REVEREND BRETHREN, THE HE Sacrament of the Eucharist has for some time been the subject of debate amongst us, and appears to be so still, in some measure; particularly with regard to the sacrificial part of it. As it is a federal rite between God and man, so it must be supposed to carry in it something that God gives to us, and something also that we give, or present, to God. These are, as it were, the two integral parts of that holy ceremony: the former may properly be called the sacramental part, and the latter, the sacrificial. Any great mistake concerning either may be of very ill consequence to the main thing: for if we either mistake the nature of God's engagements towards us, or the nature of our engagements towards God, in that sacred solemnity, we so far defeat the great ends and uses of it, and prejudice ourselves in so doing. A question was unhappily raised amongst us, about an hundred years ago, whether the material elements of the Eucharist were properly the Christian sacrifice. From thence arose some debate ; which however lasted not long, nor spread very far. But at the beginning of this present century, the same question was again brought up, and the debate revived, with some warmth; and it is not altogether extinct even at this day. Those who shall look narrowly into the heart of that dispute may see reason to judge, that a great part of it was owing to some confusion of ideas, or ambiguity of terms; more particularly, from the want of settling the definitions of sacrifice by certain rules, such as might satisfy reasonable men on both sides. How that confusion at first arose may perhaps be learned by looking back as far as to Bellarmine, about 1590, or however as far as to the Council of Trent, about thirty years higher. Before that time things were much clearer, so far as concerned this article. No body almost doubted but that the old definitions of sacrifice were right, and that spiritual sacrifice was true and proper sacrifice, yea the most proper of any. Spiritual sacrifice is St. Peter's phrasea: and it agrees with a 1 Pet. ii. 5. St. Paul's phrase of reasonable service b: and both of them fall in with our Lord's own phrase, of worshipping God in spirit and in truth c. It is serving God in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter d. It is offering him true sacrifice and direct homage, as opposed to legal and typical, in order to come at true and direct expiation, without the previous covers or shadows of legal and typical expiations, which reached only to the purifying of the flesh, not to the purging of the conscience. This kind of sacrifice called spiritual does not mean mental service only, but takes in mental, vocal, and manual, the service of the heart, mouth, and hand; all true and direct service, bodily service, as well as any other, since we ought to serve God with our bodies, as well as our souls. Such is the nature and quality of what Scripture and the ancients call spiritual sacrifice, as opposed to the outward letter. Such services have obtained the name of sacrifice ever since David's time 5, warranted by God himself, under the Old Testament and New. The Jews, before Christ and since h, have frequently used the name of sacrifice in the same spiritual sense. The very Pagans were proud to borrow the same way of speaking from Jews and Christians: so that custom of language has not run altogether on the side of material sacrifice. It may rather be said, that the custom of Christian language, not only in the New Testament, but also in the Church writers, has run on the side of spiritual sacrifice, without giving the least hint that it was not true sacrifice, or not sacrifice properly so called. St. Austin's definition of true and Christian sacrificek is well known, and need not here be repeated. He spoke the sense of the churches before him: and the Schools, after him, followed b Rom. xii. 1. c John iv. 23. See Dodwell on Instrum. Music, p. 31. Stillingfleet, Serm. xxxix. p. 602. Scot, vol. iv. Serm. iv. d Rom. vii. 6. e Heb. ix. 9, 13, 14. f Rom. xii. 1. I Cor. vi. 20. They are emphatically styled sacrifices of God, (Psal. li. 17.) as being the fittest presents or gifts to him, the most acceptable offerings. h Vid. Vitringa de vet. Synag. in Proleg. p. 40, 41. Philo passim. Justin. Mart. Dial. p. 387. 'Porphyrius de Abstin. lib. ii. sect. 34. Conf. Euseb. Præp. Evangel. lib. iv. cap. 9—14. xiii. cap. 13. Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 686. edit. Ox. Even Plato, long before Christianity, had defined sacrifice to mean a present to the Divine Majesty; not confining it, so far as appears, to material, but leaving it at large, so as to comprehend either material or spiritual. See my Review, vol. iv. p. 729. k Verum sacrificium est omne opus quod agitur ut sancta societate inhæreamus Deo, relatum scilicet ad illum finem boni quo veraciter beati esse possimus. Augustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. x. cap. 6. p. 242. tom. 7. ed. Bened. Compare my Review, vol. iv. p. 728. him in the same. Aquinas, at the head of the Schoolmen, may here speak for the rest: he determines, that a sacrifice, properly, is any thing performed for God's sole and due honour, in order to appease him. He plainly makes it a work, or service, not a material thing and by that very rule he determined, that the sacrifice of the cross was a true sacrifice; which expression implies both proper and acceptable. This notion of sacrifice prevailed in that century and in the centuries following, and was admitted by the early Reformers m; and even by Romanists also, as low as the year 1556, or yet lower. Alphonsus a Castro, of that time, a zealous Romanist, in a famous book (which between 1534 and 1556 had gone through ten or more editions) declared his full agreement with Calvin, so far as concerned the definition of true sacrifice, conformable to St. Austin's". Even Bellarmine acknowledged, above thirty years after, that some noted Doctor of the Roman Church still adhered to the same definition". So that spiritual sacrifice was not yet entirely excluded as improper, metaphorical, and nominal, among the Romanists themselves; neither was it hitherto a ruled point amongst them, that material thing was essential to the nature, notion, or definition of true and proper sacrifice. How that came about afterwards, we shall see presently. The Romanists, wanting arguments to support their mass sacrifice, thought of this pretence, among others, that either their mass must be the sacrifice of the Church, or the Church had really none and so if the Protestants resolved to throw off the mass, they would be left without a sacrifice, without an altar, without a priesthood, and be no longer a church. The Protestants had two very just answers to make, which were much : 1 Dicendum, quod sacrificium proprie dicitur aliquid factum in honorem proprie Deo debitum ad eum placandum. Et inde est quod Augustinus dicit, verum sacrificium est, &c. Christus autem, ut ibidem subditur, seipsum obtulit in passione pro nobis. Et hoc ipsum opus, quod voluntarie passionem sustinuit, Deo maxime acceptum fuit, utpote ex charitate maxime proveniens: unde manifestum est, quod passio Christi fuerit verum sacrificium. Aquin. Summ. par. iii. q. 48. m Vid. Melancthon. de Missa, p. 195. In Malachi, p. 545. tom. ii. Chemnit. Examen. part. ii. p. 137. " After reciting Austin's definition, he proceeds; Hæc Augustinus, ex quibus verbis aperte colligitur omne opus bonum quod Deo offertur, esse verum sacrificium, et hanc definitionem ipsemet Calvinus admittitex cujus verbis constat, inter nos et illum de veri sacrificii definitione convenire. Alphons. a Castro, adv. Hæres. lib. x. p. 75. edit. 1565. o Bellarmin. de Miss. lib. i. cap. 2. p. 710. P Alphons. a Castro, lib. x. p. 74. Conf. Bellarmin. de Missa, lib. i. cap. 20. the same with what the primitive Christians had before made to the Pagans, when the like had been objected to them. The first was, that Christ himself was the Church's sacrifice, considered in a passive sense, as commemorated, applied, and participated in the Eucharist. The second was, that they had sacrifices besides, in the active sense, sacrifices of their own to offer, visibly, publicly, and by sacerdotal hands, in the Eucharist which sacrifices were their prayers, and praises, and commemorations; eucharistic sacrifices, properly, though propitiatory also in a qualified sense. The Council of Trent, in 1562, endeavoured to obviate both those answers s: and Bellarmine afterwards undertook formally to confute them. The Romanists had no way left but to affirm stoutly, and to endeavour weakly to prove, that the two things which the Protestants insisted upon did neither singly, nor both together, amount to true and proper sacrifice. Here began all the subtilties and thorny perplexities which have darkened the subject ever since; and which must, I conceive, be thrown off, (together with the new and false definitions, which came in with them,) if ever we hope to clear the subject effectually, and to set it upon its true and ancient basis. I shall pass over Bellarmine's trifling exceptions to the Protestant sacrifice, (meaning the grand sacrifice,) considered in the passive sense. It is self-evident, that while we have Christ, we want neither sacrifice, altar, nor priest; for in him we have all: and if he is the head, and we the body, there is the Church. Had we no active sacrifice at all, yet so long as we are empowered, by Divine commission, to convey the blessingst of the great sacrifice a Vid. Clem. Alex. p. 688, 836. ed. Ox. Euseb. Demonstr. Evan. p. 38. Augustin. tom. iv. p. 1462. ed. Bened. Gregorius M. tom. ii. p. 472. ed. Bened. Cyrill. Alex. contr. Jul. lib. ix. r Justin Martyr, p. 14, 19, 387, 389. ed. Thirlb. Clem. Alex. 686, 836, 848, 849, 850, 860. edit. Ox. Origen. tom. ii. p. 210, 311, 191, 205, 243, 363, 418, 563. ed. Bened. Euseb. Dem. Evang. p. 20, 21, 23. Tertullian, p. 69, 188, 330. Rigalt. Cyprian. Ep. lxxvii. p. 159. ed. Bened. Hilarius, Pictav. p. 154, 228, 535. Basil. tom. iii. p. 52. ed. Bened. Chrysost. tom. v. p. 231, 316, 503. ed. Bened. Hieronym. tom. ii. p. 186, 250, 254. tom. iii. p. 15, 1122, 1420. ed. Bened. Augustin. tom. ii. p. 439. iv. p. 14, 473, 455, 527, 498, 1026, 1113. vii. p. 240. ed. Bened. and compare my Review, vol. iv. cap. 12. s Si quis dixerit in missa non offerri Deo verum et proprium sacrificium, aut quod offerri non sit aliud quam nobis Christum ad manducandum dari, anathema sit.Si quis dixerit missæ sacrificium tantum esse laudis et gratiarum actionis, aut nudam commemorationem sacrificii in cruce peracti, non autem propitiatorium, anathema sit. Concil. Trid. sess. xxii. can. 1, 3. t Blessing was a considerable part of the sacerdotal office in the Aaronical priesthood. Numb. vi. 23—27. Deut. x. 8. xxi. 5. to as many as are worthy, we therein exercise an honourable priesthood", and may be said to magnify our office. But waving that consideration at present, for the sake of brevity, I shall proceed to examine what Bellarmine has objected to our sacrifices considered in the active sense, and to inquire by what kind of logic he attempted to discard all spiritual sacrifices, under the notion of improper, metaphorical, nominal sacrifices, or, in short, no sacrifices. 1. He pleads, that Scripture opposes good works to sacrifice; as particularly in Hosea vi. 6. "I will have mercy, and not "sacrifice:" therefore good works are not sacrifice properly so called. But St. Austin long before had sufficiently obviated that pretence, by observing, that Scripture, in such instances, had only opposed one kind of sacrifice to another kind, symbolical to real, typical to true, shadow to substance. God rejected the sign, which had almost engrossed the name, and pointed out the thing signified; which more justly deserved to be called sacrifice. So it was not opposing sacrifice to no sacrifice, but legal sacrifice to evangelical. Such was St. Austin's solution of the objected difficulty and it appears to be very just and solid, sufficiently confirmed both by the Old Testament and New. : 2. Bellarmine's next pretence is, that in every sacrifice, properly so called, there must be some sensible thing offered; because St. Paul has intimated, that a priest must have somewhat to offer. Heb. viii. 3. But St. Paul says somewhat, not some sensible thing. And certainly, if a man offers prayers, lauds, good works, &c. he offers somewhat, yea and somewhat sensible too: for public prayers, especially, are open to the sense of hearing, and public performances to more senses than one. Therefore the service ficium. Augustin. de Civ. Dei, lib. x. N.B. In explication of what Austin says, quod ab omnibus, &c. it may be noted, that he did not take the vulgar language for the best, or the only rule of propriety: he observes elsewhere (de Verb. Dom. Serm. liii.) that almost all call the Sacrament, (that is, sign of the body,) the body. Pæne quidem sacramentum omnes corpus ejus dicunt. And yet he did not think that the sign was more properly the body, than the body itself, but quite otherwise. z Bellarmin. ibid. p. 711. |