' The Hebrew word "missach" signifies an offering, and the term "mass" has been dei'ived from it by some Eoman Catholic writers. The word in Latin is "missa," and it is more probable that it arose from the dismissal of the catechumens in the services of the ancient church, befoi'e the sacrament was dispensed. " Ite, missa est" were the usual words of the ministei' in dismissing them. — Ed.
VOL. XIV. 8
IM. ANIMADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
Of the discourse upon this missach, whatever it is, there are sundry parts. That he begins with, is a preference of the devotion of the Romanists incompai-ahly above that of the Protestants. This was the entrance of his discovery. Catholics' bells ring oftener than ours ; their churches are swept cleaner than ours, — yea, ours in com- parison of theirs are like stables to a princely palace; their people are longer upon their knees than ours; and, u23on the whole matter, they are excellent every way in their worship of God, — we every way blameworthy and contemptible: unto all which I shall only mind him of that good old advice, " Let thy neighbour praise thee, and not thine own mouth." And as for us, I hope we are not so bad but that we should rejoice truly to hear that others were better. Only, we could desire that we might find their excellency to consist in things not either indifferent wholly in themselves or else disapproved by God; which are the ways that hypocrisy usually vents itself in, and then boasts of what it hath done. Knowledge of God and his will as revealed in the gospel, real mortification, abiding in spiritual supplications, diligence in universal obedience, and fruitfulness in good works, be, as I suppose, the things which render our profession beautiful, and according to the mind of God. If our author be able to make a right judgment of these things, and find them really abounding amongst his party, I hope we shall rejoice with him, though we knew the spring of them is not their Pojoery, but their Christianity. [As] for the outside shows he hath as yet instanced in, they ought not in the least to have influenced his judgment in that disquisition of the truth wherein he pretends he was engaged. He could not of old have come amongst the professors and " mystee" of those false religions, which, by the light and power of the gospel, are now banished out of the world, where he should not have met with the same wizards and appearances of devotion; so that hitherto we find no great discoveries in his missach.
From the worship of the parties compared, he comes to their preaching, and finds them as differing as their devotion. The preach- ing of Protestants of all sorts is soiTy, pitiful stuff ; inconsequent words, senseless notions, or at least rhetorical flourishes, make it up : the Catholics' grave and pithy. Still all this belongs to persons, not things. Protestants preach as well as they can, and if they cannot ])reach so well as his wiser Romanists, it is their unhappiness, not their fault. But yet I have a little reason to think that our author is not altogether of the mind that here he pretends to be of, but that he more hates and fears than despises the preaching of Protestants. He knows well enough what mischief it hath wrought his party, though prejudice will not suffer him to see what good it hath done the world; and therefore doubting, as I suppose, lest he should not
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l)p able to prevail with liis readers to believe liim in that which he would fain, it may be, but cannot, believe himself, about the excel- lency of the preaching of his Catholics above that of Protestants, he decries the whole work as of little or no use or concernment in Chris- tian religion. This it had been fair for him to have openly pleaded, and not to have made a flourish with that which he knew he could make no better work of Nor is the preaching of the Protestants, as is pretended, unlike that of the ancients. The best and most famous preacher of the ancient church, whose sermons are preserved, was Chrysostom. We know the way of his proceeding in that work was, to open the words and meaning of his text, to declare the truth con- tained and taught in it, to vindicate it from objections, to confirm it by other testimonies of Scripture, and to apply all unto practice in the close ; and, as far as I can observe, this, in general, is the method used by Protestants, being that, indeed, which the very nature of the work dictates unto them. Wherefore, mistrusting lest he should not be able to bring men out of love with the preaching of Protestants, in comparison of the endeavours of his party in the same kind, he turns himself another way, and labours to persuade us, as I said, that preaching itself is of little or no use in Christian religion ; for, so he may serve his own design, he cares not, it seems, openly to contradict the practice of the church of God ever since there was a church in the world. To avoid that charge he tells us, " That the apostles and apostolical churches had no sermons, but all their preaching was merely for the conversion of men to the faith, and when this was done, there was an end of their preaching;" and for this he instanceth in the sermons mentioned in the Acts, chap. ii. iii. v. vii. viii. x. xiii. xiv. xvi. xviii. xx. xxii. xxiv. xxvi. xxviii. I wonder what he thinks of Christ himself; whether he preached or no in the temple, or in the synagogues of the Jews ; and whether the Judaical church, to whose members he preached, were not then a true, yea, the only church in the world ; and whether Christ was not anointed and sent to preach the gospel to them ? If he know not this, he is ver}^ ignorant ; if he doth know it, he is somewhat that deserves a worse name. To labour to exterminate that out of the religion of Christ which was one of the chief works of Christ (for we do not read that he went up and down singing mass, though I have heard of a friar that conceived that to be his employment), is a work unbecoming any man that would count himself \sTonged not to be esteemed a Christian. But whatever Christ did, it may be, it matters not. The apostles and apos- tolical churches had no sermons, but only such as they preached to infidels and Jews to convert them ; that is, they did not labour to instruct men in the knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel, to build them up in their faith, to teach them more and more the good