ART. a manner as the Heathens had; yet both Clemens RomaXXXI. nus, Ignatius, and all the fucceeding writers of the Church, do frequently mention the oblations that they made: and in the ancient liturgies they did with particular prayers offer the bread and wine to God, as the great Creator of all things; those were called the gifts or offerings which were offered to God, in imitation of Abel, who offered the fruits of the earth, in a facrifice to God. Both Juftin Martyr, Irenæus, the Conftitutions, and all the ancient liturgies have very exprefs words relating to this. Another respect, in which the eucharift is called a facrifice, is, because it is a commemoration and a reprefentation to God of the facrifice that Chrift offered for us on the cross : in which we claim to that, as to our expiation, and feaft upon it as our peace-offering, according to that ancient notion, that covenants were confirmed by a facrifice, and were concluded in a feaft on the facrifice. Upon these accounts we do not deny but that the eucharift may be well called a facrifice: but ftill it is a commemorative facrifice, and not propitiatory: that is, we do not diftinguish the facrifice from the facrament; as if the Prieft's confecrating and confuming the elements, were in an efpecial manner a facrifice any other way, than as the communicating of others with him is one: nor do we think that the confecrating and confuming the elements, is an act that does reconcile God to the quick and the dead: we confider it only as a federal act of profeffing our belief in the death of Christ, and of renewing our baptifmal covenant with him. The virtue or effects of this are not general; they are limited to thofe who go about this piece of worship fincerely and devoutly; they, and they only, are concerned in it, who go about it: and there is no special propitiation made by this fervice. It is only an act of devotion and obedience in thofe that eat and drink worthily; and though in it they ought to pray for the whole body of the Church, yet thofe their prayers do only prevail with God, as they are devout interceffions, but not by any peculiar virtue in this action.

On the other hand, the doctrine of the Church of Rome is, that the eucharift is the highest act of homage and honour that creatures can offer up to the Creator, as being an oblation of the Son to the Father; fo that whosoever procures a mass to be faid, procures a new piece of honour to be done to God, with which he is highly pleased; and for the fake of which he will be reconciled to all that are concerned in the procuring fuch maffes to be faid; whether they be ftill on earth, or if they are now in purgatory:

gatory: and that the Prieft, in offering and confuming ART. this facrifice, performs a true act of priesthood by recon- XXXI. ciling finners to God. Somewhat was already said of this on the head of Purgatory.

It seems very plain by the inftitution, that our Saviour, as he bleffed the facrament, faid, Take, eat: St. Paul calls it a communion of the body and blood of the Lord; and a partaking of the Lord's table: and he, through his whole difcourfe of it, fpeaks of it as an action of the Church and of all Chriftians; but does not fo much as by a hint intimate any thing peculiar to the Prieft: fo that all that the Scripture has delivered to us concerning it, represents it as an action of the whole body, in which the Prieft has no special share but that of officiating. In the Epiftle to the Hebrews there is a very long difcourfe concerning Sacrifices and Priefts, in order to the explaining of Chrift's being both Prieft and Sacrifice. There a Prieft ftands for a perfon called and confecrated to offer fome living facrifice, and to flay it, and to make reconciliation of finners to God by the fhedding, offering, or fprinkling the blood of the facrifice. This was the notion that the Jews had of a Prieft; and the Apoftle, defigning to prove that the death of Chrift was a true facrifice, brings this for an argument, that there was to be another priesthood after the order of Melchifedec. He begins the fifth chapter with fettling the notion of a Prieft, according to the Jewish ideas and then he goes on to prove that Chrift was fuch a Prieft, called of Heb. v. 1Ò. God and confecrated. But in this fenfe he appropriates the priesthood of the New Difpenfation fingly to Chrift, in oppofition to the many Priefts of the Levitical Law: and ch. vii. 43, they truly were many Priefts, because they were not fuffered 24 to continue, by reafon of death: but this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.

ver. 27.

It is clear from the whole thread of that discourse, that, in the strictest fenfe of the word, Chrift himself is the only Prieft under the Gofpel; and it is alfo no less evident that his death is the only Sacrifice, in oppofition to the many oblations that were under the Mofaical Law, to take away fin; which appears very plain from thefe words, Who needeth not daily, as thofe High-Priefs, to offer up facrifice, firft for his own fins, and then for the people; for this he did once, when he offered up himfelf. He oppofes that to the annual expiation made by the Jewish High-Priest, Chrift entered in once to the holy place, having made redemption for us by his own blood and having laid down that general maxim, that without fhedding of blood there was no remiffion, ch. ix, 22. he fays, Chrift was offered once to bear the fins of many: he ver. 28.

:

puts

ART. puts a queftion to fhew that all facrifices were now to XXXI. ceafe; When the worshippers are once purged, then would Heb. x. 2. not facrifices ceafe to be offered? And he ends with this, ver. 11, 12. as a full conclufion to that part of his difcourfe: Every

Prieft flands daily miniftering and offering oftentimes the fame facrifices, which can never take away fin: but this man, after he had offered up one facrifice for fins, for ever fat down on the right hand of God. Here are not general words, ambiguous expreffions, or remote hints, but a thread of a full and clear discourse, to fhew that, in the strict sense of the words, we have but one Prieft, and likewife but one Sacrifice under the Gofpel: therefore how largely foever those words of Prieft or Sacrifice may have been used; yet, according to the true idea of a propitiatory Sacrifice, and of a Prieft that reconciles finners to God, they cannot be applied to any acts of our worship, or to any order of men upon earth. Nor can the value and virtue of any inflituted act of religion be carried, by any inferences or reasonings, beyond that which is put in them by the inftitution: and therefore fince the inftitution of this facrament has nothing in it, that gives us this idea of it, we cannot fet any fuch value upon it: and fince the reconciling finners to God, and the pardoning of fin, are free acts of his grace, it is therefore a high prefumption in any man to imagine they can do this by any act of theirs, without powers and warrants for it from Scripture. Nor can this be pretended to without affuming a moft facrilegious fort of power over the attributes of God: therefore all the virtue that can be in the facrament is, that we do therein gratefully commemorate the fucrifice of Chrift's death, and, by renewed acts of faith, prefent that to God as our facrifice, in the memorial of it, which he himself has appointed: by fo doing we renew our covenant with God, and fhare in the effects of that death which he fuffered for us. All the ancient liturgies have this as a main part of the office, that being mindful of the death of Chrift, or commemorating it, they offered up the gifts.

This is the language of Juftin Martyr, Irenæus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and of all the following writers. They do compare this facrifice to that of Melchifedec, who of fered bread and wine: and though the text imports only his giving bread and wine to Abraham and his followers, yet they applied that generally to the oblation of bread and wine that was made on the altar: but this fhews that they did not think of any facrifice made by the offering up of Chrift. It was the bread and the wine only which they thought the Priests of the Chriftian religion did offer

to

Minut. in

fum.

to God. And therefore it is remarkable, that when the ART. Fathers answer the reproach of the Heathens, who XXXI. charged them with irreligion and impiety for having no facrifices among them, they never answer it by saying, that they offered up a facrifice of ineftimable value to God; which must have been the first answer that could have occurred to a man poffeffed with the ideas of the Church of Rome. On the contrary, Juftin Martyr, in his Apology, Apol. 2. fays, They had no other facrifices but prayers and praifes: and in his Dialogue with Trypho he confeffes, that Chrif tians offer to God oblations, according to Malachi's prophecy, when they celebrate the eucharift, in which they commemorate the Lord's death. Both Athenagoras and Minutius Felix Leg. pro juftify the Chriftians for having no other facrifices but Chrift. pure hearts, clean confciences, and a ftedfaft faith. Octav. Origen and Tertullian refute the fame objection in the Lib. viii. fame manner: they set the prayers of Chriftians in oppo- con. Celfition to all the facrifices that were among the Heathens. Tert. Apol. Clemens of Alexandria and Arnobius write in the fame c. ftrain; and they do all make ufe of one topic, to juftify Clem. their offering no facrifices, that God, who made all things, Aroob. and to whom all things do belong, needs nothing from lib. vii. his creatures. To multiply no more quotations on this head, Julian in his time objected the fame thing to the Chriftians, which fhews that there was then no idea of a facrifice among them; otherwife he who knew their doctrine and rites, had either not denied fo pofitively as he did, their having facrifices; or at least he had fhewed how improperly the eucharift was called one. When Cyril of Cyr. Al. Alexandria, towards the middle of the fifth century, came to answer this, he infifts only upon the inward and fpiritual facrifices that were offered by Chriftians; which were fuitable to a pure and fpiritual effence, such as the Divinity was, to take pleasure in; and therefore he fets that in oppofition to the facrifices of beafts, birds, and of all other things what foever: nor does he fo much as mention, even in a hint, the facrifice of the eucharift; which fhews that he did not confider that as a facrifice that was propitiatory.

These things do fo plainly fet before us the ideas that the first ages had of this facrament, that to one who confiders them duly, they do not leave fo much as a doubt in this matter. All that they may fay in homilies, or treatifes of piety, concerning the pure-offering that, according to Malachi, all Chriftians offered to God in the facrament, concerning the facrifice, and the unbloody facrifice of Chriftians, must be understood to relate to the prayers and

I i

thankf

Strom.l.vii.

lib. x.

cont. Jul.

ART. thanksgivings that accompanied it, to the commemoration XXXI. that was made in it of the facrifice offered once upon the crofs, and finally to the oblation of the bread and wine, which they fo often compare both to Abel's facrifice, and to Melchifedec's offering bread and wine.

It were eafy to enlarge further on this head, and from all the rituals of the ancients to fhew, that they had none of those ideas that are now in the Roman Church. They had but one altar in a church, and probably but one in a city they had but one communion in a day at that altar: fo far were they from the many altars in every church, and the many maffes at every altar, that are now in the Roman Church. They did not know what folitary maffes were, without a communion. All the liturgies and all the writings of the ancients are as exprefs in this matter as is poflible. The whole constitution of their worthip and difcipline fhews it. Their worship concluded always with the eucharift: fuch as were not capable of it, as the catechumens, and those who were doing public penance for their fins, affifted at the more general parts of the worship; and fo much of it was called their mafs, because they were difmiffed at the conclufion of it. When that was done, then the faithful stayed, and did partake of the eucharift; and at the conclufion of it they were likewife difmiffed; from whence it came to be called the mafs of the faithful. The great rigour of penance was thought to confift chiefly in this, that fuch penitents might not stay with the faithful to communicate. And though this feems to be a practice begun in the third century, yet both from Juftin Martyr and Tertullian it is evident, that all the faithful did conftantly communicate. There is a canon, among those which go under the name of the Apostles, againft fuch as came and affifted in the other parts of the fervice, and did not partake of the eucharift: the fame thing was decreed by the Council of tioch. Can. Antioch; and it appears by the Conftitutions, that a Deacon was appointed to fee that no man fhould go out, and poft. 1. viii. a Subdeacon was to fee that no woman fhould go out, during the oblation. The Fathers do frequently allude to the word communion, to fhew that the facrament was to be common to all. It is true, in St. Chryfoftom's time, the zeal that the Chriftians of the former ages had to communicate often, began to flacken; fo that they had thin communions, and few communicants: against which that Father raifes himself with his pathetic eloquence, in words which do fhew that he had no notion of folitary maffes, or of the lawfulness of them: and it is very evi

Can. 9. Apoft.

Con. An

2.

Conft. A

cap. 11.

Hom. 3. in

Ep. ad Eph. lib. ii.

dent,