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]
VI. We are now to treat of the fourth property of the mass, which is, to
prevent us from perceiving and reflecting on the death of Christ, and
thereby to deprive us of the benefit resulting from it. For who can
consider himself as redeemed by the death of Christ, when he sees a new
redemption in the mass? Who can be assured that his sins are remitted,
when he sees another remission? It is not a sufficient answer, to say,
that we obtain remission of sins in the mass, only because it has been
already procured by the death of Christ. For this is no other than
pretending that Christ has redeemed us in order that we may redeem
ourselves. For this is the doctrine which has been disseminated by the
ministers of Satan, and which they now defend by clamours, and fire, and
sword; that when we offer up Christ to his Father, in the sacrifice of
the mass, we, by that act of oblation, obtain remission of sins, and
become partakers of the passion of Christ. What remains, then, to the
passion of Christ, but to be an example of redemption, by which we may
learn to be our own redeemers? Christ himself, when he seals the
assurance of pardon in the sacred supper, does not command his disciples
to rest in this act, but refers them to the sacrifice of his death;
signifying that the supper is a monument, or memorial, appointed to
teach us that the expiatory victim by which God was to be appeased ought
to be offered but once. Nor is it sufficient to know that Christ is the
sole victim, unless we also know that there is only one oblation, so
that our faith may be fixed upon his cross.
VII. I come now to the concluding observation; that the sacred supper,
in which our Lord had left us the memorial of his passion impressed and
engraven, has, by the erection of the mass, been removed, abolished, and
destroyed. For the supper itself is a gift of God, which ought to be
received with thanksgiving. The sacrifice of the mass is pretended to be
a price given to God, and received by him as a satisfaction. As far as
_giving_ differs from _receiving_, so far does the sacrifice of the mass
differ from the sacrament of the supper. And this is the most miserable
ingratitude of man, that where the profusion of the Divine goodness
ought to have been acknowledged with thanksgivings, there he makes God
his debtor. The sacrament promised, that by the death of Christ we are
not only restored to life, but are perpetually vivified, because every
part of our salvation was then accomplished. The sacrifice of the mass
proclaims a very different doctrine; that it is necessary for Christ to
be sacrificed every day, in order to be of any advantage to us. The
supper ought to be distributed in the public congregation of the Church,
to instruct us in the communion by which we are all connected together
in Christ Jesus. The sacrifice of the mass dissolves and destroys this
communion. For the reception of this error rendered it necessary that
there should be priests to sacrifice for the people; and the supper, as
if it had been resigned to them, ceased to be administered to the Church
of believers, according to the commandment of the Lord. A way was opened
for the admission of private masses, which represented a kind of
excommunication, rather than that communion which had been instituted by
our Lord, when the mass-priest separates himself from the whole
congregation of believers, to devour his sacrifice alone. That no person
may be deceived, I call it a private mass, wherever there is no
participation of the Lord’s supper among believers, whatever number of
persons may be present as spectators of it.
VIII. With respect to the word _mass_ itself, I have never been able
certainly to determine whence it originated; only I think it may
probably have been derived from the oblations which used to be made at
the sacrament. Hence the ancient fathers generally use it in the plural
number. But to forbear all controversy respecting the term, I say that
private masses are diametrically repugnant to the institution of Christ,
and are consequently an impious profanation of the sacred supper. For
what has the Lord commanded us? Is it not to take and divide it among
us?[1341] What observance of the command does Paul inculcate? Is it not
the breaking of the bread, which is the communion of the body of
Christ?[1342] When one man takes it, therefore, without any
distribution, what resemblance does this bear to the command? But it is
alleged, that this one man does it in the name of the whole Church. I
ask, by what authority? Is not this an open mockery of God, when one
person does separately, by himself, that which ought not to have been
done but among many? The words of Christ, and of Paul, are sufficiently
clear to authorize the conclusion, that wherever there is no breaking of
the bread for common distribution among believers, there is not the
supper of the Lord, but a false and preposterous imitation of it. But a
false imitation is a corruption; and the corruption of so great a
mystery cannot take place without impiety. Private masses, therefore,
are an impious abuse. And as one abuse in religion soon produces
another, after the introduction of this custom of offering without
communicating, they began by degrees to have innumerable masses in all
the corners of the temples, and thus to divide the people from each
other, who ought to have united in one assembly, to celebrate the
mystery of their union. Now, let the Romanists deny, if they can, that
they are guilty of idolatry in exhibiting bread in their masses, to be
worshipped instead of Christ. In vain do they boast of those promises of
the presence of Christ; for however they may be understood, they
certainly were not given in order that impure and profane men, whenever
they please, and for whatever improper use, may transmute bread into the
body of Christ; but in order that believers, religiously observing the
command of Christ, in celebrating the supper, may enjoy a true
participation of him in it.
IX. In the purer times of the Church, this corruption was unknown. For,
however the more impudent of our adversaries endeavour to misrepresent
this matter, yet it is beyond all doubt that all antiquity is against
them, as we have already evinced in other points, and may be more fully
determined by a diligent perusal of the ancient fathers. But before I
conclude this subject, I will ask our advocates for masses, since they
know that “the Lord hath” not “as great delight in sacrifices, as in
obeying the voice of the Lord,” and that “to obey is better than
sacrifice,”[1343] how they can believe this kind of sacrificing to be
acceptable to God, for which they have no command, and which they do not
find to be sanctioned by a single syllable of the Scripture. Moreover,
since they hear the apostle say, that “no man taketh” the name and
“honour” of the priesthood “unto himself, but he that is called of God,
as was Aaron,” and that even “Christ glorified not himself to be made a
high-priest,” but obeyed the call of his Father;[1344] either they must
prove God to be the author and institutor of their priesthood, or they
must confess the honour not to be of God, into which they have
presumptuously and wickedly obtruded themselves, without any call. But
they cannot produce a tittle which affords the least support to their
priesthood. What, then, will become of their sacrifices, since no
sacrifices can be offered without a priest?
X. If any one should bring forward mutilated passages, extracted from
different parts of the writings of the fathers, and contend, on their
authority, that the sacrifice which is offered in the supper ought to be
understood in a different manner from the representation we have given
of it, he shall receive the following brief reply: If the question
relate to an approbation of this notion of a sacrifice which the Papists
have invented in the mass, the ancient fathers are very far from
countenancing such a sacrilege. They do, indeed, use the word
_sacrifice_, but they at the same time fully declare, that they mean
nothing more than the commemoration of that true and only sacrifice
which Christ, whom they invariably speak of as our only Priest,
completed on the cross. Augustine says, “The Hebrews, in the animal
victims which they offered to God, celebrated the prophecy of the future
victim which Christ has since offered; Christians, by the holy oblation
and participation of the body of Christ, celebrate the remembrance of
the sacrifice which is already completed.” Here he evidently inculcates
the same sentiment that is expressed more at large in the Treatise, on
Faith, which has been attributed to him, though it is doubtful who was
the author, addressed to Peter the Deacon; in which we find the
following passage: “Hold this most firmly, and admit not the least
doubt, that the only begotten Son of God himself, being made flesh for
us, hath offered himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweet-smelling savour; to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
animals were sacrificed in the time of the Old Testament; and to whom
now, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, (with whom he has one and the
same Divinity,) the holy Church, throughout the world, ceases not to
offer the sacrifice of bread and wine. For in those carnal victims there
was a prefiguration of the flesh of Christ, which he himself was to
offer for our sins, and of his blood, which he was to shed for the
remission of our sins. But in the present sacrifice, there is a
thanksgiving and commemoration of the flesh of Christ, which he has
offered, and of his blood, which he has shed for us.” Hence Augustine
himself, in various passages, explains it to be nothing more than a
sacrifice of praise. And it is a remark often found in his writings,
that the Lord’s supper is called a sacrifice, for no other reason than
because it is a memorial, image, and attestation, of that singular,
true, and only sacrifice, by which Christ has redeemed us. There is also
a remarkable passage in his Treatise on the Trinity, where, after having
treated of the only sacrifice, he thus concludes: “In a sacrifice, four
things are to be considered—to whom it is offered, by whom it is
offered, what is offered, and for whom it is offered. The alone and true
Mediator, by a sacrifice of peace, reconciling us to God, remains one
with him to whom he has offered it; makes them for whom he has offered
it one in himself; is the one who alone has offered it; and is himself
the oblation which he has offered.” Chrysostom also speaks to the same
purpose. And they ascribe the honour of the priesthood so exclusively to
Christ, that Augustine declares, that if any one should set up a bishop
as an intercessor between God and man, it would be the language of
Antichrist.
XI. Yet we do not deny that the oblation of Christ is there exhibited to
us in such a manner, that the view of his cross is almost placed before
our eyes; as the apostle says, that by the preaching of the cross to the
Galatians, “Christ had been evidently set forth before their eyes,
crucified among them.”[1345] But as I perceive that those ancient
fathers misapplied this memorial to a purpose inconsistent with the
institution of the Lord, because the supper, as celebrated by them,
represented I know not what appearance of a reiterated, or at least
renewed oblation, the safest way for pious minds will be to acquiesce in
the pure and simple ordinance of the Lord, whose supper this sacrament
is called, because it ought to be regulated by his sole authority.
Finding them to have retained orthodox and pious sentiments of this
whole mystery, and not detecting them of having intended the least
derogation from the one and alone sacrifice of Christ, I dare not
condemn them for impiety; yet I think it impossible to exculpate them
from having committed some error in the external form. For they imitated
the Jewish mode of sacrificing, more than Christ had commanded, or the
nature of the gospel admitted. The censure which they have deserved,
therefore, is for this preposterous conformity to the Old Testament;
that, not content with the simple and genuine institution of Christ,
they have symbolized too much with the shadows of the law.
XII. If any person will attentively examine, he will observe this
distinction clearly marked by the word of the Lord, between the Mosaic
sacrifices and our eucharist; that though those sacrifices represented
to the Jewish people the same efficacy of the death of Christ which is
now exhibited to us in the Lord’s supper, yet the mode of representation
was different. For the Jewish priests were commanded to prefigure the
sacrifice which was to be accomplished by Christ; a victim was presented
in the place of Christ himself; there was an altar on which it was to be
immolated; in short, every thing was conducted in such a manner as to
set before the eyes of the people a representation of the sacrifice
which was to be offered to God as an atonement for sins. But since that
sacrifice has been accomplished, the Lord has prescribed to us a
different method, in order to communicate to believers the benefit of
the sacrifice which has been offered to him by his Son. Therefore he has
given us a table at which we are to feast, not an altar upon which any
victim is to be offered: he has not consecrated priests to offer
sacrifices, but ministers to distribute the sacred banquet. In
proportion to the superior sublimity and sanctity of the mystery, with
the greater care and reverence it ought to be treated. The safest
course, therefore, is to relinquish all the presumption of human reason,
and to adhere strictly to what the Scripture enjoins. And surely, if we
consider that it is the supper of the Lord, and not of men, there is no
cause why we should suffer ourselves to be moved a hair’s breadth from
the scriptural rule by any authority of men or prescription of years.
Therefore, when the apostle was desirous of purifying it from all the
faults which had already crept into the Church at Corinth, he adopted
the best and readiest method, by recalling it to the one original
institution, which he shows ought to be regarded as its perpetual rule.
XIII. That no wrangler may take occasion to oppose us from the terms
_sacrifice_ and _priest_, I will briefly state what I have meant by
these terms all through this argument. Some extend the word _sacrifice_
to all religions ceremonies and actions; but for this I see no reason.
We know that, by the constant usage of the Scripture, the word
_sacrifice_ is applied to what the Greeks call sometimes θυσια,
sometimes προσφορα, and sometimes τελετη, which, taken generally,
comprehends whatever is offered to God. Wherefore it is necessary for us
to make a distinction, but such a distinction as may be consistent with
the sacrifices of the Mosaic law; under the shadows of which the Lord
designed to represent to his people all the truth of spiritual
sacrifices. Though there were various kinds of them, yet they may all be
referred to two classes. For either they were oblations made for sin in
a way of satisfaction, by which guilt was expiated before God, or they
were symbols of Divine worship and attestations of devotion. This second
class comprehended three kinds of sacrifices: some were offered in a way
of supplication, to implore the favour of God; some in a way of
thanksgiving, to testify the gratitude of the mind for benefits
received; and some as simple expressions of piety, to renew the
confirmation of the covenant: to this class belonged burnt-offerings and
drink-offerings, first-fruits and peace-offerings. Therefore let _us_
also divide sacrifices into two kinds, and for the sake of distinction
call one the _sacrifice of worship_ and _piety_, because it consists in
the veneration and service of God, which he demands and receives from
believers; or it may be called, if you prefer it, the _sacrifice of
thanksgiving_; for it is presented to God by none but persons who,
loaded with his immense benefits, devote themselves and all their
actions to him in return. The other may be called the _sacrifice of
propitiation_ or _expiation_. A sacrifice of expiation is that which is
offered to appease the wrath of God, to satisfy his justice, and thereby
to purify and cleanse from sins, that the sinner, delivered from the
defilement of iniquity, and restored to the purity of righteousness, may
be re-admitted to the favour of God. This was the designation, under the
law, of those victims which were offered for the expiation of sins; not
that they were sufficient to effect the restoration of the favour of
God, or the obliteration of iniquity, but because they prefigured that
true sacrifice which at length was actually accomplished by Christ
alone; by him alone, because it could be made by no other; and once for
all, because the virtue and efficacy of that one sacrifice is eternal;
as Christ himself declared, when he said, “It is finished;”[1346] that
is to say, whatever was necessary to reconcile us to the Father, and to
obtain remission of sins, righteousness, and salvation, was all effected
and completed by that one oblation of himself, which was so perfect as
to leave no room for any other sacrifice afterwards.
XIV. Wherefore, I conclude, that it is a most criminal insult, and
intolerable blasphemy, both against Christ himself, and against the
sacrifice which he completed on our behalf by his death upon the cross,
for any man to repeat any oblation with a view to procure the pardon of
sins, propitiate God, and obtain righteousness. But what is the object
of the mass, except it be that by the merit of a new oblation we may be
made partakers of the passion of Christ? And that there might be no
limits to their folly, they have not been satisfied with affirming it to
be a common sacrifice offered equally for the whole Church, without
adding, that it was in their power to make a peculiar application of it
to any individual they chose, or rather to every one who was willing to
purchase such a commodity with ready money. Though they could not reach
the price of Judas, yet, to exemplify some characteristic of their
author, they have retained the resemblance of number. Judas sold Jesus
for thirty pieces of silver; these men, as far as in them lies, sell
him, in French money, for thirty pieces of copper; Judas sold him but
once; they sell him as often as they meet with a purchaser. In this
sense, we deny that they are priests; that they can intercede with God
on behalf of the people by such an oblation; that they can appease the
wrath of God, or obtain the remission of sins. For Christ is the sole
Priest and High-Priest of the New Testament, to whom all the ancient
priesthoods have been transferred, and in whom they are all terminated
and closed. And even if the Scripture had made no mention of the eternal
priesthood of Christ, yet as God, since the abrogation of the former
priesthoods, has instituted no other, the argument of the apostle is
irrefragable, that “no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that
is called of God.”[1347] With what effrontery, then, do these
sacrilegious mortals, who boast of being the executioners of Christ,
dare to call themselves priests of the living God!
XV. There is a beautiful passage in Plato, in which he treats of the
ancient expiations among the heathen, and ridicules the foolish
confidence of wicked and profligate men, who thought that such disguises
would conceal their crimes from the view of their gods, and, as if they
had made a compromise with their gods, indulged themselves in their
vices with the greater security. This passage almost seems as if it had
been written with a view to the missal expiation as it is now practised
in the world. To defraud and circumvent another person, every one knows
to be unlawful. To injure widows, to plunder orphans, to harass the
poor, to obtain the property of others by wicked arts, to seize any
one’s fortune by perjuries and frauds, to oppress a neighbour with
violence and tyrannical terror, are universally acknowledged to be
enormous crimes. How, then, do so many persons dare to commit all these
sins, as if they might perpetrate them with impunity? If we duly
consider, we shall find that they derive fresh encouragement from no
other cause than the confidence which they feel that they shall be able
to satisfy God by the sacrifice of the mass, as a complete discharge of
all their obligations to him, or at least that it affords them an easy
mode of compromising with him. Plato afterwards goes on to ridicule the
gross stupidity of those who expect by such expiations to be delivered
from the punishments which they would otherwise have to suffer in hell.
And what is the design of the obits, or anniversary obsequies, and the
greater part of the masses, but that those who all their lifetime have
been the most cruel of tyrants, the most rapacious of robbers, or
abandoned to every enormity, as if redeemed with this price, may escape
the fire of purgatory?
XVI. Under the other kind of sacrifices, which we have called _the
sacrifice of thanksgiving_, are included all the offices of charity,
which when we perform to our brethren, we honour the Lord himself in his
members; and likewise all our prayers, praises, thanksgivings, and every
thing that we do in the service of God; all which are dependent on a
greater sacrifice, by which we are consecrated in soul and body as holy
temples to the Lord. It is not enough for our external actions to be
employed in his service: it is necessary that first ourselves, and then
all our works, be consecrated and dedicated to him; that whatever
belongs to us may conduce to his glory, and discover a zeal for its
advancement. This kind of sacrifice has no tendency to appease the wrath
of God, to procure remission of sins, or to obtain righteousness: its
sole object is to magnify and exalt the glory of God. For it cannot be
acceptable and pleasing to God, except from the hands of those whom he
has already favoured with the remission of their sins, reconciled to
himself, and absolved from guilt; and it is so necessary to the Church
as to be altogether indispensable. Therefore it will continue to be
offered for ever, as long as the people of God shall exist; as we have
already seen from the prophet. For so far are we from wishing to abolish
it, that in that sense we are pleased to understand the following
prediction: “From the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the
same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place
incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my name
shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.”[1348] So
Paul enjoins us to “present” our “bodies, a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God,” which is our “reasonable service.”[1349] He has
expressed himself with the strictest propriety, by adding that this is
our reasonable service; for he intended a spiritual kind of Divine
worship, which he tacitly opposed to the carnal sacrifices of the Mosaic
law. So “to do good, and to communicate,” are called “sacrifices with
which God is well pleased.”[1350] So the liberality of the Philippians
in supplying the wants of Paul was “an odour of a sweet smell, a
sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing to God.”[1351] So all the good
works of believers are spiritual sacrifices.
XVII. Why do I multiply quotations? This form of expression is
perpetually occurring in the Scriptures. And even while the people were
kept under the external discipline of the law, it was sufficiently
declared by the prophets that those carnal sacrifices contained a
reality and truth which is common to the Christian Church, as well as to
the nation of the Jews. For this reason David prayed, “Let my prayer be
set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the
evening sacrifice.”[1352] And Hosea called thanksgivings “the calves of
our lips,”[1353] which David calls “offering thanksgiving” and “offering
praise.”[1354] In imitation of the Psalmist, the apostle himself says,
“Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually;” and by way of
explanation adds, “that is, the fruit of our lips,” confessing or giving
“thanks to his name.”[1355] This kind of sacrifice is indispensable in
the supper of the Lord, in which, while we commemorate and declare his
death, and give thanks, we do no other than offer the sacrifice of
praise. From this sacrificial employment, all Christians are called “a
royal priesthood;”[1356] because, as the apostle says, “By Christ we
offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips,
giving thanks to his name.” For we do not appear in the presence of God
with our oblations without an intercessor; Christ is the Mediator, by
whom we offer ourselves and all that we have to the Father. He is our
High Priest, who, having entered into the celestial sanctuary, opens the
way of access for us. He is our altar, upon which we place our
oblations, that whatever we venture to do, we may attempt in him. In a
word, it is he that “hath made us kings and priests unto God.”[1357]
XVIII. What remains, then, but for the blind to see, the deaf to hear,
and even children to understand, this abomination of the mass? which,
being presented in a vessel of gold, has so inebriated and stupefied all
the kings and people of the earth, from the highest to the lowest, that,
more senseless than the brutes themselves, they have placed the whole of
their salvation in this fatal gulf. Surely Satan never employed a more
powerful engine to assail and conquer the kingdom of Christ. This is the
Helen, for which the enemies of the truth in the present day contend
with cruelty, rage, and fury; a Helen, indeed, with which they so
pollute themselves with spiritual fornication, which is the most
execrable of all. Here I touch not, even with my little finger, the
gross abuses which they might pretend to be profanations of the purity
of their holy mass; what a scandalous traffic they carry on, what sordid
gains they make by their masses, with what enormous rapacity they
gratify their avarice. I only point out, and that in few and plain
words, the true nature of the most sanctimonious sanctity of the mass,
on account of which it has attracted so much admiration and veneration
for so many ages. For an illustration of such great mysteries
proportioned to their dignity, would require a larger treatise; and I am
unwilling to introduce those disgusting corruptions which are
universally notorious; that all men may understand that the mass,
considered in its choicest and most estimable purity, without any of its
appendages, from the beginning to the end, is full of every species of
impiety, blasphemy, idolatry, and sacrilege.
XIX. The readers may now see, collected into a brief summary, almost
every thing that I have thought important to be known respecting these
two sacraments; the use of which has been enjoined on the Christian
Church from the commencement of the New Testament until the end of time;
that is to say, baptism, to be a kind of entrance into the Church, and
an initiatory profession of faith; and the Lord’s supper, to be a
continual nourishment, with which Christ spiritually feeds his family of
believers. Wherefore, as there is but “one God, one Christ, one faith,”
one Church, the body of Christ, so there is only “one baptism” and that
is never repeated; but the supper is frequently distributed, that those
who have once been admitted into the Church, may understand that they
are continually nourished by Christ. Beside these two, as no other
sacrament has been instituted by God, so no other ought to be
acknowledged by the Church of believers. For that it is not left to the
will of man to institute new sacraments, will be easily understood if we
remember what has already been very plainly stated—that sacraments are
appointed by God for the purpose of instructing us respecting some
promise of his, and assuring us of his good-will towards us; and if we
also consider, that no one has been the counsellor of God, capable of
affording us any certainty respecting his will,[1358] or furnishing us
any assurance of his disposition towards us, what he chooses to give or
to deny us. Hence it follows, that no one can institute a sign to be a
testimony respecting any determination or promise of his; he alone can
furnish us a testimony respecting himself by giving a sign. I will
express myself in terms more concise, and perhaps more homely, but more
explicit—that there can be no sacrament unaccompanied with a promise of
salvation. All mankind, collected in one assembly, can promise us
nothing respecting our salvation. Therefore they can never institute or
establish a sacrament.
XX. Let the Christian Church, therefore, be content with these two, and
not only neither admit nor acknowledge any other at present, but neither
desire nor expect any other to the end of the world. For as the Jews,
beside the ordinary sacraments given to them, had also several others,
differing according to the varying circumstances of different periods,
such as the manna, the water issuing from the rock, the brazen serpent,
and the like, they were admonished by this variation not to rest in such
figures, which were of short duration, but to expect from God something
better, which should undergo no change and come to no end. But our case
is very different: to us Christ has been revealed, “in whom are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,”[1359] in such abundance and
profusion, that to hope or desire any new accession to these treasures
would really be to displease God, and provoke his wrath against us. We
must hunger after Christ, we must seek, contemplate, and learn him
alone, till the dawning of that great day, when our Lord will fully
manifest the glory of his kingdom, and reveal himself to us, so that “we
shall see him as he is.”[1360] And for this reason, the dispensation
under which we live is designated in the Scriptures as “the last time,”
“these last times,” “the last days,”[1361] that no one may deceive
himself with a vain expectation of any new doctrine or revelation. For
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath, in these last days, spoken unto us by
his Son,”[1362] who alone is able to “reveal the Father,”[1363] and who,
indeed, “hath declared him”[1364] fully, as far as is necessary for our
happiness, while “now we see” him “through a glass darkly.”[1365] As men
are not left at liberty to institute new sacraments in the Church of
God, so it were to be wished that as little as possible of human
invention should be mixed with those which have been instituted by God.
For as wine is diluted and lost by an infusion of water, and as a whole
mass of meal contracts acidity from a sprinkling of leaven, so the
purity of Divine mysteries is only polluted when man makes any addition
of his own. And yet we see, as the sacraments are observed in the
present day, how very far they have degenerated from their original
purity. There is every where an excess of pageantries, ceremonies, and
gesticulations; but no consideration or mention of the word of God,
without which even the sacraments themselves cease to be sacraments. And
the very ceremonies which have been instituted by God are not to be
discerned among such a multitude of others, by which they are
overwhelmed. In baptism, how little is seen of that which ought to be
the only conspicuous object—I mean baptism itself? And the Lord’s supper
has been completely buried since it has been transformed into the mass;
except that it is exhibited once a year, but in a partial and mutilated
form.
Footnote 1328:
Gen. xiv. 18. Psalm cx. 4. Heb. v. 5, 6, 10; vii. 17, 21, 23, 24; ix.
11; x. 21.
Footnote 1329:
Heb. vii. 23.
Footnote 1330:
Heb. vii. 1, 7.
Footnote 1331:
Heb. vii. 27; x. 10, 14; ix. 12.
Footnote 1332:
Heb. ix. 26; x. 10; xiv. 18.
Footnote 1333:
John xix. 30.
Footnote 1334:
1 Cor. v. 7, 8.
Footnote 1335:
Mal. i. 11.
Footnote 1336:
Isaiah xix. 23. Joel ii. 28.
Footnote 1337:
Isaiah xix. 19, 23.
Footnote 1338:
Heb. ix. 16.
Footnote 1339:
Heb. ix. 23, 25, 26.
Footnote 1340:
Heb. ix. 22.
Footnote 1341:
Luke xxii. 17.
Footnote 1342:
1 Cor. x. 16.
Footnote 1343:
1 Sam. xv. 22.
Footnote 1344:
Heb. v. 4, 5.
Footnote 1345:
Gal. iii. 1.
Footnote 1346:
John xix. 30.
Footnote 1347:
Heb. v. 4.
Footnote 1348:
Mal. i. 11.
Footnote 1349:
Rom. xii. 1.
Footnote 1350:
Heb. xiii. 16.
Footnote 1351:
Phil. iv. 18.
Footnote 1352:
Psalm cxli. 2.
Footnote 1353:
Hosea xiv. 2.
Footnote 1354:
Psalm l. 14, 23.
Footnote 1355:
Heb. xiii. 15.
Footnote 1356:
1 Peter ii. 9.
Footnote 1357:
Rev. i. 6.
Footnote 1358:
Isaiah xl. 14. Rom. xi. 34.
Footnote 1359:
Col. ii. 3.
Footnote 1360:
1 John iii. 2.
Footnote 1361:
1 John ii. 18. 1 Peter i. 20. Acts ii. 17.
Footnote 1362:
Heb. i. 1, 2.
Footnote 1363:
Luke x. 22.
Footnote 1364:
John i. 18.
Footnote 1365:
1 Cor. xiii. 12.