24. The invalidity of this argument unto his especial purpose may easily be laid open; for setting aside all consideration of his mass, Christian religion hath not only in it a proper sacrifice, but that
SECT. 23, 24.] PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 39
alone and single sacrifice with respect whereunto any services of men in the worship of the church formerly were so called, and whereby they were animated and rendered useful. For all the sacri- fices of the law were but obscure representations of, nor had any other end or use but to prefigure, that sacrifice which we enjoy in Christian religion, and to exhibit the benefits thereof unto the wor- shippers. ‘This is the sacrifice of Christ himself, which was external, visible, proper, yea, the only true, real, substantial sacrifice, and that offered once for all. And it is merely 2& duerpiag dvdodnqs, or an immeasurable concern in a corrupt imagination, which carried Bel- larmine to put in his frivolous and captious exception unto the sufficiency of this sacrifice in and unto Christian religion ;—for he pretends and pleads that “ this sacrifice did not belong to the Chris- tian church, which was founded in the resurrection of Christ, before which Christ had offered himself ;” as also, that “this sacrifice was but once offered,’ and now ceaseth so to be, so that if we have no other sacrifice but this, we have none at all: for notwithstanding these bold and sophistical exceptions, our apostle sufficiently instructs us that we have yet an high priest, and an altar, and a sacrifice, and the blood of sprinkling, all in heavenly things and places. And, on purpose to prevent this cavil about the ceasing of this sacrifice as to be offered again, he tells us that it is always @aoa xa) spéegauros,— “living and new-slain.” And, beyond all contradiction, he deter- mined either this one sacrifice of Christ to be insufficient, or that of the mass to be useless; for he shows that where any sacrifices will make perfect them that come to God by them, there no more will be offered. And it is an undoubted evidence that no sacrifice hath obtained its end perfectly, so as to making reconciliation for sin, where any other sacrifice, properly so called, doth come after it. Nor doth he prove the insufficiency of the Aaronical sacrifices unto this purpose by any other argument but that they were often offered from year to year, and that another was to succeed in their room when they were over, Heb. x. 1-5; and this, upon the supposition of the Romanists, and the necessity of their missatical sacrifice, falls as heavily on the sacrifice of Christ as on those of the law. It is ap- parent, therefore, that they must either let go the sacrifice of Christ as insufficient, or that of their mass as useless, for they can have no consistency in the same religion. Wherefore they leave out the sacrifice of Christ, as that which was offered before the church was founded. But the truth is, the church was founded therein, And I desire to know of these men whether it be the outward act of sacri- icing or the efficacy of a sacrifice that is so necessary unto all reli- gion? If it be the outward act that is of such use and necessity, how _ great was the privilege of the church of the Jews above that of the
40 THE ORIGIN OF THE [EXERC. XXVI.
Romanists! for whereas thesé pretend but unto one sacrifice, and that one so dark, obscure, and unintelligible, that the principal plsras and éxixros of their “sacra” cannot possibly agree amongst themselves what it is, nor wherein it doth consist, they had many plain, express, visible sacrifices, which the whole church looked on and consented in. But this whole pretence is vain. Nor is any thing of the least account or worth in religion but upon the account of its efficacy unto its end. And that we have with us the continual efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ in all our religious worship and approaches unto God, the Scripture is full and express. But these things are not of our present concernment; the consideration of them will elsewhere occur.
25. As unto our present purpose, I deny the major proposition of Bellarmine’s syllogism, if taken absolutely and universally, as it must be if any way serviceable unto his end. This, therefore, he proves. “ Propositio,” saith he, “ prima probatur primo ex eo quod fere omnis religio, seu vera seu falsa, omni loco et tempore, semper ad cultum Dei sacrificia adhibuerit; hinc enim colligitur, id prodire ex lumine et instinctu nature, et esse primum quoddam principium a Deo nobis ingenitum ;”’—“It is proved from hence, that almost all religion, whether true or false, in all places and times, hath made use of sac- rifices in the worship of God; for hence it is gathered that this pro- ceeds from the light and instinct of nature, being a certain principle inbred in us from God himself.” And hereon he proceeds to con- fute Chemnitius, who assigned the original of sacrificmg among the heathen unto an instinct of corrupt nature, which is the root of all superstition. I shall not now inquire expressly into the original of all sacrifices; it must be done elsewhere. We here only discourse concerning those that are properly so called, and not only so, but propitiatory also; for such he contendeth his mass to be. It is, in- deed, suitable to the light of nature that of what we have left in our possession we should offer unto the service of God, when he hath appointed a way for us so to do; but it is denied that in the state of innocency he had appointed that to be by the way of sacrificing sen- sible things. All eucharistical offerings should then have been moral and spiritual, in pure acts of the mind and its devotion in them. Sacrifices of or for atonement were first instituted, and other offer- ings had their name from thence, by reason of some kind of analogy. And,so far as thank-offerings were materially the same with them that were propitiatory, in the death and blood of any creature, they had in them the nature of a propitiation also. That these were in- stituted after the fall I have elsewhere sufficiently proved. Being therefore at first enjoined unto all mankind in general, as tokens of the recovery promised, they were retained and perpetuated amongst