Book 4, Chapter 18

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PAPAL MASS NOT ONLY A SACRILEGIOUS PROFANATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER, BUT A TOTAL ANNIHILATION OF IT.

With these, and similar inventions, Satan has endeavoured to obscure, corrupt, and adulterate the sacred supper of Christ, that, at least, its purity might not be preserved in the Church. But the perfection of the dreadful abomination was his establishment of a sign, by which it might be not only obscured and perverted, but altogether obliterated and abolished, so as to disappear from the view, and to depart from the remembrance of men. I refer to that most pestilent error with which he has blinded almost the whole world, persuading it to believe that the mass is a sacrifice and oblation to procure the remission of sins. How this dogma was at first understood by the sounder schoolmen, who did not fall into all the absurdities of their successors, I shall not stay to inquire, but shall take leave of them and their thorny subtleties; which, however they may be defended by subterfuges and cavils, ought to be rejected by all good men, because they merely serve to obscure the lustre of the sacred supper. Leaving them, therefore, I wish the readers to understand that I am now combating that opinion with which the Roman antichrist and his agents have infected the whole world; namely, that the mass is an act by which the priest who offers Christ, and others who participate in the oblation, merit the favour of God; or that it is an expiatory victim by which they reconcile God to them. Nor has this been merely an opinion generally received by the multitude; but the act itself is so ordered, as to be a kind of expiation, to make satisfaction to God for the sins of the living and the dead. This is fully expressed also in the words which they use; nor can any thing else be concluded from its daily observance. I know how deeply this pest has stricken its roots, what a plausible appearance of goodness it assumes, how it shelters itself under the name of Christ, and how multitudes believe the whole substance of faith to be comprehended under the single word mass. But when it shall have been most clearly demonstrated by the word of God, that this mass, however it may be varnished and adorned, offers the greatest insult to Christ, suppresses and conceals his cross, consigns his death to oblivion, deprives us of the benefit resulting from it, and invalidates and destroys the sacrament which was left as a memorial of that death,—will there be any roots too deep for this most powerful axe—I mean the word of God—to cut in pieces and eradicate? Will there be any varnish too specious for this light to detect the evil which lurks behind it?

II. Let us proceed, therefore, to establish what we have asserted; in the first place, that the mass offers an intolerable blasphemy and insult to Christ. For he was constituted by his Father a priest and a high-priest, not for a limited time, like those who are recorded to have been consecrated priests under the Old Testament, who, having a mortal life, could not have an immortal priesthood; wherefore, there was need of successors, from time to time, to fill the places of those who died; but Christ, who is immortal, requires no vicar to be substituted in his place. Therefore he was designated by the Father as “a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec;” that he might for ever execute a permanent priesthood. This mystery had long before been prefigured in Melchisedec, whom the Scripture has introduced once as “the priest of the Most High God,” but never mentions him afterwards, as if there had been no end to his life. From this resemblance Christ is called a priest after his order.[1328] Now, those who sacrifice every day must necessarily appoint priests to conduct the oblations, and those priests must be substituted in the room of Christ, as his successors and vicars. By this substitution they not only despoil Christ of his due honour, and rob him of the prerogative of an eternal priesthood, but endeavour to degrade him from the right hand of the Father, where he cannot sit in the enjoyment of immortality, unless he also remain an eternal priest. Nor let them plead that their sacrificing priests are not substituted in the place of Christ, as though he were dead, but are merely assistants in his eternal priesthood, which does not, on this account, cease to remain; for the language of the apostle is too precise for them to avail themselves of such an evasion; when he says that “they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death.”[1329] Christ, therefore, whose continuance is not prevented by death, is only one, and needs no companions. Yet they have the effrontery to arm themselves with the example of Melchisedec in defence of their impiety. For, because he is said to have “brought forth bread and wine,” they conclude this to have been a prefiguration of their mass, as though the resemblance between him and Christ consisted in the oblation of bread and wine; which is too unsubstantial and frivolous to need any refutation. Melchisedec gave bread and wine to Abraham and his companions, to refresh them when they were fatigued on their return from battle. What has this to do with a sacrifice? Moses praises the humanity and liberality of the pious king; these men presumptuously fabricate a mystery, of which the Scripture makes no mention. Yet they varnish their error with another pretext, because the historian immediately afterwards says, “And he was the priest of the Most High God.” I answer, that they misapply to the bread and wine what the apostle refers to the benediction, “For this Melchisedec, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham and blessed him;” from which the same apostle, than whom it is unnecessary to seek for a better expositor, argues his superior dignity; “for without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better.”[1330] But, if the offering of Melchisedec had been a figure of the sacrifice of the mass, is it credible that the apostle, who discusses all the minutest circumstances, would have forgotten a thing of such high importance? It will be in vain for them, with all their sophistry, to attempt to overturn the argument which the apostle himself adduces, that the right and dignity of priesthood ceases among mortal men, because Christ, who is immortal, is the alone and perpetual priest.

III. A second property of the mass we have stated to be, that it suppresses and conceals the cross and passion of Christ. It is beyond all contradiction, that the cross of Christ is subverted as soon as ever an altar is erected; for if Christ offered up himself a sacrifice on the cross, to sanctify us for ever, and to obtain eternal redemption for us, the virtue and efficacy of that sacrifice must certainly continue without any end.[1331] Otherwise, we should have no more honourable ideas of Christ, than of the animal victims which were sacrificed under the law, the oblations of which are proved to have been weak and inefficacious, by the circumstance of their frequent repetition. Wherefore, it must be acknowledged, either that the sacrifice which Christ accomplished on the cross wanted the virtue of eternal purification, or that Christ has offered up one perfect sacrifice, once for all ages. This is what the apostle says that this great high-priest, even Christ, “now once in the end of the world, hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Again: “By the will of God we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.” Again: “That by one offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” To which he subjoins this remarkable observation: “That where remission of iniquities is, there is no more offering for sin.”[1332] This was likewise signified by the last words of Christ, when, with his expiring breath he said, “It is finished.”[1333] We are accustomed to consider the last words of dying persons as oracular. Christ, at the moment of his death, declared that by his own sacrifice every thing necessary to our salvation had been accomplished and finished. To such a sacrifice, the perfection of which he so explicitly declares, shall it be lawful for us to make innumerable additions every day, as though it were imperfect? While God’s most holy word not only affirms, but proclaims and protests, that this sacrifice was once perfect, and that its virtue is eternal,—do not they who require another sacrifice charge this with imperfection and inefficacy? But what is the tendency of the mass, which admits of a hundred thousand sacrifices being offered every day, except it be to obscure and suppress the passion of Christ, by which he offered himself as the alone sacrifice to the Father? Who, that is not blind, does not see that such an opposition to the clear and manifest truth must have arisen from the audacity of Satan? I am aware of the fallacies with which that father of falsehood is accustomed to varnish over this fraud; as, that these are not various or different sacrifices, but only a repetition of that one sacrifice. But such illusions are easily dissipated. For, through the whole argument, the apostle is contending, not only that there are no other sacrifices, but that that one sacrifice was offered once, and is never to be repeated. The more artful sophisters have recourse to a deeper subterfuge; that the mass is not a repetition of that sacrifice, but an application of it. This sophistry also may be confuted, without any more difficulty than the former. For Christ once offered up himself, not that his sacrifice might be daily ratified by new oblations, but that the benefit of it might be communicated to us by the preaching of the gospel, and the administration of the sacred supper. Thus Paul says that “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us,” and commands us to feast on him.[1334] This, I say, is the way in which the sacrifice of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is rightly applied to us, when it is communicated to us for our enjoyment, and we receive it with true faith.

IV. But it is worth while to hear on what other foundation they rest the sacrifice of the mass. They apply to this purpose the prophecy of Malachi, in which the Lord promises, that “from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, incense shall be offered unto” his “name, and a pure offering.”[1335] As though it were a new or unusual thing for the prophets, when they speak of the calling of the Gentiles, to designate the spiritual worship of God, to which they exhort them, by the external ceremonies of the law; in order to show, in a more familiar manner, to the men of their own times, that the Gentiles were to be introduced to a participation of the true religion; as it is their invariable practice, on all occasions, to describe the realities which have been exhibited in the gospel, under the types and figures of the dispensation under which they lived. Thus, conversion to the Lord they express by going up to Jerusalem; adoration of God, by oblations of various gifts; the more extensive knowledge to be bestowed on believers, in the kingdom of Christ, by dreams and visions.[1336] The prophecy which they adduce, therefore, is similar to another prediction of Isaiah, where he foretells the erection of three altars, in Assyria, Egypt, and Judea.[1337] I ask the Romanists, first, whether they do not admit this prediction to have been accomplished in the kingdom of Christ; secondly, where are these altars, or when were they ever erected; thirdly, whether they think that those two kingdoms were destined to have their respective temples, like that at Jerusalem. A due consideration of these things, I think, will induce them to acknowledge, that the prophet, under types adapted to his own time, was predicting the spiritual worship of God, which was to be propagated all over the world. This is our solution of the passage which they adduce from Malachi; but as examples of this mode of expression are of such frequent occurrence, I shall not employ myself in a further enumeration of them. Here, also, they are miserably deceived, in acknowledging no sacrifice but that of the mass; whereas, believers do in reality now sacrifice to the Lord, and offer a pure oblation, of which we shall presently treat.

V. I now proceed to the third view of the mass, under which I am to show how it obliterates and expunges from the memory of mankind the true and alone death of Jesus Christ. For as among men the confirmation of a testament depends on the death of the testator, so also our Lord, by his death, has confirmed the testament in which he has given us remission of sins, and everlasting righteousness. Those who dare to attempt any variation or innovation in this testament, thereby deny his death, and represent it as of no value. Now, what is the mass, but a new and totally different testament? For does not every separate mass promise a new remission of sins, and a new acquisition of righteousness; so that there are now as many testaments as masses? Let Christ, therefore, come again, and by another death ratify this new testament, or rather, by innumerable deaths, confirm these innumerable testaments of masses. Have I not truly said, then, at the beginning, that the true and alone death of Christ is obliterated and consigned to oblivion by the masses? And is not the direct tendency of the mass, to cause Christ, if it were possible, to be put to death again? “For where a testament is,” says the apostle, “there must also, of necessity, be the death of the testator.”[1338] The mass pretends to exhibit a new testament of Christ; therefore it requires his death. Moreover the victim which is offered must, of necessity, be slain and immolated. If Christ be sacrificed in every mass, he must be cruelly murdered in a thousand separate places at once. This is not my argument; it is the reasoning of the apostle: “It was not necessary that he should offer himself often; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.”[1339] In reply to this, I confess, they are ready to charge us with calumny; alleging that we impute to them sentiments which they never have held, nor ever can hold. We know, indeed, that the life and death of Christ are not in their power; and whether they intend to murder him, we do not inquire; we only mean to show the absurdities which follow from their impious and abominable doctrine, and this we have proved from the mouth of the apostle. They may reply a hundred times, if they please, that this sacrifice is without blood; but I shall deny that sacrifices can change their nature, at the caprice of men; for thus the sacred and inviolable institution of God would fall to the ground. Hence it follows, that this principle of the apostle can never be shaken, that “without shedding of blood is no remission.”[1340]