to Abraham only for his refreshment. St. Paul, who in his Epistle to the Hebrews mentions many particulars of Melchizedek, as his being the "Prince of Peace," and "King of Rghteousness," and his having neither father nor mother, nor descendants, says nothing about his offering a sacrifice of bread and wine. But even if Melchizedek had offered bread and wine, his antitype Christ offered a better sacrifice, viz. himself; and as Melchizedek had no predecessors nor successors in his priesthood, neither had Christ in his priesthood, which is declared by St. Paul to have been anаpaßarov, that is to say "untransferable;" and it is a most unpardonable presumption on the part of the Romish priests daringly to assume that they are co-priests with Christ, and that they offer up the same sacrifice only in a different form. Romanists cite Mal. i. 11. "in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering:" but incense is an emblem of prayer, (Rev. v. 8.) and the pure offering is the offering of praise, (Heb. xiii. 15.) "By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.' We do not deny that the Lord's supper is pre-eminently the offering of praise; and in olden time, as is related by Justin Martyr, it was simply called "the thanksgiving," evxapioτia. Romanists next refer to the passage (Luke xxii. 19.) "This do in remembrance of me." But how different is this from saying, "offer me up a sacrifice for the sins of the quick and the dead till I come.' Our blessed Saviour merely intimated that as the feast of the passover was appointed to be a perpetual memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites by the blood of the lamb, which was the type of Christ, the true Lamb, until he should come in the flesh and suffer at Calvary; so the sacrament of the bread and wine was to be the memorial of Christ's death, by which believers are delivered from eternal wrath, until Christ should come in glory to judge the world, and reign gloriously with his saints. Romanists sometimes affirm that Aerovpyew implies that the ministers of the Gospel are to offer up propitiatory sacrifices; but we find the word Xerovрyew used in a very different sense. For instance, (Rom. xv. 27.) "If the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things their duty is to minister unto them in carnal things," "ev τους σαρκικοίς λειτουργήσαι αυτοις.” Also it is said of angels (Hebrews i. 14.) "are they not all ministering spirits ?" The Greek word is the same: but it would be absurd to

66

say that angels were to offer up the sacrifice of the mass. It is very evident that the sacrifice of the mass has no solid foundation in the Scriptures.

Fourthly, there are the strongest Scriptural passages in opposition to it. In the first place, all the Jewish sacrifices of atonement point to the sacrifice on the cross. In one only instance where the offerer was so poor that he could not bring the least living victim, was any other offering allowed to be made as an atonement for sin; and St. Paul expressly says, Heb. ix. 22, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." David (Ps. li. 7.) says, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow," referring to the sprinkling of that blood which would wash away every stain of sin. In Isaiah liii. a reference is made to the sufferings of Christ, by which believers are said to be healed. 66 'By his stripes we are healed." The Apostle Peter says, "that we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." He no where speaks of a mystical and bloodless daily sacrifice of Christ. In the Revelations, (vii. 14.) the redeemed are said to have "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," an expression which evidently denotes their complete purification by the sacrifice at Calvary. The Apostle John declares (1 Epist. i. 7.) "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin.' Hence there can be no need of any other sacrifice of atonement. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews, exterminates the mass. He says, (vii. 27.) "who needeth not daily, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this he did once, when he offered up himself." Could St. Paul have used this language, if it had been intended that Christ should be offered up every day by a hundred thousand Roman priests, upon a hundred thousand Roman altars. Again, ix. 12. "By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Again, ix. 25. "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high-priest entered into the holy place every year with the blood of others; for then must he have often suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for him shall he appear the

second time without sin unto salvation." St. Paul inseparably connects death and suffering with the sacrifice for sin; and employs the strongest possible expression, namely, a comparison with death, to shew that Christ was sacrificed once for all. But in the Romish mass there is no bloodshedding, no suffering, and no death. The great argument of St. Paul is, that the Jewish sacrifices being incomplete needed to be repeated, but that the sacrifice of Jesus being complete needed no repetition. The Apostle continues in the next chapter, x. 10. " By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all;" and again, ver. 12. "But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right-hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." How incompatible is such language with the notion that Christ is bodily present on earth every day on the Roman altars And in the next verse, 14, St. Paul declares, "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Hence there is no need of the mass; for those who are perfected by the sacrifice on the cross can need no other sacrifice. And again, in verses 17, 18. "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin."

Romanists generally take the earliest opportunity of sheltering themselves beneath the glowing figures and highflown eloquence of Chrysostom and others of the Fathers. Some of Chrysostom's expressions, however, are too strong for them. "The tongue being red with blood," for instance, would imply a bloody sacrifice. But in other passages the same Fathers speak of the true Christian sacrifice as being a sacrifice of praise; (see the extracts from the Fathers.) Romanists also refer to certain ancient liturgies said to have been composed in the days of the Apostles; the Liturgy of St. James, &c.: but the learned Dupin has clearly proved that these were forgeries. The real origin of the mass was priestly pride and priestly avarice. No doctrines have poured so much wealth into the coffers of the Romish priests as the mass and purgatory, and no doctrine has added more to their worldly importance than the mass. The grants of tithes and manors so generally made to the monks in the days of the Norman race of kings, were for the souls of the ancestors of the donors, and for their own souls, and for the souls of their successors; and at the present day

masses are a fertile source of revenue to the Roman Catholic clergy. They hold forth the mass as their glory; but it is in truth their shame; apostasy and blasphemy are indelibly stamped upon every Romish altar; most appalling is the state of that priesthood who delude the laity with a false and antichristian sacrifice, and daringly assume to themselves to be co-priests with Christ, and daily to offer him up, body, blood, soul and divinity as an offering for sin... The Church of England has entered a bold protest against the mass in her

Article XXXI.

Wherefore the sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.

Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques par M. L. E. Dupin. Utrecht. 1731.

Des liturgies faussement attribués aus apostres. Il ne faut que faire un peu de reflexion sur ce qu'on lit de la celebration de l'eucharistie dans l'epitre de Saint Paul aux Corinthiens, et sur ce que St. Justin et les premiers peres de l'eglise en ont dit, pour être persuadé que les apôtres, et ceux qui leur ont succedè, ont celebrè le sacrifice de la messe avec une grande simplicité. C'est ce qui a été remarqué par tous ceux qui ont ecrit sur les liturgies, qui sont demeurés d'accord, que la messe se celebroit dans ces premiers siécles sans beaucoup de ceremonie, et qu'on n'y recitoit qu'un petit nombre d'oraisons; mais peu a peu on y a ajouté quelques prieures, et l'on y a joint quelques ceremonies exterieures pour rendre le sacrifice plus venerable au peuple: enfin les églises ont reglé, et mis par écrit la maniére de le celebrer, et cet ce qu'on a appellè liturgies, lesquelles ayant été faites conformement aux usages des lieux, qui etoient differens, se sont trouvées aussi differentes. Et comme les hommes sont naturellement portés a changer quelque chose dans leur exterieur, l'on a ajouté de temps en temps plusieurs choses a ces liturgies.

Cette seule remarque suffit pour faire voir, que les litur. gies, qui portent le nom des apôtres, et des evangelistes, ne

sont point d'eux efféctivement; mais pour le prouver invinciblement, il n'y a qu'a les examiner l'une après l'autre.

La liturgie, ou la messe Grecque-Latine attribuée a Saint Pierre, qui a été donnée au public par Lindanus en 1589, sur un manuscrit du Cardinal Sirlet, qui n'etoit pas fort ancien, et qui a été imprimée depuis a Paris par Morel en 1595, ne peut etre du Saint Pierre pour les raisons suivantes. Il y est fait mention de Saint Sixte, de Corneille, et de Saint Cyprien. La vierge y est appellée mére de Dieu, terme qui n'a été commun, que depuis que l'erreur de Nestorius a été condamnée. Le canon de la messe Latine, que Saint Gregoire dit avoir été composé par un scholastique, c'est a dire par un homme savant du cinquiéme siécle, y est inserè tout entier, elle contient des oraisons tirées du sacramentaire de Saint Gregoire, et de liturgies de Saint Basile, et de Saint Chrysostome. On y prie pour le patriarche, terme inconnu avant la fin du quatriéme siécle de l'eglise, et pour les tres religieux Empereurs. Enfin si cette liturgie eut été de S. Pierre, l'eglise Romaine s'en seroit servie, et elle n'auroit pas été inconnue pendant tant de siécles. Ces raisons ont fait dire au savant Cardinal Bona, que cette liturgie etoit supposée, et qu'elle avoit été apparemment composée par quelque Grec latinisé, parcequ'elle est prise en partie de la liturgie des Grecs, et en partie de celle des Latins, et qu'on lui a donné le nom de liturgie de Saint Pierre, ou afin qu'elle eut plus d'autorité, ou parcequ'elle contenoit une grande partie de la liturgie de l'eglise Romaine.

La messe des Ethiopiens, qui porte le nom de Saint Matthieu, est encore visiblement supposée. On y prie pour les Papes, pour les rois, pour les patriarches, et pour les Archevéques. Les douze apôtres y sont invoqués. On y fait memoire des quatre Evangelistes, il y est parle des synodes de Nicée, de Constantinople, et d'Ephése. On y chante le symbole de Nicée avec la particule Filioque. On y fait mention de Saint Athanase, de Saint Gregoire, et de Saint Basile de l'Eprete, du nombre d'or, du Trisagion. Ce qui fait voir que liturgie est tres nouvelle.

Il faut porter le même jugement de la liturgie de Saint Marc, donnée par le Cardinal Sirlet, et imprimée a Paris par Morel, on y trouve le mot de Consubstantiel et le Trisagion, on y prie pour le roi, et pour Saint Marc même, il y est fait mention des calices, des diacres, des sousdiacres, des chantres, des moines, des religieuses, &c. Choses qui la convainquent de nouveanté.