any Tradition or any Practice of a Church contrary to a Divine Institution and to a plain Law of God they would deserve no other answer to be returned to it but what Christ gave to the Pharisees in the like case Why do ye transgress the commandment of God by your tradition ‖ Mar. 15.3 Our Saviour did not put the matter upon this issue Whether the Tradition by which they explained the Law so as to make it of none effect was truly ancient and authentic and derived to them from their fore-Fathers but he thought it sufficient to tell them that it made void and was contrary to a Divine Law. There is no Tradition nor no Church which has ever broke so plain a Law and so shamefully violated a Divine Institution as that which has set up Communion in One Kind the true reason why it did so was not Tradition no that was not so much as pretended at first for the doing of it but onely some imaginary dangers and inconveniencies which brought in a new custom contrary to ancient Tradition These were the onely things insisted on in its defence at first the danger of spilling the Wine and the difficulty of getting it in some places and the undecency of Laymens dipping their Beards in it These were the mighty reasons which Gerson brought of old against the Heresie as he calls it of Communicating in both Kinds †Tractatus Magistri Johannis de Gerson contra haeresin de communionae Laicorum sub utraque specie as if it were a new Heresie to believe that Wine might be spilt or that men wore Beards or as if the Sacrament were appointed only for those Countreys where there were Vines growing De Meaux was very sensible of the weakness and folly of those pretences though they are the pericula and the scandala meant by the Council of Constance and therefore he takes very little notice of them and indeed he has quite taken away all their arguments against the particular use of the Wine because he all along pleades for either of the Species and owns it to be indifferent which of them so ever is used in the Sacrament But I have shewn that both of them are necessary to make a true Sacrament because both are commanded and both instituted and both of them equally belong to the matter of the Sacrament and so to the essence of it and both are ordinarily necessary to the receiving the inward Grace and Vertue of the Sacrament because that is annext to both by the Institution and cannot warrantably be expected without both To conclude therefore Communion in One Kind is both contrary to the Institution and to the Command of Christ and to the Tradition and Practice of the Primitive Church grounded upon that Command and is no less in it self than a sacrilegious dividing and mangling of the most sacred Mystery of Christianity a destroying the very Nature of the Sacrament which is to represent the Death of Christ and his Blood separated from his Body a lessening the signification and reception of our compleat and entire spiritual Nourishment whereby we are Sacramentally to eat Christ's Body and drink his Bloud an unjust depriving the People of that most pretious Legacy which Christ left to all of them to wit His Sacrificial Bloud which was shed for us and which it is the peculiar priviledge of Christians thus mystically to partake of and lastly a robbing them of that Grace and Vertue and Benefit of the Sacrament which belongs not to any part but to the whole of it and cannot ordinarily be received without both kinds O that God would therefore put it into the hearts of those who are most concerned not to do so much injury to Christians and to Christianity and not to suffer any longer that Divine Majesty which is the great Foundation of all Spiritual Grace and Life to be tainted and poysoned with so many corruptions as we find it is above all other parts of Christianity And O that that blessed Sacrament which was designed by Christ to be the very Bond of Peace and the Cement of Unity among all Christians and to make them all one Bread and one Body may not by the perversness of men and the craft of the Devil be made a means to divide and separate them from each other and to break that Unity and Charity which it ought to preserve FINIS A CATALOGUE of some Discourses sold by Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1. A Perswasive to an Ingenuous Tryal of Opinions in Religion 2. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 3. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true Sence of Scripture II. Whether a vissible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this vissible Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this visible Succession can teach the true
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 sruggle 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
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 crucifie 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 sheding 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 available 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 pro pitiatory 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Adversaries earnestly contend to mean nothing less then a sacrifice and the converting the Gentiles
excluded all those who were Non-communicants the Jews did not shut the people out of the Temple when the sacrifice was offering If the Eucharist as a sacrifice had been a part of Worship only to God an oblation to him and not a Sacrament to be received by themselves why might not they have been present at it as well as at the Prayers which were offered to God and at all the other parts of their Religious Worship The most ancient accounts we have of the manner of celebrating the Eucharist and the most ancient Liturgies or Eucharistic forms have not the least shadow of any private Communion by the Priest alone but always speak of the communion of others with him in the Apostolick Constitutions there is a Relation in what Order all the Faithful received First the Bishop then the Priests and Deacons then the Deaconesses and Virgins and Widows then all the whole people in order and after all have received then the Deacons take away the remainder St. Cyril speaks plainly of numbers receiving the Eucharist and not of a single person for he mentions the Deacons speaking to them at first to embrace each other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 give the kiss of Charity those very ancient Forms and Responses Lift up your hearts and the answer we lift them up unto the Lord * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us give thanks unto our Lord God It is just and meet so to do and afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these all show that the Priest did not communicate alone but had always the company of others at the Sacrament to join with him St. Denys called the Areopagite speaks of the Priests exhorting others at the Cûmmunion and praying that they who partake of these Mysteries may partake of them worthily The same is in all the Lyturgies which go under the name of St. James St. Mark 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 * Walafrid 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 Apostolâ—rum fuit ut ad ipsam solummodo orationem Dominicam oblationis hostiam conscerarent 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 beseech 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 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 corpus sed memoriam passionis fidem preces vita sidelâ—â—â— Menardi nota observat in lib. Sacrament Gregoriâ— 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 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 Episcopo eum benedicente manum super caput ejus tenente etiam omnes Presbyteri 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 †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Constitut Apostol de Ordinat Presbyt l. 8. c. 16. that God would look