MASS AND TllANSUBSTANTIATION. 413
ever sermon made to formal Christians, either by St Peter or Paul, or any other, as the work of their religion that they came together for; nor did the Christians ever dream of serving God after their conversion by any such means, but only by the eucharist or liturgy/' Here is somewhat of the " work of their religion which they came together for;" nothing of the " great work of their Christianity/' Now, that preaching was a work of their religion that they came to- gether for, though not the only work of it, nor only end for which they so convened, which no man ever dreamed that it was ; and that the primitive Christians did, by and in that work, serve God ; hath been proved unto you from the Scripture. And all antiquity, with the whole story of the church, gives attestation to the same truth. Sir, it were far more honourable for you to renounce a false and scan- dalous assertion when you are convinced that such it is, than to seek to palliate it, and to secure yourself by such unhandsome evasions. " Preachino- of the word unto believei's" is an ordinance of Christ, and that of indispensable necessity unto their edification, or growth in grace and knowledge, which he requireth of them. In the prac- tice of this ordinance were the apostles themselves sedulous, and commanded others so to be. So were they in the primitive follow- ing times, as you may learn from the account given us of church meetings by Justin Martyr and Tertullian in their Apologies, and all that have transmitted any thing unto posterity concerning their as- semblies. For this end, to hear the word preached. Christians came together; not only, or solely, or exclusively to the administration of other ordinances, but as to a part of that worship which God required at their hands, and wherein no small part of their spiritual advantage was inwrapped. To deny this, as you do in your " Fiat," is to deny that the sun shines at noon-day, and to endeavour to dig up the very roots of piety, knowledge, and all Christianity; to what ends and purposes, and for the enthroning of what other thing in their room, let all indifferent men judge. And I shall take leave to say, that, to my best observation, I never met with an assertion in any author, of what religion soever, more remote from truth, sobriety, and modesty, than that of yours in your " Fiat," p. 275: " Nor did the primitive Christians for three hundred years ever hear a sermon made unto them upon a text; but merely flocked together, at their priests' ap- pointment, unto their messachs." This, I say, is so loudly and notoriously untrue, and so known to be so to all that have ever looked into the stories of those times, that I am amazed at your con- fidence ill the publishing of it. It may be you will hope to shelter yourself under the ambigiiity of that expression, " Made unto them upon a text;" supposing that an instance cannot be given of that mode of preaching, wherein some certain text is read at the entrance
414 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
of a sermon, and principally insisted upon. But this fig-leaf W\]\. not cover you from the just censure of knowing men; for, — 1. The fol- lowing adversative. " But merely," is perfectly exclusive of all preach- ing, be it of what mode it will. 2. The reading of " one certain text " before preaching is not necessary unto it, but all preaching is, and ever was, upon some text or texts; that is, it consisted in the explication and application of the word of God, — that is, some part or portion of it. 3. Whereas it is certain that our Saviour himself preached on a text, Luke iv. 17-21, as also did his apostles, Acts viii. 35, and the fathers of the following ages, it is sufficient y evident that that was also the constant mode of preaching in the first three hundred years, as may be made good in the instance of Origen, and sundry others.
You go on, and except against me for saying, " That we hear nothing of your sacrifice of the mass in the Scripture," and say, "You will neither hear nor see. Say you, the passion of our Lord is our Christian sacrifice? — do not I say so too ? but that this incruent sacri- fice was instituted by the same Lord before his death, to figure out daily before our eyes that passion of his which was then approaching, in commemoration of his death, so long as the world should last."
I must desire you to stay here a little. This sacrifice you make the main of Christian religion. Protestants, for the want of it, you esteem to have no religion at all. We must, therefore, consider what it is that you intend by it, for I suppose you would not have us accept of we know not what; and you seem both in your " Fiat" and in your " Epistola" to obscure it as much as you are able. 1. You call it an " incruent sacrifice;" which, (1.) Shows only xvhat it is not, and that in only one instance, which is a very lame description of any thing ; and this also may be affirmed of any metaphorical sacrifice Avhatever, as " offering unto God the calves of our lips," — it is an " incruent sac- rifice." (2.) Your expression implies a contradiction. Every proper propitiatory sacrifice was bloody; and an incruent proper sacrifice, such as you would have this to be, is a proper improper propitiatory sacrifice! 2. You say 'it "was instituted by our Lord to figure out his passion." (1.) This is a weighty proof of what you have in hand, being the only thing to be proved. (2.) I suppose, in the examina- tion of it, it will appear that you sacrifice that very body and Mood of Christ, in your own conceits, which himself offered unto God; and how you can make any thing to be a figure of itself, as yet I do not perfectly understand. (3.) That the Lord Christ appointed the sacra- ment of his body and blood, and our eucharistical sacrifice therein, to be a commemoration of his death and passion, is the doctrine of Pro- testants, wherewith your sacrifice hath a perfect inconsistency, as we shall find in the consideration of it. This is the substance of what