MASS AND TRANS UBSTANTIATION. 41 7
tione et oblation e. Alii constituunt totam rationem sacrificii in una actione, viz., consecratione ;" — " There are who think the nature of the sacrifice to consist in the words, prayers, ceremonies, and rites which are used in the consecration, because, they say, the nature of the sacrifice cannot consist in the consecration itself, which rather belongs unto the nature of a sacrament than of a sacrifice. Others think that the sacrifice consists in three actions of the priest, — con- secration, oblation, and sumption, or receiving of the host. Others in four or five, — as consecration, oblation, fraction, sumption. Others in two, — consecration and oblation ; and some in oue,^consecration." And is not this a brave business, to impose on the consciences of all men, when you know not yourselves what it is that you would so impose ! A sacrifice must be believed, and they are all accursed by you that believe it not; but what the sacrifice is, and wherein it doth consist, you cannot tell ! And an easy matter it were to manifest that all the particulars which you assign as those that either belong neces- sarily unto the integrity of a sacrifice, or those Avherein some of you, or any of you, would have its essence to consist, are indeed of no such nature or importaiice; but that is not my present business. I am only inquiring what your sacrifice is, according unto your own sense and imagination ; and that we may not mistake, I shall set down such a general description of it as the canon of the mass, the general rubric of the missal, the rites and cautels of its celebration, will afford unto us. Now, in these it is represented as a sacred action, wherein a proper priest or sacrificer, arrayed with various consecrated attire, standing at the altar, taketh bread and wine, — about which he useth great variety of postures and gestures, inclinations, boAvings, kneelings, stretching out and gathering in his arms, with a multi- tude of crossings at the end and in the midst of his pronunciation of certain words of Scripture, — turns them into the real natural body and blood of Christ the Son of God ; worshipping them so converted with religious adoration, showing them to the people for the same purpose ; and then offering the body and blood unto God, praying for his acceptance of them so offered, and that it may be available for the living and the dead, for the pardoning of their sins and sav- ing of their souls : after which he takes that body of Christ, so made, worshipped, and offered, and eats and devours it ! By all which Christ is truly and properly sacrificed !
This is the sacrifice of your church, wherein, as you inform us, the main of your devotion and worship doth consist. Of this sacrifice I told you formerly the 8crij)tAire is silent; and I now add, that so also is antiquity. You cannot produce any one approved writer, for the space of six hundred years, that gives testimony to this your sacrifice; for, whatever flourisli you may make with the ambiguity
VOJ.. XIV. 27
418 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
of the word "sacrifice," which we cleared before, your transubstan- tiation, and other things asserted by you to belong unto the integrity if not the essence of your sacrifice, are strangers unto antiquity, as hath been lately proved unto you, and will, no doubt, be yet farther confirmed so to be.
I told you, as you obsei-ve, that this sacrifice is an utter stranger to Scripture, as also that it is inconsistent with what is therein deli- vered. The apostle, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, plainly affirms that the sacrifice of the church of the Christians is but one, and that " once offered for all," whereas those of the Jews, by reason of their imperfection, were often repeated; which you choose out to reply unto, and say, " It is true, the sacrifice of our Lord's passion, of which the apostle, in that whole discourse, intends only to treat in opposi- tion unto that of bulls and goats, was so done but once, — that it could not be done twice; but as the sacrifices of the old law were insti- tuted by Almighty God, to be often iterated, before the passion of the Messias, for a continual exercise of religion, so did the same Lord, for the very same purpose, institute another, to be iterated after his death, unto which it was to have reference when it should be past, as the former had to the same death when it was to come." So you.
But, — 1. This hegs the question; for you only repeat and say that such a sacrifice was instituted by Christ, which you know is by us utterly denied. 2. It plainly contradicts the apostle, and overthrows his whole argument and design. (L) It contradicts him in express tenns; for whereas he says not only that " Christ once offered" him- self, but also that he was "once offered" for all, — tha,t is, "no more to be offered," — you affirm that he is often offered, and that ever^^ day. (2.) His design is to demonstrate the excellency of the condi- tion of the church of the New Testament, and the Avorship of God therein above that of the Old. And this he proves to consist herein in a special manner, that they had many sacr'ifices, which were of necessity to be reiterated because they could not take away sin. " For," saith he, " if they could, then should they not have been repeated, nor would there have been need of any other sacrifice. But now," saith he, " this is done by the one sacrifice of Christ, which hath so taken away sin as that it hath made the repetition of itself, or the institution of any other sacrifice, needless; and therefore we have no more but that one, and that one once performed." Now, unless you will deny the apostle's assertions, either, — (1.) That if one sacri- fice can take away sin, there is no need of another; or, (2.) That the one sacrifice of Christ did perfectly take away sin as to atonement ; and also, (3.) Assert that the condition of the gospel church is still the same with that of the Jews, and that we have need of a sacrifice