"In the priest Melchisedec we see prefigured the sacrament of the Christian sacrifice, the holy Scriptures declaring: Melchisedec, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the most high God, and he blessed Abraham. (Gen. xiv.) And that he bore the resemblance of Christ, the Psalmist announces: Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedec. (Ps. cix.) This order thus comes and descends from that sacrifice; that Melchisedec was the priest of the Most High; that he offered bread and wine; and that he blessed Abraham. And who was so much a priest of the most high God, as our Lord Jesus Christ? He offered sacrifice to God the Father; he offered the same as did Melchisedec,—that is, bread and wine; his own body and blood: and the blessing given to Abraham, now applies to our people. But, in the book of Genesis, that the blessing given to Abraham might be properly celebrated, the representation of the sacrifice of Christ, appointed in bread and wine, precedes it; which our Lord, perfecting and fulfilling it, himself offered in bread and wine; and thus he, who is the plenitude, fulfilled the truth of the prefigured image." Ibid. p. 105. He afterwards adds: "If Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, be himself the high priest of his Father; and if he first offered himself a sacrifice to him, and commanded the same to be done in remembrance of him; then that priest truly stands in the place of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and then offers in the Church a true and complete sacrifice to God the Father, doing what he ordained. For the whole discipline of religion and of truth is subverted, if that which was commanded be not faithfully complied with." Ibid. p. 109.

St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, mentions the various prayers and ceremonies which accompany our sacrifice of the altar, and adds: "When this spiritual sacrifice is ended, and this unbloody worship over the victim of propitiation, we supplicate God, for the common peace of the Churches, for the tranquillity of the world, for kings, for their armies and their allies, for the sick and the afflicted, and in a word, for all who want assistance. Again, when we offer this sacrifice, we

commemorate those who have departed this world before us. We offer up that Christ who was sacrificed for our sins, propitiating him, who is so merciful, for them and for us." He proceeds to the Lord's prayer, which is recited in the mass, and dwells on its several clauses; and then prescribes the reverential manner, in which the body and blood of Christ are to be taken. Catech. Mystag. v, n. viii, ix, x, p. 327–8.—See page 218.

St. Ambrose, commenting on the appearance of the angel to Zacharias (Luke i), says: "It were to be wished that, while we burn incense on our altars, and offer sacrifice, the angel would assist, and become visible to us. That he does assist, cannot be doubted, while Christ is there, while Christ is immolated. For Christ, our pasch, is sacrificed." (1 Cor. v, 7.) L. 1 Evang. Luc. c. 1. T. i. p. 1275.

In a letter to his sister Marcellina, giving an account of some disturbances at Milan, when an attempt was made to seize the Church, he relates: "The next day, which was Sunday, after the reading and sermon, when I was explaining the creed, word was brought that officers were sent to seize the Portian church, and that part of the people were flocking thither. I continued to discharge my duty, and began mass: but as I was offering, I was informed that the people had laid hands on an Arian priest. This made we weep, and I prayed to God in the midst of the offering, that no blood might be shed in this quarrel." Ep. xiv, Classis i, T. 11, p. 853. Having heard from the Emperor Theodosius of the victory which he had gained over the tyrant Eugenius, Ambrose writes to him: "I took your letter with me to the church: I laid it on the altar, and, whilst I offered sacrifice, I held it in my hand, that by my voice you might speak, and your august letter perform with me the sacerdotal office." Ibid. p. 1021.

As the mass has just been mentioned in a quotation from St. Ambrose, I will here subjoin a passage, on the subject, from the learned and pious Cardinal Bona, who flourished in the seventeenth century. is an epistle of Pius I, acknowledged to be genuine, written about the year 166 to the

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There

bishop of Vienne, in the opening of which he thus speaks: Our sister Euprepia, as you well recollect, made over her house to the poor, where we dwell and celebrate mass.'" Conc. Gen. T. 1, p. 576. A letter also from Pope Cornelius to another bishop of the same city, written about the year 254, remarks that, on account of the persecutions, the Christians could not publicly "celebrate mass." Ibid. p. 681. In the fourth century, St. Ambrose, writing to his sister, mentions the mass, as likewise in his thirty-fourth discourse: "I exhort you, you that are near the Church, and can do it without great inconvenience, to hear mass daily." T. 2, in Append. p. 425. In his preparatory prayer before mass, he says: "Grant me thy grace, on this day and on every other, with a pure mind and clean heart, to celebrate the solemn service of mass."* Ibid. p. 335. "St. Augustin and other ancient fathers use the same expression, and they use it as if it were common and generally received at the time." L. Rerum Lit. c. iii, p. 17. Edit. Paris, 1678. In this fourth century various councils were held, which in plain terms speak of the Christian sacrifice.

The council of Ancyra,+ against such priests who, in the times of persecution, had shewn great weakness, enacts: “That they be not deprived of their stations; but that they be not allowed to offer, nor to address the people, nor to perform any priestly functions." Can. 1. Conc. Gen. T. 1, p. 1455. "Country

Council of Neocæsarea.‡

priests, in the presence of the bishop or priests of the city, cannot offer, nor give the sanctified bread, nor present the chalice." Ibid. Can. xiii, p. 1483.

Council of Nice. "The holy synod has been informed, that, in some places and cities, the deacons present the eucharist to the priests; a thing which no canon nor custom has taught that they, who have themselves no power to offer, should present

The two works quoted by Cardinal Bona, as the works of St. Ambrose, are not allowed, by the learned, to be his, though of some ancient author.

This council, held about the year 314, consisted of bishops from all the principal sees of the east, to the number of at least 118. They enacted twentyfive canons for the establishment of discipline.

This council was called soon after that of Ancyra, and consisted of nearly the same bishops. VOL. II.-No. 4.

the body of Christ to those who possess that power." Can. xviii, Conc. Gen. T. ii, p. 38.

The council of Laodicea,* having established certain rules to be observed in the service of the Church, adds: "And after the priests have given the kiss of peace to the bishop, the laity must do the same one to the other, and thus the holy offering be completed: but the ministers alone may approach the altar, and there communicate." Ibid. Can. xix, T. i, p. 1499.

The second council of Carthaget enacts, that if any priest, having been reprimanded by his bishop, withdraw from his communion, and "offer sacrifice privately," erecting altar against altar, contrary to established discipline, he be deprived of his office. Ibid. Can. viii, T. p. 1161.

We might add innumerable other passages from the fathers, but those which we have quoted will suffice to show what was the faith of the primitive ages, concerning the sacrifice of the new law. The language which these early writers use, the words sacrifice, victim, immolation, altar, &c., are plainly indicative of the belief that in the eucharista true sacrifice was offered to God.

The same truth is gathered from the ancient liturgies which have been transmitted to us; those of St. James, St. Clement, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and the Catecheses of St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, all of which contain expressions which show evidently, that in the eucharist a real sacrifice was offered to God. Hence Calvin has not hesitated to declare, that the ancients cannot be excused for having "imitated rather the Israelitic mode of sacrificing, than the form ordained by Christ." Who was a better witness of what Christ ordained; Calvin, who came to light in the sixteenth century, or Clement, the disciple of St. Peter, with SS. Cyril, Basil, Chrysostom, &c., who flourished twelve hundred years before Calvin made his appearance?

*This council met about the end of the fourth century, (in 396 or 399), and has left us sixty canons, which have ever been held in the greatest estimation.

This council was called by Genethlius, bishop of Carthage, who presided at it, in 390. It enacted thirteen canons, respecting the celibacy of bishops, priests and deacons, and other points of discipline. Inst. Lib. iv, c. xviii.

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We will here quote the words of the liturgy of St. James. This liturgy is called also that of Jerusalem, and the substance of it may be traced to St. James, its first bishop. It is the most ancient of all the liturgies, and has been commonly used in the Churches of Syria. In the judgment of able critics, it is the liturgy which St. Cyril of Jerusalem explained in his Catecheses. "Have mercy on us, O God! the Father Almighty, and send thy Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, equal in dominion to thee and to thy Son-who descended in the likeness of a dove on our Lord Jesus Christ-who descended on the holy apostles in the likeness of tongues of fire ;—that, coming, he may make this bread, the lifegiving body—the saving body—the heavenly body-the body giving health to souls and bodies the body of our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and eternal life to those who receive it. Amen. And may make what is mixed in this chalice, the blood of the new testament— the saving blood-the life-giving blood-the heavenly blood-the blood giving health to souls and bodies-the blood of our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, &c. Amen. Wherefore, we offer to thee, O Lord, this tremendous and unbloody sacrifice, for thy holy places which thou hast enlightened by the manifestation of Christ, thy Son, &c. Renaudot, Liturgiarum Orientalum Collectio, T. ii, pp. 33, 34. Paris, 1716. Grant thy blessing, O Lord, again and again, through this holy oblation and propitiatory sacrifice which is offered to God, the Father; is sanctified, completed, and perfected by the descent of the Holy Ghost."

In vain would it be objected that the language of the fathers and the liturgies alludes to the spiritual sacrifice of prayer, thanksgiving, &c., which accompanies the celebration of the eucharist. For they speak of a sacrifice which can be offered only by the priests of the Church, and consequently do not refer to that offering of prayer, &c., which is made by all, whether clergy or laity. Moreover it cannot be supposed that language as explicit as that of the liturgy and fathers just quoted, was ever applied to sacrifices in an improper sense.

We gather from the very name by which the officiating minister in the eucharistic rite has always been designated, that he offers a true sacrifice. The language of the Greek Church styles him peus, that of the Latin Church, sacerdos; words which in English are rendered by the term priest, and have been used from the very origin of Christianity, to express a minister of Christ. That in the New Testament the words and sacerdos were not used to designate the priests of the new law, is easily accounted for, by the necessity under which the sacred writers were, for the sake of distinction, of using terms different from those which were universally applied to the Jewish priesthood and sacrifices. But when the Hebrew rites were abolished, by the destruction of Jerusalem, the ecclesiastial writers immediately subsequent to that period, adopted the use of the words us and sacerdos. Polycrates tells us that St. John, the apostle, wore the pontifical lamina, and performed the functions of a priest; Tertullian, De Præscrip., Dionysius, in his Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, St. Cyprian, in his Epistles, and innumerable others make use of the same term.

Bishop White (Protestant), very illogically observes that, if the inspired authors of the New Testament avoided the use of this word for the reason we have mentioned, "it is strange that the apostolic age should have passed away, without any either scriptural hint or tradition of the change that was to take place, on the destruction of the Jewish polity." But we do not perceive how the absence of testimony on this point, should be more strange than in reference to the abolition of the law, which was enacted by the apostles, regarding abstinence from blood and things strangled, and which was abrogated at a later period. One thing however is strange, that while the language of ecclesiastical antiquity proclaims the doctrine of a sacrifice, in the eucharistic institution, modern sectarists should undertake to assert that it is an error to acknowledge such a sacrifice.*

W.

*For the substance of this article we have con sulted principally White's Confutation of Church of Englandism, Butler's Lectures, and Faith of Catholics.

NO. III.

FTER having employed three discourses

it may seem but little proportioned to the relative value of things, that, into one, I should endeavor to compress whatever regards the main purpose of them all. For you have not forgot, I trust, that I reserved to this my last discourse, to treat of the offices and ceremonies of Holy Week in a religious point of view; or, as I explained myself, to consider them "as intended to excite virtuous and devout impressions."

These two epithets must not be considered as inadvertently placed; for they represent two divisions of my subject, and consequently of my discourse. I consider the one as expressive of the external, and the other of the internal, influence of these institutions. Virtue is, indeed, an inward principle, but strongly regulates our relations with others; devotion is a feeling of whose extent and intenseness God and our own souls can alone be conscious. Virtuous conduct may be noticed in communities or masses of men; while devotion is properly an individual possession. I will endeavor to show how both have been, and may be, nourished by the solemn and detailed commemoration of next week.

Who shall gainsay, that men are powerfully acted on by formal and external acts that represent inward feelings, although even the latter be not excited? In times of bloody, and often causeless, strife, who knows not, that homage and fealty, solemnly given, bound men often to loyalty and liege bearing, more almost than principle? It was not perhaps, sometimes, that the proud baron, or the monarch, who held a fief, felt much the religious obligation of an oath; it was not that they feared punishment for its violation, but there was a solemn force in the very act of homage, in the placing of hand within hand, and plighting faith upon

the bended knee, and with the attendance of a court.

Far more worth than all this circumstance, would have been a stronger inward conviction of obligation; but such is man, that the determinations of his fickle heart require some outward steadying by formal declarations. Who knows not, how much the coronation ceremony has done for fastening the crown upon the heads of kings; how the pretender to a nation hath fought bloody battles to have it done on him in the proper place; and how maidens have fought with knightly prowess, that the rightful owner should, in his turn, receive it? And has not the wavering fidelity of subjects been secured by the fear of raising a hand against God's anointed? And in all this, which is not of divine or scriptural institution, who sees anything less than wholesome, as conducing to the strengthening of sentiments in themselves virtuous and publicly useful?

In some respects similar is the institution of a season set apart for outwardly exhibiting those feelings, which should ever animate the Christian soul towards his crucified Redeemer. It must be greatly conducive to public virtue, to appoint a time when all men, even the wicked, must humble themselves, and act virtue. It is a homage to the moral power, an acknowledgment, at least, of its right to rule; a recognition of a public voice in virtue, which can stand on the highway, and command even her enemies to obey her laws. It is, moreover, a compulsion to thought: many a virtuous life hath been led in earnest, whose beginning had been in mockery and scorn. You have always gained much upon the soul, when you have brought the behavior to what becomes it. Now, all this hath the setting aside one week to the commemoration of Christ's passion effected; because being not merely proposed to the mind, but represented

in such a way as to oblige men to attend, with certain proprieties of deportment, and acting moreover on the public feelings of society, it produces a restraint and a tone of conduct which must prove beneficial. But examples will illustrate this better than words.

St. Bernard clearly intimates, that the most abandoned, and even those who had no idea of an effectual reform, were yet compelled, by public decency, to abstain from vice during the entire Lent, and more especially during the concluding season. "The lovers of the world," he exclaims, in his second sermon on the resurrection, “the enemies of the cross of Christ, through this time of Lent, long after Easter, that they, alas! may indulge in pleasure. Wretches! thus honor ye Christ whom ye have received? Ye have prepared a dwelling for him at his coming, confessing your sins with groans, chastening your bodies and giving alms, and, behold, ye traitorously betray him, or force him to go out by readmitting your former wickedness. Now, should Easter require less reverence than Passiontide? But it is plain that ye honor neither. For if ye suffered with him, ye could reign with him; if with him ye died, with him ye would rise again. But now, only, from the custom of this time, and from a certain similation, hath that humiliation proceeded, which spiritual exultation followeth not."* He then exhorts all to perseverance in the course of virtue which they had assumed. But it is evident, from these words, that the scandal of vice was arrested by the public solemnization of this time.

It has been the custom, too, during these days, consecrated by the remembrance of Christ's passion, for sovereigns to lay aside their state, and proclaim, before their subjects, the equality of all men when viewed upon Mount Calvary. When the Emperor Heraclius recovered from king Chosroes the relics of Golgotha, and bore them himself in triumph to the holy city, old historians tell us how, arrived at the gate, he found himself, of a sudden, unable to proceed. Then the patriarch, Zachary, who was beside him,

* De Resurr. Dei, Ser. ii, page 168: Par. 1602.

spoke to him saying, "You are bearing the cross shod and crowned, and clad in costly robes; but He who bore it here before you, was barefoot, crowned with thorns, and meanly attired." Upon hearing which words, the emperor cast aside his shoes and crown, and all other regal state, and entered the city to the Church.

The spirit of this reproof was fully felt in later times through every Christian country. In many, no one is allowed to go in a carriage during the last days of Holy Week; at Naples this is yet observed, and the king and royal family, for that time, are reduced, as to outward pomp, to the level of their subjects. "Now," says a modern German author, speaking of Lent, "the songs of joy gave place to the seven penitential psalms; the plentiful board was exchanged for strict temperance, and the superfluity given to the poor. Instead of the music of the bower and hall, the chaunt of 'Miserere' was heard, with the eloquent warnings of the preacher. Forty days' fast overcame the people's lust; kings, princes, and lords were humbled with their domestics, and dressed in black instead of their gorgeous habits. In Holy Week, the mourning was still more strongly expressed; the Church became more solemn; the fast stricter; no altar was decorated; no bell sounded, and no pompous equipage rolled in the streets. Princes and vassals, rich and poor, went on foot, in habits of deep mourning. On Palm Sunday, after reading out of the History of Christ, every one bore his palm, and nothing else was heard but the sufferings of the Messiah. After receiving the blessed sacrament on Maundy Thursday, bishops, priests, kings, and princes, proceeded to wash the feet of the poor, and to serve them at table."

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In the life of that most amiable and holy princess, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, we have the following account of her practices during these days: "Nothing can express the fervor, love, and pious veneration, with which she celebrated those holy days, on which the Church, by ceremonies so touching, and so expressive, recalls to the mind of the faithful, the sorrowful and unspeaka

"Vogt Rhenische Geschichte," ap. Digby Mo

rus, p. 170.