A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.  

Imprimatur,  
Guil. Needham. October, 24. 1687.   
LONDON, Printed for Brabazon Aylmer, at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, MDCLXXXVIII.   

The CONTENTS.  

THE charge of the Church of England against the sacrifice of the Mass. page 2, 3.  
Sect. 1. The sacrifice of the Mass founded upon two great Errors, the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the Opinion that Christ offered up himself to God at his last Supper. p. 5 to 11.  
Sect. 2. No Scripture ground for the sacrifice of the Mass. p. 11 to 41 

Melchisedec's offering Bread and Wine, Gen. 14.18. considered. p. 13  
Of the Melchisedecian Priesthood. p. 16  
The figure of the Paschal Lamb Examined. p. 19  
The prophecy of Malachy Examined. p. 22  
Other places out of the Old Testament Answered. p. 25  
An Answer to the places out of the New Testament. p. 28  
Plain places of Scripture against the Mass-sacrifice out of the Epistle to the Hebrews. p. 33  
Their Evasions to them Refuted. p. 35    
Sect. 3. The sacrifice of the Mass has no just claim to Antiquity. p. 41 to 70 

The Eucharist called a sacrifice by the Ancients upon account 

1. Of the Oblations there made. p. 44  
2. Of the Religious Acts there performed. p. 47  
3. As it is Commemorative and Representative of the Crosssacrifice. p. 49    
Christ is offered mentally by every Communicant. p. 52    
How the Minister may be said to offer Christ to God in the Eucharist. p. 53  
General Remarks out of Antiquity to prove the Eucharist no proper sacrifice. p. 54 to 70 

1. From the Christian Apologists. p. 54  
2. From the Epithets they give to it when they call it a sacrifice. p. 58  
3. From the Novelty of private Masses which are a consequence of this Doctrine. p. 60  
4. From the Canon of the Mass itself. p. 63  
5. From the new form of Ordination in the R. C. p. 67    
Sect. 4. The Mass-sacrifice in itself Unreasonable and Absurd, and has a great many Errors involved in it. p. 70 to 95 

1. It makes an external visible sacrifice of what is perfectly invisible. p. 70  
2. It makes a proper sacrifice without a proper sacrificing Act. p. 71  
Their differences about the Essence of the sacrifice. p. 73  
3. It makes a living Body a sacrifice. p. 76  
4. The making it truly propitiatory is a great Error, and inconsistent with itself. p. 77  
5. How it is Impetratory. p. 80  
6. The making it a sacrifice truly Propitiatory, and yet only Applicatory of another is a great Absurdity. p. 82  
7. The making it the same sacrifice with That of the Cross, and yet not to have the same virtue and efficacy is strange and unaccountable. p. 84  
8. Making Christ, as they do, the true offerer of this sacrifice hath great Absurdities. p. 87  
9 The Offering this sacrifice to Redeem Souls out of Purgatory, one of the greatest Errors and Abuses that belong to it. p. 88  
Of the Ancient Oblations for the Dead. p. 90 to 95  
10. The sacrifice of the Mass must be either unnecessary or else must reflect on the sacrifice of the Cross. p. 95  
The Conclusion and the Reason why no more of the Errors belonging to it are added.      

ERRATA.  

PAge 12. line â antepenult. for desire read derive.  
PAge 39 Line 8. for the read that.  
PAge 68 To Concil. Carthag. in margin add 4.  
PAge 72. Line 8. for Maunday-Thursday read Good-Fryday.    

A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.  
THE Sacrifice of the Mass is the most considerable part of Worship in the Roman Church, It is their Juge sacrificium, their daily and continual Offering, and the principal Thing in which their Religion does consist; It is, they tell us, of the greatest profit and advantage to all persons, and I am sure their Priests make it so to themselves, for by this alone a great number of them get their Live, by making merchandise of the Holy Sacrament, and by selling the Blood of Christ at a dearer rate than Judas once did; The saying of Masses keeps the Church of Rome more Priests in pay, than any Prince in Christendom can maintain Soldiers; and it has raised more Money by them, than the richest Bank or Exchequer in the World was ever owner of; 'tis indeed the truest Patrimony of their Church, and has enriched it more than any thing else; it was that which founded their greatest Monasteries, and their Richest Abbeys, and it had well nigh brought all the Estates of this Kingdom into the Church, had not the Statutes of Mortmain put a check to it; The Donation of Constantine were it never so true, and the Grants of Charles and Pepin were they never so large, and the Gifts of all their Benefactors put together, are infinitely outdone by it; the Gain of it has been so manifestly great that one cannot but upon that account a little suspect its Godliness, but yet if it could fairly be made out to be a true part of Religion, it were by no means to be rejected for that accidental though shameful abuse of it: It is accounted by them the greatest, and the most useful and comfortable part of Christian Worship, and if it be so, it is a great defect in us that want it; they charge us very high for being without it, without a Sacrifice, which no Religion (they tell us) in the World ever was before: and one amongst them of great Learning, and some temper in other things, yet upon this occasion asks, whether it can be doubted, where there is no Sacrifice, there can be any Religion 
† An dubitari potest ubi nullam peculiare Sacrisiciam, ibi ne Religionem quidem esse posse? Canus in loc. Theol. l. 12. p. 813. ? We on the other side account it a very great corruption of the Eucharist, to turn that which is a Sacrament to be received by us into a Sacrifice to be offered to God, and there being no Foundation for any such thing in Scripture, but the whole ground of it being an Error and mistake, as we shall see anon, and it being a most bold and daring presumption, to pretend properly to Sacrifice Christ's body again which implies no less then to Murder and Crucify him; we therefore call it a Blasphemous Fable 
† See Article 31. of the 39 Articles of Religion. , and as it is made use of to deceive people into the vain hopes of receiving benefit by the Communion without partaking of it, and a true pardon of sin by way of price, and recompense is attributed to it, and it is made as truly propitiatory as Christ's sacrifice upon the Cross, both for the dead and living, and for that purpose is scandalously bought and sold, so that many are hereby cheated not only of their money but of their souls too, it is to be feared, who trust too much to this easy way of having a great many Masses said for them, and because when the priest pretends to do those two great things in the Mass, to turn the Bread and Wine into the very substance of Christ's Body and Blood, and then to offer Christ up again to his Father as truly as he offered himself upon the cross, (which are as great as the greatest works which ever God did at the very Creation and Redemption of the World) yet that he really does no such thing as he than vaunts and boasts of; for these Reasons we deem it no less than a dangerous deceit 
† Ibid. .  
These are high charges on both sides, and it concerns those who make them to be well assured of the grounds of them. And here I cannot but passionately resent the sad state of Christianity, which will certainly be very heavy upon those who have been the cause of it, when the corruptions of it are so great, and the divisions so wide about that which is one of the most sacred and the most useful parts of it, the Blessed Eucharist; which is above any other the most sadly depraved and perverted, as if the Devil had hereby shown his utmost malice and subtlety, to poison one of the greatest Fountains of Christianity, and to make that which should yield the Waters of Life be the Cup of destruction. That blessed Sacrament which was designed to unite Christians, is made the very bone of Contention, and the greatest instrument to divide them; and that bread of Life is turned into a stone, and become the great Rock of offence between them. Besides the lesser corruptions of the Eucharist in the Church of Rome, such as using thin Wafers instead of bread, and injecting them whole into the mouths of the Communicants, and Consecrating without a Prayer, and speaking the words of Consecration secretly, and the like; there are four such great ones as violate and destroy the very substance and Essence of the Sacrament, and make it to be a quite other thing than Christ ever intended it, and therefore such as make Communion with the Roman Altar utterly sinful and unlawful: These are the Adoration of the Host, or making the Sacrament an object of Divine Worship; the Communion in one Kind, or taking away the Cup from the People; the turning the Sacrament into a true and proper Sacrifice propitiatory for the Quick and the Dead, and the using of private or solitary Masses, wherein the Priest who celebrates, Communicates alone. The two former of these have been considered in some late discourses upon those subjects; the fourth is a result and consequence of the third, for when the Sacrament was turned into a sacrifice the people left off the frequent communicating, and expected to be benefitted by it another way; so that this will fall in as to the main Reasons of it, with what I now design to consider and Examine, The Sacrifice of the Mass or Altar, wherein the Priest every time he celebrates the Communion is supposed to offer to God the Body and Blood of Christ under the forms of Bread and Wine, as truly as Christ once offered himself upon the cross, and that this is as true a proper and propitiatory Sacrifice as the other, and that 'tis so not only for the Living but also for the Dead. The Objections we make against it and the Arguments by which they defend it will fall in together at the same time, and I shall endeavour fairly and impartially to represent them in their utmost strength, that so what we have to say against it, and what they have to say for it, may be offered to the Reader at one view, that he may the better judge of those high charges which are made, he sees, on each side.  
First then we say, That the very foundation of this Sacrifice of the Mass, is established upon two very great Errors and Mistakes: The one is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or Christ's Corporal presence in the Eucharist; The other is the Opinion, That Christ did offer up his body and blood as a sacrifice to God in his last Supper, before he offered up himself upon the Cross: If either or both of these prove false, the Sacrifice of the Mass is so far from being true, that it must necessarily fall to the ground, according to their own principles and acknowledgements.  
Secondly, There is no Scripture ground for any such sacrifice, but it is expressly contrary to Scripture; under which head I shall examine all their Scriptural pretences for it, and produce such places as are directly contrary to it, and perfectly overthrow it.  
Thirdly, That it has no just claim to Antiquity, nor was there any such Doctrine or practice in the Primitive Church.  
Fourthly, That it is in itself unreasonable and absurd, and has a great many gross Errors involved in it.  
First we say, That the very Foundation of this sacrifice is established upon two very great Errors and Mistakes, the first of which is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, or which may be sufficient for their purpose, the corporal presence of Christ's natural body and blood in the Eucharist, though they disclaim the belief of this without the other: but if Christ's body and blood be not substantially present under the species of bread and Wine, they have no subject matter for a sacrifice, for 'tis not the bread and wine which they pretend to offer, nor the bare species and accidents of those, nor can they call them a proper propitiatory sacrifice, but 'tis the very natural body and blood of Christ, under the species of bread and wine, or together with them, for they with the species make one entire subject for sacrifice, and one entire object for Adoration, as they are forced to confess 
† Panis & corpus Domini, Vinum & sanguis Domini non sunt duo sacrificia sed unum,— neque enim offerimus corpus Domini absolutè, sed offerimus corpus Domini in specie panis, Bellarm. de Miss. l. 1. c. 37. ; So that according to their own principles, they must both sacrifice and adore something in the Eucharist besides the very body and blood of Christ, which is a difficulty they will never get off, but I design not to press them with that now, but Transubstantiation upon which their sacrifice of the Mass is founded, is so great a difficulty that it bears down before it all sense and reason, and only makes way for Church Authority to triumph over both; Their wisest men have given up Scripture for it, and frankly confessed, it were not necessary to believe it without the determination of the Church, and if so then without the Church's determination, there had been no foundation it seems for the sacrifice of the Mass. for there can be none for that without Transubstantiation, and 'tis very strange that a sacrifice should be thus founded, not upon Scripture or a Divine institution, but only in effect upon the Church's declaration, and should have no true bottom without that, as according to those men it really has not. But Transubstantiation is a Monster that startles and affrights the boldest Faith, if the Church be not by to encourage and support it; 'tis too terrible to be looked upon in its self without having a thick mist of Church Authority and Infallibility first cast before a man's eyes, and then if there were not a strange and almost fascinating power in such principles, one would think it impossible that any man who has both eyes and brains in his head should believe a Wafer were the body of a man, or that a crumb of bread were a fleshly substance, they do not indeed believe them to be both, but they believe one to be the other which is the same thing; there is nothing can expose such a doctrine, for nothing can be more uncouth and extravagant than itsself, it not only takes away all evidence of sense upon which all truth of miracles, and so of all Revelation does depend, but it destroys all manner of certainty, and all the principles of truth and knowledge, it makes one body be a thousand, or at least be at the same time in a thousand places, by which means the least atom may fill the whole World; Again it makes the parts of a body to penetrate one another, by which means all the matter of the whole World may be brought to a single point, it makes the whole to be no greater than a part, and one part to be as great as the whole; thus it destroys the nature of things, and makes a body to be a spirit, and an accident to be a substance, and renders every thing we see or taste to be only phantasm and appearance, and though the World seems crowded with solids, yet according to that it may be all but species and shadow, and superficies. So big is this opinion with absurdities and inconsistencies and contradictions, and yet these must all go down and pass into an Article of Faith before there can be any foundation for the sacrifice of the Mass, and let any one judge that has not lost his judgement by believing Transubstantiation, what a strange production that must be which is to be the genuine offspring of such a doctrine. It is not my province, nor must it be my present task to discourse at large of that, or to confute the little sophistries with which it is thought necessary to make it outface the common reason of mankind. There never was any paradox needed more straining to defend it, nor any Sceptical principle but would bear as fair a wrangle on its behalf, there is a known Treatise has so laid this cause on its back, that it can never be able to rise again, and though after a long time it endeavours a little to stir, and heave, and struggle, yet if it thereby provokes another blow from the same hand, it must expect nothing less than its mortal wound.  
I pass to the next Error and Mistake upon which the sacrifice of the Mass is founded, and that is this, that our blessed Saviour did at his last Supper when he celebrated the Communion with his Disciples offer up his body and blood to his Father as a true propitiatory sacrifice, before he offered it as such upon the Cross. This they pretend, and are forced to do so to establish their sacrificing in the Mass, for they are only to do that in the Sacrament, they own, which Christ himself did, and which he commanded his Apostles to do, and if this sacrifice had not its institution and appointment at that time, it never had any at all, as they cannot but grant. Let us then inquire whether Christ did thus sacrifice himself and offer up his body and blood to God at his last Supper: Is there any the least colour or shadow of any such thing in any of the accounts that is given of this in the three Evangelists or in St. Paul? The Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and gave thanks, or blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to his Disciples, saying, take eat this is my Body which is given for you, this do in remembrance of me, after the same manner also he took the Cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you, and for many for the remission of sins. Is here any mention or any intimation of offering up any thing to God? Was not the bread and the cup, and what he called his body and his blood given to his Disciples to be eaten and drank by them? and was any thing else done with them? is there any thing like an offering or a sacrificing of them? yes say they, Christ there calls it his body which is broken and his blood which is shed, in the present tense; therefore the one must be then broken and the other shed; So indeed it is in the Original Greek, though in the Vulgar Latin it is in the future tense, and so it is also put in their Missal, sanguis qui effundetur, this is my Blood which shall be shed, and is it not usual to put the present tense instead of the future, when that is so near and certain? Does not our Saviour do it more than once at other times? The Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26.45. before he was so, though Judas was then nigh and coming about it. So John 10.17. I lay down my Life, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, when he was ready to do so; as he was to have his body broken and his blood shed, when he was prepared as a victim to be offered the next day, so St. Paul says, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I now offer up myself, 2 Tim. 4.6. when, as we translate it, he was ready to be offered. That Christ here used the present tense for the future is owned by Cardinal Cajetan 
† In Luc. 22. , and other Learned men 
† Sa. Barrad.  of the Roman Church, and Jansenius 
* Cancord. 131.  says, the pouring out of the blood is rightly understood of the pouring it out upon the Cross.  
Christ's body was not broke, nor his blood poured out till the next day, nor did he offer up himself as a sacrifice to his Father until then, Christ did not then command his Apostles to offer him up in the Eucharist, when he bade them do this: hoc facite, does not signify to sacrifice, nor will it be supposed I hope our Saviour did then use the vulgar Latin, the phrase in Virgil, cum faciam vitula, which is always quoted to this purpose, shows it only to be so meant when the occasion or subject matter does require it; but in our Saviour's words it plainly refers to those acts of taking bread and breaking it, and taking Wine and Blessing it, & then giving or distributing of them, as he had done just before, and as he commanded then to do in remembrance of him, and that it does not relate to sacrificing is plain from St. Paul who applies it particularly to drinking the Cup, do this as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me, 1 Cor. 11.25. That the Apostles were made Priests by Christ at his last Supper, by those words, hoc facite, do this, is so precarious and senseless an opinion, that it only shows what wonderful straits and extremities our adversaries are driven to, who are forced to espouse this to support their ill-framed Hypothesis about the Holy Eucharist, in those two doctrines of the Communion in One Kind, and the Sacrifice of the Mass. There is not one Father or Ancient Interpreter, that gives any the least countenance to it, and many of their own Authors are ashamed of it, as may be seen in a late Discourse of the Communion in One Kind 
† pag. 15. , where this is so fully exposed that I shall here say no more of it, but that if those words make the Apostles Priests, it makes them so twice, for they are twice repeated by our Saviour after giving the Cup, as well as after giving the bread, as St. Paul witnesses, 1 Cor. 11.25. and so the character of Priesthood must be double, and they must be twice ordained at the same time, when there is nothing appears like any Ordination at all; but if they were then made Priests they were not made so to sacrifice Christ's Body and Blood, or to do more than he did at that time and so this is nothing to the purpose if he himself did not then truly offer and sacrifice himself, which is the plainest thing in the World he did not. And what should make any man imagine that Christ's body was broke, and his blood shed at his last Supper; or that he then sacrificed and offered up himself I cannot conceive. Had he been no otherwise sacrificed, nor his body any otherwise broken, nor his blood in any otherway shed besides this the Jews had been liable to much less guilt, but mankind had been in a more wretched condition, for Christ had not Redeemed them had he not died for them upon the Cross. If the sacrifice of Christ at his last Supper, the night before his crucifixion, was a true proper and propitiatory sacrifice, what needed he have suffered the next day, if that was of the same nature and value with the other, as they say, and did truly propitiate God, and procure pardon and remission of sins for mankind, what need was there of the Cross of Christ? it was hereby made void and of none Effect, or at least of no necessity. If Christ had done the work without it, his sacrifice upon the Altar or the Table might have excused his sacrifice upon the Cross, and thus the bitter Cup might have passed from him, and he might have been crucified only in Effigy, and slain mystically and sacramentally; and his body might have been thus broken and his blood shed, and yet the one have been still whole, and the other in his veins.  
For these Reasons one of their own Bishops in the Council of Trent denied openly, That Christ offered up any proper sacrifice at his last Supper 
* Cornelius Episcopus Bitontinus, in concilio apud Tridentum,— qui dixerit Christum in caenâ non suum corpus & sanguinem obtulisse, Canus in loc. Theol. l. 12.  But if he did not then there was no ground for them ever to offer any in the Eucharist, and therefore the Council was forced to declare he did, though no such thing appears in the Evangelical History, nor could any collect it from thence, but it was a necessary after-thought, and a groundless supposal, to help out and establish the sacrifice of the Mass.  
Secondly, There is no Scripture ground for any such sacrifice, but 'tis expressly contrary to Scripture, to sacrifice Christ over again, and to have any other propitiatory sacrifice besides that of the Cross, and to offer up Christ's body and blood every day which was to be but once offered and that by himself. I have already shown that the greatest foundation of this their sacrifice out of Scripture, which is Christ offering up himself at his last Supper and commanding others to offer him there is a mistake, and if it be so, all their other Scriptural pretences are vain and to no purpose; and must be so acknowledged by themselves, for there is none other that does institute and appoint any such sacrifice, or can with any colour or shadow be pretended to do so, and I hope they will own that without a divine institution, there cannot be a proper and much less a propitiatory sacrifice, and this indeed they do, they confess that it is not in the power of the Church to institute a sacrifice 
‖ Non est in potestate Ecclesiae. instituere Sacramentum, Salmeron, Tom. 9 Tract. 28.  And that the very being and Essence of this sacrifice depends upon the Institution of Christ 
* Tota Essentia Sacrificii pendet ex institutione Christi, Salmeron, ib. Suarez. Tom. 3. Disp. ●5. . If that be then taken away, and there be no such thing in Scripture as I have shown there is not, than whatever other places they can produce to establish this are all insignificant and to no purpose; for if they did mention this either by way of Prophecy or of History, yet if it be not where instituted, this will not do the business, for the Institution ought not to be supposed but clearly proved and made out, and if that cannot be, every thing else that is to support it as a collateral evidence falls to the ground. What will it signify if Melchisedec did offer Bread and Wine not to Abraham only but to God, and as a Priest did sacrifice them, rather than make an hospitable entertainment with them, is this any foundation for the sacrifice of the Mass? If Christ did not institute that at his last Supper with his Disciples, Melchisedec I hope did not institute it with Abraham and his Soldiers. If the Prophet Malachi speaks never so much of a pure offering, yet if Christ did not offer up himself in the Sacrament, nor command the Apostles to offer him up there, Malachi's Prophecy will not make the Eucharist to be a sacrifice or a pure offering, if Christ did not make it so: nor will the Priests I suppose desire their power of sacrificing either from Melchisedecs' act or Malachi's prediction without Christ's Institution; it is not only a presumption but a demonstration that those Scriptures which they bring, do not really mean or truly speak of any such thing, as The sacrifice of the Mass, when there is no such thing any where instituted or appointed by Christ, and without such an institution there cannot (as they confess) be any ground for it. All their little scattered forces therefore which they rally and pick up here and there out of Scripture, and which against their will they press into the service of the Mass-sacrifice are hereby wholly cut off and utterly defeated, by having their main strength without which they can do nothing of themselves, taken away from them, and I shall examine them only to show the weakness of them, which they being very sensible of themselves endeavour to make up their want of strength by the greatness of their number; and surely never were so many places brought out of Scripture to so little purpose, as what they produce for the sacrifice of the Mass.  
First then they go back as far as Genesis for it, and it is very strange they should find it there; this will make it very primitive and ancient indeed, but wherever they meet with bread and Wine, which are things of very great Antiquity, they resolve to make a sacrifice of them; especially if there be but a Priest by who has the power of Consecrating, for they suppose he must presently fall to his office and put on his habit if bread and wine be before him, and that he cannot like other men eat and drink them as his ordinary food or entertain his friends and others with them, except he not only Religiously bless them by Prayer and Thanksgiving which every good man ought to do, and it was the custom even of the Heathens to do this before they eaten, but he must sacrifice and offer them up to God. This they will needs have Melchisedec do in the 14. of Gen. 18. verse. Melchisedec King of Salem brought forth bread and wine, and he was the Priest of the most High God. What is there here to show that Melchisedec offered bread and wine as a sacrifice to God, the very word in their own vulgar Latin answering to the Hebrew is protulit, he brought forth, not obtulit, he offered; and if it were the latter, could not he offer bread and wine to Abraham and his Company upon a Table, but must it necessarily be to God upon an Altar? 
Ver. 14, 15.  Abraham with his Three Hundred and Eighteen Trained Servants, had been by night pursuing those who had taken away his brother Let Captive, and when they were thus weary and hungry, Melchisedec hospitably and kindly entertained them with provision to refresh them; and brought forth bread and wine to them, thus it lies in the Sacred History and Context, and thus Josephus 
(a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. l. 1. c. 11.  relates it, and there is not the least mention or intimation of any sacrifice as Cajetan 
(b) Nihil hic scribitur de sacrificio sed de prolatione seu extractione, quam Josephus dicit factam ad resiciendos victores, Cajetan in Gen. 14.  owns upon the place, and so do many of their own Authors, whom Possevine 
(c) Biblioth. l. 4. c. 13.  the Jesuit takes upon him to correct for it. Bellarmine indeed, as if he had been by at the entertainment, and been one of Abraham's Soldiers, tells us, they had eaten and drank very well before, and therefore desires Melchisedec to excuse them, for they had no need of his Bread and Wine at that time 
(d,) Quid igitur opus erat pane & vino ijs qui spoliis abundabant & paulo ante comederant & biberant? Bellarm. de Miss. l. 1. c. 6. D.  and yet in the same place owns that these were given to Abraham and his Companions for food 
(e,) At nos non negamus data illa in cibum Abrahae & sociis, sed dicimus fuisse prius Deo ●plata & consecrata, & tum data hominibus ut de sacrificio participarent, Ib.  but that they were first offered to God and then given to them to partake of them as of a sacrifice: But why were they given as Food, if they had no need of Food? Did Melchisedec know they had eaten? Or does the Scripture say so? Or might not he treat them as a King though they had victuals of their own? How does Bellarmine know they were first sacrificed when there is not the least word of that? Ay, but it is said that he was the Priest of the most high God, therefore it is likely he sacrificed, why else should that be added? It was added because he was so, or because as it immediately follows, he blessed Abraham, 
Ver. 19.20.  and Abraham gave him Tithes of all his spoils, this is more likely than because he sacrificed, for there is no mention of that as of the other, and 'tis not said he brought forth bread and wine because he was the Priest of the high God, 'tis only a conjunctive particle, and, he was, not a causal for. It is said also in the same place, that he was King of Salem, and why might not his entertaining Abraham be as he was a King, because he is said there to be a King, as well as a Priest, and yet I suppose a Priest may be said to treat his Friends, as another man without officiating then as a Priest, though he be called a Priest. Why Bellarmine should cite any Fathers for his Opinion I cannot imagine, since the oldest of them are I suppose so much latter, and at so great a distance from the times of Melchisedec, that they could no more know what Melchisedec did at that time than we can now, and they are very improper witnesses of a matter of fact that was so long ago, which nothing but the Scripture history can give us any account of, to which itis not only precarious but rash to add any of our own guesses and conjectures; however though some of the Fathers do by way of figure and allusion, make this bread and wine of Melchisedec, to relate to the Sacramental bread and wine, as they make Manna, and several other things which were not sacrifices, yet none apply it to the sacrifice of the Mass, nor could they well do it since they believed no such thing in the Romish sense, as I shall show afterwards. But after all, what if Melchisedec did sacrifice bread and wine? What service will this do to the sacrifice of the Mass? The Priests do not there sacrifice bread and wine according to this Mystical Type, nor did Melchisedec sure offer up Christ's body and blood under the species of his bread & wine; if we allow all that can be begged and desired that Melchisedec did sacrifice, and that this his sacrifice was a Type and figure of another sacrifice, why may not that be of the sacrifice of the Cross, which is the true and only proper Christian sacrifice, when Christ the Bread of Life was offered up unto God for us? So that there is no necessity to bring in the sacrifice of the Mass to complete and answer this figure, were there any thing in it besides guess and fancy which I see no manner of reason to believe there is, since there is nothing to countenance it in the New Testament, and 'tis very presumptuous and ungrounded to make any thing a true Type, or to have a Typical meaning farther than God's Spirit, which alone could know this, has given us warrant to do it by Revelation. Yet without any such ground both Bellarmine 
† de Missâ l. 1. c. 6. , and the Council of Trent 
* Sess. 6. c. 1. , make this to be the notion of Christ being a Priest after the order of Melchisedec, that he was to offer up a visible and unbloody sacrifice of bread and wine, and to appoint others to do this for ever, whereas the Scripture makes Christ to be a Priest after the Order of Melchisedec, not upon any such account: for the Author to the Hebrews makes not the least mention of this in his large discourse of this matter 
* Heb. 5.7. , but in his having no Predecessor nor no Successor in his Priesthood, as Melchisedec is represented in Scripture without any account of his Family or Genealogy, without Father, without Mother, without Descent, Heb. 7. v. 3. and in the excellency of that in general above the imfect Aaronic Priesthood, and in the Eternity and Immutability of it, because he continueth ever, and hath an unchangeable Priesthood, verse 24. How little the Melchisedecian Priesthood of Christ, upon which they lay so much stress, will serve the purpose of the Mass-sacrifice, nay how contrary 'tis to it, I shall endeavour to manifest in a few particulars.  
First then, Christ it is plain did offer up to God not an unbloody, but a bloody sacrifice upon the Cross; I ask whether he did this according to his Melchisedecian Priesthood? If he did, than Melchisedec probably as Priest of the High God might offer the bloody sacrifices of living creatures, and if he were Shem the Eldest Son of Noah, as is fairly conjectured by Learned men, he might learn this of his Father, who after the Flood built an Altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the Altar, Gen. 8.20. but then how will this be reconciled with what our adversaries pretend, that it was the proper and peculiar office of Melchisedec to offer the pure and unbloody sacrifice of bread and wine? And that according to that the Roman Priests are to do that, and that Christ did that at his last Supper. Christ's Priesthood was the same at his Supper and upon the Cross, if he acted therefore as a Priest of Melchisedec in one, he did so in both.  
Secondly, The Scripture mentions no Act or Office of Melchisedec's Priesthood but in blessing Abraham, Gen. 14.18, 19 Melchisedec King of Salem brought forth bread and Wine, and he was the Priest of the most high God, and he blessed him, and said, blessed be Abraham of the most high God which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand. And this the Author to the Hebrews takes particular notice of 
† ch. 7. v. 1. , and this answers to what St. Peter says of Christ after his Resurrection, God having raised up his son Jesus sent him to bless you 
† Acts 3.26. , which general word of blessing may include in it, whatever is done for us by Christ's Priesthood after his Resurrection, particularly his praying and interceding to God for us. Had it been any part of Christ's Melchisedecian Priesthood to offer up bread and wine, much more had it wholly consisted in this, 'tis strange the Apostle in a set and large discourse of this, should not speak one word, nor take the least notice of it.  
Thirdly, Christ is to have none to succeed him in his Melchisedecian Priesthood, but he was himself to remain a Priest for ever; the Author to the Hebrews makes this difference between the Aaronical Priests and Christ, that they were to succeed one another, and they truly were many Priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death 
† Heb. 7.23. , but Christ was an immortal and so a perpetual Priest, but this man because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood 
† Verse 24. , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Priesthood that passes not to others but is ever fixed and appropriate to his own person, and he is made a Priest, after the power of an endless Life 
† Verse 16. . That which belongs then to Christ as he is an immortal Priest, and continueth ever, and hath none to succeed him, that it is which constitutes his Melchisedecian Priesthood, and what that is the Apostle plainly informs us in the very next verse to those I have quoted, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us 
† Verse 24. . Christ's interceding with God by virtue of his sacrifice upon the cross, and appearing in heaven in the presence of God for us, and there presenting his sacrifice to his Father, and powerfully mediating on our behalf, this is his proper unchangeable, eternal, intransitive Melchisedecian Priesthood, and 'tis great arrogance for any to pretend to share with him or to succeed him therefore in his proper Priesthood, and to call themselves as the Romanists do, Priests after the order of Melchisedec, when none but Christ is so; This his priesthood is not committed to any upon Earth, but is to be for ever executed and discharged by himself in heaven, and he has left none to be proper priests in this sense, but only to be Ministers to this great High priest, in performing some lesser though pecliar Offices proper to them, as the Levites under the Jewish dispensation had their proper work though they were not proper priests.  
The next thing they produce out of Scripture for the Sacrifice of the Mass, is the Paschal Lamb, which they will needs have to be a figure of the Eucharist; and since that was a sacrifice, therefore the Eucharist which was figured by it ought to be so too; Now these sigurative Arguments though they help to make some show as they are dressed out by fancy, yet they have generally this fault that they prove either too much or too little, and so either shoot over the mark, or fall a great deal short of it, but seldom hit it. The Paschal Lamb, and the Eucharist, the Christian Passeover do agree in this that they are both solemn and religious Rites, commemorative of a great deliverance, and that they are both Sacred and Mystical Feasts wherein something is to be eaten with joy and thankfulness, and our Saviour instituted one to succeed and take place of the other, in these particulars they suit and have an agreeable Analogy with one another; but figures are like Circles, which may touch one another in some points but not in all, for if we go any farther they will necessarily divide and differ. The paschal Lamb was to be eaten but once a year, the Eucharist much oftener, that was a feast of visible and solid flesh, the Eucharist only of bread and wine; or if there be any flesh, 'tis invisible and as like bread and wine as can be, however this is the flesh, according to our adversaries, of a living man, that of a dead and roasted Lamb, this is not to be slain but eaten whole and alive, the other was, and therefore why may we not add, to go no further, this is no proper sacrifice, that probably was, for it is not past question whether it was or no, but yet such a sacrifice as was offered without a priest by every Master of a Family: and if the Eucharist were to agree with it in this, the priests would lose a great deal of their design in making it a sacrifice, for then without hiring them every housekeeper would offer it himself; besides the paschal Lamb was not a propitiatory sacrifice. I presume, for the quick and dead, so then in correspondence to that neither is the sacrifice of the Mass, but only an Eucharistic one: but after all the paschal Lamb was not truly a Type and figure of the Eucharist but of Christ crucified, so says St. Paul expressly, Christ our Passeover is sacrificed for us 
† 1 Cor. 5.7. , and that not I suppose in the Sacrament, but upon the cross, the Paschal figure was fulfilled, says their own Jansenius, when our true  Christ was immolated 
† Impleta erat sigura Paschatis quando verum nostrum Pascha immolatus est Christus. Jansen. Harmon. c. 131. f. 895. . and to show how exact a figure he then bare of the paschal Lamb, a bone of him was not to be broken 
† John 19.33. , as it was not likewise of that Exod. 12.46. and this expressly remarked, that the Scripture might be fulfilled 
† verse 36. . The sacrifice of the paschal Lamb, and the other Jewish sacrifices wherein atonement was made for sin by shedding of blood, without which under the Law there was to be no Remission, were all as the Apostle says shadows of good things to come 
† Heb. 20.1. , and Types of the more perfect sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, who was the Lamb slain in Types and Figures as well as in design and intention from the beginning of the world, and I cannot but think that from hence arose the universal custom of sacrificing in all Religions over all the World, from an original tradition of the sacrifice of Christ, and out of a primary regard and respect to that, for I cannot imagine what else should be the reason or give rise to expiatory sacrifices, and be the true cause of so general a practice; but that any of these sacrifices had relation to the Eucharist, or were intended as figures of that is very precarious and ungrounded; Those Eucharistic sacrifices indeed in which part of what was offered, was eaten by the offerers; or in holocausts when the whole was consumed, where a peace-offering was joined with them which the sacrificers used to feast and partake of, as a token of their peace and reconciliation with God, these may fairly relate and have some respect to or at least resemblance with the Eucharist, which is a kind of sacrificial feast, or sacramental feeding upon an oblatum, Christ's body and blood offered for us upon the Cross, but that they were Types of this is more than we can be assured of, for a Type is a sign or figure appointed and designed by God to signify and mark out such a thing, and we cannot know that God appoints or designs any such thing further than we have some ground from Scripture and Revelation, and therefore we must restrain Typical matters within those bounds and must not let fancy lose to make what Types it pleases. There may be some similitude and likeness by which one thing may be compared with another without its being a Type or a Figure of it as Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew calls 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Justin Martyr Dialog. cum Tryph. p. 260. Par. , The meat-offering of fine flour which the Leper was to bring for his cleansing, Levit. 4.10. an Image or likeness of the Eucharistic bread which Christ our Lord appointed to be brought in remembrance of his Passion whereby our Souls are cleansed from sin and wickedness, and that we may hereby give thanks to God the Creator. So that he makes the Eucharist to answer the Analogy of that meat-offering in three things in the Oblation of bread, and this in commemoration of Christ's passion whereby we are delivered from sin, and as a Thanksgiving to God, and in all these it does very well correspond with it, though that it was strictly a Type of this, and so intended by God is still to be questioned, and he that is acquainted with the Fathers and their Allegorical way of explaining Scripture, and applying all things in the Old Testament to matters in the New, will have great reason to doubt whether they did not give too much scope to their fancy in many things, and whether solid Arguments may be drawn from all their Allegorical discourses and applications, but yet none of them that I know of, do make any of the ancient propitiatory sacrifices to be Types and Figures of the Eucharist, but of the sacrifice of the Cross; however if they should do this by some remote allusion and partial resemblance, yet not as it is a proper sacrifice or truly propitiatory, therefore not at all to the purpose of the sacrifice of the Mass.  
The Prophecy of Malachi is one of the great Scripture proofs for this sacrifice, but it can be at most but a collateral evidence, for if Christ did not in fact institute any such sacrifice as I have proved he did not, this is a much better argument to show there was none such foretold, than it can be to prove he did institute it because it was foretold: Predictions are best understood by the completion of them, and if no such thing was done as is pretended from this prediction, this demonstrates that no such thing was intended or meant by it, so that by taking away that first ground of the Mass-sacrifice, I have taken away all these little underprops and supporters of it; but let us see what seeming assistance this place of Malachi will afford them. God having reproved the Jews for their undue and unfit offerings, tells them that better and purer offerings shall be made him every where by the Gentiles, For 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 
* Malac. 1.11. . Thus it is both in the Hebrew and Greek Copies as Bellarmine owns, but it is something different from both those in the Vulgar Latin, where it is, In every place is sacrificed, and is offered to my name a pure Oblation 
* In omni loco sacrificatur & offertur nomini meo para oblatio. . They are so in love with the Word sacrifice, that they choose to use that above any other, as if wherever they meet with that in Scripture it must be meant properly, and of an external sacrifice, and of no other but the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass. Tho the word here Mincha, from which some of our Adversaries are so foolish as to derive the Latin word Missa, that signifies only a dismission of the Catechumen and penitents before the Office of the Eucharist, does not signify a propitiatory sacrifice but only a meat-offering which was merely Eucharistic, and whereas nothing is more commonly meant by sacrifice in Scripture, than the spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and prayer, and the like when a pious and devout Soul offers unto God Thanksgiving, and pays its vows unto the most high 
* Psal. 50.14. ; when the prayer of the Righteous is set forth as incense, and the lifting up of his hands, as an evening sacrifice 
† Psal. 141.2. . And this is the incense and pure oblation which the Fathers generally understand to be meant in that place, to wit glorifying and blessing God, and Praise and Hymns 
(a) In Ecclesiis benedicite Dominum Deum, Psal. 57 ut pariter concurreret Malachiae prophetia, in omni loco sacrificium maxdum. Gloviae sc. relatio & benedictio & laus & hymni, Tertull. contra Martion. l. 3.  as Tertullian in so many words explains this place, and again, a pure offering as Malachi speaks is an honest prayer from a pure Conscience 
(b) Dicente Malachia sacrificium mundum sc. simplex Oratio de conscientia, pura Ib. l. 4.  and so in other places 
(c) Adversus Judaeos, Ib.  he explains it altogether of spiritual sacrifices. Eusebius calls this pure offering of Malachi, the incense of Prayers 
(d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Euseb. Demonstrat. l. 1. c. 6.  St. Hierom upon the place says the prophet, teaches that the prayers of holy men should be offered to the Lord not only in the single Province of Judaea, to which the Jewish sacrifices were confined, but in every place 
(e) Docet orationes sanctorum Domino offerendas esse non in unâ orbis provinciâ, Judaeâ, sed in omni loco. Hieron. in Malach. 1.  There can be no sacrifice more acceptable to God, no offering with which he is so well pleased, no incense that is of so sweet a savour as the prayers and praises of a devout mind, and a pure and unblemished Conscience, and especially when these are kindled and inflamed to the highest degrees and ardours at the blessed Sacrament, when the soul truly sensible of the Love of God, and the infinite kindness of its dying Saviour, when it has the symbol and representation of his death before it, shall pour out its grateful and hearty resentments, and thereby offer up a more pure and precious sacrifice, than thousands of Rams, or ten thousand rivers of Oil. This is that incense, and that pure offering of Christians which is foretold by the prophet, and this especially offered in the most sacred office of our Religion, the blessed Eucharist; and therefore some of the Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and St. Austin apply this place to the blessed Sacrament, not as any proper sacrifice is there offered, but only such divine and spiritual ones as these; and in what sense they call that a sacrifice and we own it be so, I shall show afterwards.  
Why should our Adversaries then charge us with having no sacrifice, and therefore as they charitably tell us no Religion when we have the best and the noblest sacrifice that can be, that which will please the Lord much better than an Ox or a Bullock that hath horns and hoofs 
* Psal. 69.31. and 40.6. Isai. 1.11. . God was never pleased with those external sacrifices for themselves, but he often refuses and disregards guards them even under the Jewish dispensation, and they were all to cease with that, and instead of such mean sacrifices and external oblations which were to be offered then but in one place, there should in every place under Christianity be offered the more pure and spiritual sacrifices, the incense of prayer, and the pure oblation of praise and thanksgiving, and such like Christian sacrifices as are often mentioned in Scripture, and which are meant in this prophecy of Malachi, of which we shall have further occasion to speak by and by. 'Tis a sort of Judaisme then and a returning back to that less perfect and less spiritual state to make the Religion of the Gospel consist in any visible and external sacrifice which our Adversaries so earnestly contend for, rather in those sacrifices which are more spiritual, and therefore more truly Christian, and more agreeable to the spiritual Worship, and the spiritual Oeconomy of the Gospel.  
There are some other places of the old Testament brought by Bellarmine, and other defenders of the sacrifice of the Mass, which are so weak and impertinent that they only serve to expose it, and therefore they are not at all montioned in the Council of Trent or in the Roman Catechism, such is that saying of the prophet to Eli, 2 Sam. 2.35. That God would raise up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind, and I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever. This new priest that was to succeed Eli was very probably to be a sacrificing priest, but that he was to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, I leave those who bring this place for it, to prove; for without doubt this was fulfilled long before Christ, in Samuel who succeeded Eli, and in Zadoc who came in the room of Abiathar who was of the Family of Eli, and who was thrust out by Solomon from being priest unto the Lord, that he might fulfil the word of the Lord, which he spoke concerning the house of Eli in Shilo, 1 Kings 2.27. as the Scripture observes, and to make this figurative or prophetical of the Christian priesthoods succeeding the Aaronical is great strength of fancy, but a very weak argument however for the sacrifice of the Mass, unless that were the work of the Christian priesthood which is hard to be made out.  
The Second is that out of the 72, Psalm at the 16. v. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the Mountains. This handful of Corn is by such Rabbinical men as Galatinus made into a cake or Placenta, and that must needs be the wafer cake, which being upon the top of the Mountains, must be heaved and elevated over the head of the priests. This is such an Argument for the sacrifice of the Mass as were sufficient to convert the Vicar of Putney, who by the help of Galatinus can prove Transubstantation out of the Rabbis, and had the good fortune to be brought into the true Church, not by Father P. or Father G. but by Rabbi Solomon, and those two other ancient Rabbis of his, Midras, Coheleth, which writ such a Commentary upon Ecclesiastes, that they are the very Commentary itself. 'Tis strange as he says, 
† Presace to Consensus veteram.  that the Hebrow Writers should long before Christ's time have such notions; but 'tis more strange that some people since Christ's time should have no better Arguments for the great principles of their Religion, but the wind, as he goes on, bloweth where it listeth, and some men have such a Wind Mill in their Crowns that any thing will turn it. Whatever Feasts of sweet Meats and dainties the Jews expected as foretold by this Psalm in the days of the Messiah, and were willing to mean by this handful of Corn on the top of the Mountains, they never dreamt of the sacrisice of the Mass.  
The next is that of the Proverbs 9 chap. 2d. verse, Wisdom hath killed her beasts, she hath mingled her wine, she hath also furnished her table, but I am sure she never made this Argument for the sacrifice of the Mass; I will improve this place if they please for the proof of other things, as of priest's Celibacy, because in the next words 'tis said Wisdom hath sent out her maidens, verse 4. of the Church of Rome's being the house that was built by wisdom, because 'tis said in the first verse, She hath hewn out her seven pillars, which are as undoubtedly the seven Hills of Rome, as this Allegorical Banquet is the sacrifice of the Mass. Our Adversaries sure could not be very serious and in good earnest, when they produced such places as these, and therefore they must excuse us for not being so in answering them.  
I shall mention but one more which if it be not as ridiculous, yet is as impertinent as the other, and that is out of Daniel, chapter 8. verse 11. where it is said the daily sacrifice was taken away, by a great prince, that is there prophetically described. It is plain that by the daily sacrifice there is meant that of the Jews, and by the prince who should take it away Antiochus, who did literally perform this by destroying the Jewist. Worship, and horribly profaning the Temple; if by him was allegorically and prophetically meant the Christian Antichrist, if I may so speak, spoken of by St. Paul, 2 Thess. 2. and by St. John, Rev. 13. described as a beast having seven heads and ten horns, as Bellarmine will have it 
† chap. 9 de Mis. l. 1. , then whether this mark belongs not to him that sets up the sacrifice of the Mass, and destroys as far as he has power, and takes away all the purer Worship of Christ, and has a great many other characters upon him that look very suspicious, will be a great question, for which I dare say there are a great many more probabilities then that by the daily sacrifice here is meant the sacrifice of the Mass.  
I come now to the New Testament, where if there be any proofs for the sacrifice of the Mass, it is more likely to find them then in the Old, yet they produce twice as many such as they are, out of that than this, and like some other people, are more beholden to dark Types and obscure prophecies of the Old Testament to make out their principles, then to the clear light of the Gospel, and to any plain places in the New, and yet if any such doctrine as this were to be received by Christians, and if any such wonderful and essential part of Worship were appointed by Christ, or taught and practised by the Apostles, we should surely have it more plainly set down in the New Testament than they are able to show it.  
The first place they urge from thence belongs no more to the sacrifice of the Mass, than the first Commandment does in the Decalogue, and they had as good have quoted our Saviour words to the Devil, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and so have proved from thence that God ought to be Worshipped by the sacrifice of the Mass, as those to the Woman of Samaria which Bellarmine 
† de Miss. l. 1. c. 11.  brings to this purpose out of John 4.21, 23. The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father, for the hour cometh and now is when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. From whence he infers that they must Worship him by sacrifice, and that this must be the sacrifice of the Mass, and that this is to Worship him in spirit and truth. If this be not all evidence and demonstration, there is none in Euclid; and if we may not here cry out, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mass is found, we are blind and obstinate, but I see very little more for it here then from the other places I named, but rather something against it, for to Worship God in Spirit and Truth, and that because he is a Spirit as our Saviour there adds verse 24. is not to Worship him by an external, visible, Typical sacrifice as the Mass is, and as those of the Jews were, but by a more pure and spiritual Worship of praise and thanksgiving, and prayer, such as that of Christians is to be, as more suitable to the spiritual nature of God; and these spiritual sacrifices of Christians are not to be tied to one place, as those more gross and carnal ones of the Jews were, which was the thing our Saviour here designed. The greatest part of the public Jewish Worship was fixed to the Temple and to Jerusalem; their Tithes, and First-fruits, and Firstlings, and Festivals as well as their sacrifices, and there may be divine Worship without sacrifice as well as with it, and whatever the Worship be, which our Saviour here says was to be spiritual it was not like the Jewish, to be fixed to one place, which is the true scope of those words to the Samaritan Woman in answer to her question, v. 20. whether mount Gerizim or Jerusalem was the true place of Worship, which was the great dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans; our Saviour determines for neither, but puts an end to the question, and says, that now under the Gospel, the Worship of God was not local, and as to the manner of it, that it was spiritual.  
The second and principal Argument for the sacrifice of the Mass, is from Christ's institution and first celebration of the Eucharist with his Disciples, and here indeed is the true place to find it if there be any such thing, but I have already shown 
‖ pag. 8, 9, 10.  that Christ did neither then sacrifice himself nor command his Disciples to do so, and have taken away that which is the very Foundation of the Mass-sacrifice, and without which every thing else that can be said for it falls to the ground.  
There are but two other and those very weak ones behind, the one out of the 13th. of the Acts, where it is said of Saul and Barnabas, and the prophets and Teachers of the Church at Antioch, that they ministered unto the Lord; but could not they minister and perform the divine office and service without sacrificing? it must be first proved that that was part of the religious office before it can appear that it was meant here; it is said they fasted and prayed, & in that probably their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Ministry consisted, or as St. Chrysostom 
‖ Homil. 37. in Act. , and after him Oecumenius explain it in preaching, but that they sacrificed there is not the least evidence. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, doth not signify to sacrifice but to perform any proper function and therefore it is attributed in the Scripture both to the Angels who are called ministering spirits 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Heb. 1.14. , and to the Magistrates who are called the Ministers of God 
‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13.6 , and yet sacrificing I suppose belongs to neither of them, nor does their own vulgar Latin so Translate it here.  
The last is out of the 1 Cor. 10. for Bellarmine gives up that out of the Hebrews 13. We have an altar of which they have no right to eat who serve the Tabernacle, though 'tis as much to his purpose in my mind as any of the rest, but some Catholic Writers, he says, do by altar mean there, either the Cross or Christ himself 
† Quia non desunt ex Catholicis qui eo loco per altare intelligunt crucem aut ipsum Christum non urgeo ipsum locum, Bellarm. de Mis. c. 14. ; but if it were meant of the Eucharist, that is but an Altar in an improper sense, as the sacrifice offered on it is but improper and metaphorical as we shall prove, but in the place to the Corinthians, the Apostle Commands them not to eat of things offered to Idols, for to eat of them was to partake of things sacrificed to Devils, and so to have communion with Devils, which was very unfit for those who were partakers of the Lords Table, and therein truly communicated of the Body and Blood of Christ, as those who eaten of the Jewish sacrifices were partakers of the Jewish Altar. Now what is here of the sacrifice of the Mass, or any way serviceable to it? Why, yes, the Apostle compares the Table of the Lord with the Table of Devils, and eating of the Lords supper with eating the Jewish and the Heathen sacrifices, therefore the Christians ought to have an Altar as well as the Jews, and what they fed on, aught to be sacrificed as well as the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but the Apostle says nothing of this, nor makes any such comparison between them, but only shows the unfitness of Christians eating of the Heathen sacrifices who partook of the Lords Table; he does not call the Lords Table an Altar, nor the Eucharist a sacrifice, nor was there any danger that the Christians should go to eat in the Idol Temples, but he would not have them eat of their sacrifices brought home, and the whole comparison lies here, the eating the Lords Supper did make them true partakers of the Lords body and blood sacrificed upon the Cross, as eating of the Jewish sacrifices did make the Jews partakers of the Jewish Altar, and as eating of things offered to Idols was having fellowship with Devils, so that they who partook of such holy food as Christians did, should not communicate of such execrable and diabolical food as the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If indeed Christians could not partake of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist unless they first made a proper sacrifice and oblation of them, than the Apostles discourse would necessarily suppose and imply them to be thus offered, as the Jewish and Heathen sacrifices were before they were eaten, but since Christ's body and blood being once offered upon the Cross is a sufficient sacrifice and oblation of them, and the Eucharist is a religious and Sacramental Feast upon the sacrifice of Christ once offered, this is sufficient for the Apostles scope and design in that place, where there is no other comparison made between the Table of the Lord, and the Table of Devils, but that one makes us to be partakers of the body and blood of Christ, and the other to have Fellowship with Devils, and as to the Jewish Altar the Antithesis does not lie here as Bellarmine would have it, between that and the Table of the Lord, that both have proper sacrifices offered upon them, which are eaten after they are sacrificed; but the Cross of Christ rather is the Antithesis to the Jewish Altar, on which sacrifices were really and properly slain, which are not on the Christian Altar, and the feeding and partaking of those sacrifices so offered, whereby they were made partakers of the Altar, this answers to the sacramental feeding upon Christ's body and blood in the Christian Altar whereby we are made partakers of the Cross of Christ, and have the virtue and merit of his sacrifice communicated to us.  
Thus I have considered and fully answered whatever our Adversaries can bring out of Scripture for their sacrifice of the Mass, I shall now offer some places of Scripture that are directly contrary to it, and do perfectly overthrow it: and though their cause must necessarily sink if the Scripture be not for it, because without a Scriptural Foundation there can be no divine institution of a sacrifice which is necessary by their own confession, and so essential a part of worship ought surely to be appointed by no less an Authority then of God himself, so that if it be destitute of Scripture-grounds it must like a Castle in the Air fall of itself, and can have nothing else to support it. Yet I shall show that Scripture is plainly against it and that so strong a battery may be raised and leveled at it from thence, that none of their Arts or devices can be able to withstand it; it is from those known places of the Epistle to the Hebrews, from whence I have already shown how contrary their Doctrine is to our Saviour's Melchisedecian priesthood, I shall now urge those places out of that Epistle wherein the Divine Author of it, who was probably St. Paul, largely and designedly showeth the excellency of Christ's sacrifice above those under the Law upon this account, that it had so much virtue and efficacy in it, that by one offering it obtained full and perfect Remission of sin, whereas this was the great imperfection of the others, and showed their great weakness and insufficiency that they were so often offered, and so frequently repeated, every priest of the Jews standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin, chap. 10.11. And it was plain they could not take away sin because they were so often offered over again, either every day or every year, For the Law can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect, chap. 10. verse 1. For than would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year, verse 2, 3. Those sacrifices being but like the acknowledgements of a Debtor, that he owed a great sum which he had no way fully to pay off and discharge, but he raised and brought what he could, and so owned the Debt, and that he had not where withal to take it quite off, nor to make that solution and satisfaction which was necessary. But such was the value of the sacrifice of Christ, that it was a perfect price and payment, and made full satisfaction at once; so that By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified, chap. 10. verse 14. and made such full atonement and expiation by that, that there is no more need, nor remains no more sacrifice for sins, but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God, verse 12. as having fully done the work of a priest upon Earth, and having no need to offer any furt her sacrifice, nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place, every year with blood of others: chap. 9 25. (For then must he often have suffered since the soundation of the world) but now once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, verse 26. and Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, verse 28. And we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, chap. 10. verse 10. So that Christ our high priest needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for himself, and then for the people: For this he did once when he offered up himself, chap. 7. ver. 27. Nothing can be said plainer against the sacrifice of the Mass, wherein Christ is often offered and that as properly and truly, they pretend, as the Jewish sacrifices were, or as he was upon the Cross, when it is here so much insisted upon that Christ's sacrifice was but once offered, whereas those under the Law were often; and this made an argument of their weakness and imperfection, and of the full virtue and value of the other: Must it not appear very strange after this that it should be made the great part of some men's Religion, to repeat the same sacrifice of Christ every day, and to offer him up again every day upon the Altar, as truly as the Jews offered their sacrifices day by day continually, and as he once offered up himself upon the Cross, and to make this daily sacrifice of him in the Mass have as true a virtue to propitiate God and expiate sins as the other had, and to be every way as true & proper a sacrifice as the other. I need not labour much to show how contrary this is to this discourse of the Author to the Hebrews, and to the true scope and design of it, it appears so evidently to be so, that our Adversaries are put to the greatest straits and difficulties imaginable to make themselves think otherwise, and to reconcile what the Apostle here says of the sacrifice of Christ, with what their Church says of the sacrifice of the Mass, and that they are perfectly inconsistent, notwithstanding all their pretences and evasions, I shall make appear by what follows.  
First then, They tell us that their sacrifice of the Mass, is but the very same with the sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, and so it does not at all take off from the virtue of that, or suppose that to be imperfect, since this is no other, nor no new sacrifice, but only the same both in nature and virtue with that; if it were another sacrifice indeed, or were supposed to have a distinct virtue and efficacy from that of the Cross, it might reflect upon that, and be injurious to it, but since they declare it to be the same, they do not conceive how it is any way so. But the Apostles discourse (for it is probable an Apostle was Author of this Epistle) in the forementioned places, is about repeating the same sacrifices, and offering them up year by year continually, and from hence he grounds the imperfection of them, and that they could not make the comers thereunto perfect, chap. 10. v. 1. These sacrifices indeed were many and of several sorts which they offered, but they still offered them up again and again, both daily and yearly, and it was their often offering of them as well as their multitude which the Apostle reflects upon, their daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, chap. 10. verse 11. whereas Christ by one sacrifice and that once offered, chap. 9 verse 28. did fully put away sin, so that had the same sacrifice of Christ been often offered, as the same sacrifices of the Jews were, it had upon that account been liable to the same charge of imperfection; for if by one offering it had for ever perfected them that are sanctified, and had obtained perfect and plenary Remission of sins, and had done the whole work, and had the whole effect of all that sacrifices were intended for, then what need it be any further offered? the offering up the same sacrifice, and continuing daily to offer it, shows that it was not sufficient, nor did do the business at once offering, as the frequent using the same medicine shows that it has not fully cured the wound, nor yet perfectly done its work.  
Secondly, The sacrifice of the Mass, they say, is only to apply the virtue and merit of the sacrifice of the Cross; for though the sacrifice of the Cross like a powerful medicament have sufficient virtue in it, yet what does that signify unless it be applied to us, which it is by the sacrifice of the Mass? But is there not another way to apply that to us? Is it not applied to us by Faith, and by the common means of Christ's own institution, the Christian Sacraments, and especially by the Worthy Receiving of the Lords Supper, wherein as the Apostle says, The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ, and the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ, 1 Cor. 10.16. We do hereby communicate and are made partakers of Christ's Body as it was sacrificed for us, that is, of all the virtues and benefits of his sacrifice by being as the Apostle adds, verse 17. Made partakers of that One bread, that is surely by eating it sacramentally and religiously as Christ has appointed; for it would sound very hard and be a very odd expression, to say we are partakers of that one bread by the sacrificing or offering up of that bread, when they will not own that the bread is sacrificed, or if it were, could we well be thereby partakers of it, but 'tis the eating of that bread which makes us partakers of it; and 'tis the eating Christ's Body, and drinking his Blood in the blessed Sacrament, that communicates and applies the virtue of his sacrifice of the Cross to us, and not the sacrificing of that again, as the Apostle goes on verse 18. Are not they who eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the Altar? 'tis eating and communicating, that makes us partakers of Christ's sacrifice. We do then eat of the sacrifice, and so partake of it as the Jews did of their sacrifices; the communion is a feasting upon a true oblatum, the body and blood of Christ, as is excellently made out by a Learned man of our own, we do not there sacrifice Christ's body, but only sacramentally eat of it, as being already sacrificed and offered once for all, by Christ himself upon the Cross. It is not at all necessary that it should be sacrificed again by us to make us become partakers of it; for cannot a sacrifice be applied without being sacrificed again? It seems a very strange and uncouth way to sacrifice the same thing over and over in order to applying the virtue of it, as if the Jews when they had slain the Paschal Lamb, must have slain another Lamb in order to the partaking the virtue of it, no they were to eat of it for that purpose, and so are we of Christ's sacrifice, and this is the way whereby we do communicate of it, and have its full virtue applied to us. It was the weakness and insufficiency of their sacrifices that made them so often repeat them, and sacrifice them anew, but Christ's sacrifice being perfect is to be but once offered, though it be often to be eaten and partaken of by us, which it may be without being again sacrificed.  
Thirdly, The Author of this Epistle makes not the least mention of Christ's sacrifice being offered again upon Earth, or of its being repeated in the sacrifice of the Mass, but after he himself had once offered it upon the Cross, he immediately speaks of his presenting it to God in Heaven, and there by virtue of it interceding and mediating with him for us, that by his own blood he entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal Redemption for us, chap. 9 ver. 12. as the Jewish high priest on the great day of expiation after he had offered the sacrifice of atonement for the whole Congregation upon the Altar, carried the blood of it into the Holy of Holies, and there sprinkled it before the mercy-seat, Levit. 16.15. This great Anniversary sacrifice for the whole Congregation was the great Type and Figure of Christ's sacrifice for all mankind, and the Holy of Holies was the Type of Heaven, and the High Priest, of Christ, as is confessed by all; Christ therefore our great High Priest to whom alone it belonged to offer this sacrifice of Atonement and Expiation for the whole World, having done this upon the Cross he entered not into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us, chap, 9 ver. 24. To appear there as our Advocate and Mediator, and by virtue of his own blood there presented to his Father to make a very powerful intercession for us. Now from this discourse of the Apostle we have a full account of Christ's sacrifice that it was to be once offered upon the cross, and then to be carried into the Holy of Holies in Heaven, and no more to be offered upon Earth, for this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God, chap. 10. ver. 12. The Apostle speaks not one tittle, nor gives the least hint or intimation of this sacrifice being offered again by others upon Earth, this lies cross to the whole tenor of his discourse, and the similitude and agreement which he represents between the Jewish sacrifice of Atonement, and Christ's is quite altered and destroyed by it, for besides the High Priests offering this sacrifice, this makes every lesser Priest to be still offering the same sacrifice upon the Altar, when the High Priest is entered with the blood of it into the Holy of Holies; and though he cannot go in there, upon which the virtue and the perfection of the sacrifice does in great measure depend, yet still to offer the same sacrifice; and besides it makes this sacrifice like to the Jewish, where every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which for the reason shown, they could never take away sins, chap. 10. ver. 12. in opposition to which he says, this man after he had offered, one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God, verse 13. that is, Christ's sacrifice was never to be repeated as the Jewish were; for if it had been to be offered by others though not by Christ himself, and the Christian Priests were to stand daily ministering and offering the same sacrifice, both they and their sacrifice would have been the same upon this account with the Jewish, and there had not been that difference between them, which the Apostle does there plainly mean and declare.  
Further it cannot but seem very strange that when this Divine Author does so largely and copiously and designedly treat of the sacrifice of Christ and of those of the Jews, and compare them so much together, and show the excellency of the one above the other, that he should never say the least word of the sacrifice of the Mass, when he had so much occasion to do it, that it can hardly be imagined he should have so wholly omitted it, had it been as others since account it, as true and proper a sacrifice as any of the Jewish or of Christ's himself upon the cross.  
Fourthly, The Apostle here plainly lays down a principle directly contrary and wholly inconsistent with their Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, and that is, that if Christ be offered he must suffer and that without shedding of blood there is no Remission. Nor yet saith he at the 25, 26. verses, and 9th. chapter, That he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others. For than must he often have 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. For than must he often have suffered if he had been often offered, without suffering then Christ cannot be offered and sacrificed, and indeed to sacrifice any thing is to consume and destroy it, so that it be wholly parted with and given up to God, and to sacrifice any thing that is living, is to take away its life and to kill it, and so to make it suffer death, as a vicarious punishment in another's stead; this is the common and allowed notion of sacrifices, but Christ cannot thus suffer in the Mass, therefore he cannot be truly offered or sacrificed, since according to the Apostle if he be often offered he must often suffer; and they would not I hope crucify to themselves the Lord of Life again, and put him to death upon the Altar as the Jews did upon the cross, and yet without this they cannot truly sacrifice him, or properly offer him according to the Apostle. But this says their great Champion the Bishop of Meaux is done mystically, Christ is mystically slain, and doth mystically suffer death upon the Altar, that is, by way of representation and resemblance, and the mysterious signification of what is done there, as St. Paul says to the Galatians, chap. 3. v. 1. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you. Now so Christ may be crucified every time we hear or read his crucifixion lively represented to us, as we may see a bloody Tragedy without one drop of blood spilt, so Christ may be mystically slain in the Sacrament when his body is broke, and his blood poured out in mystery and representation, but this is not true and proper Offering which is necessary to make a true and proper sacrifice as they will have that of the Mass to be; if they would be contented with a mystical sacrifice to represent and commemorate Christ's death, that they know we are willing to allow, and then a mystical suffering that is not a real and proper, would be sufficient for a mystical that is not proper sacrifice, but the suffering must be as true and proper as the sacrifice, and if the one be but mystical, the other must be so too; if the Bullock or Goat of the sin-offering which was to be offered on the great day of Atonement had been only Mystically slain, and Mystically offered upon the Altar, they had been as really alive for all that as any that were in the Fields, and had been no more true and proper sacrifices of atonement and expiation than they were, for without shedding of blood, as the Apostle says, there is no Remission, Heb. 9.22. it was the shedding or pouring out the blood in which the Life was supposed to be, and therefore the taking away the Life of the sacrifice that did really make the sacrifice to be truly propitiatory or avail able before God, as a price and recompense for the remission of sins; and how then can the sacrifice of the Mass be truly propitiatory, when the blood is not truly shed, when according to themselves it is Incruentum sacrificium, an unbloody sacrifice, and therefore according to the Apostle it cannot be propitiatory for the Remission of sins, as will be further insisted upon afterwards. Thus we see how much there is in those clear places of Scripture against the sacrifice of the Mass, and how little there is for it in those dark ones, which are produced by our Adversaries.  
Thirdly, It has no just claim to Antiquity nor was there any such Doctrine or Practice in the Primitive Church; this is greatly boasted and vaunted of, and although their cause runs very low in Scripture, yet they pretend it carries all Antiquity before it, where nothing is more common than to have the name of Oblation, and Sacrifice, and Host, and Victim attributed to the blessed Eucharist, and to have it said that we do there offer, and immolate and sacrifice unto God; this we readily acknowledge, and though we can by no means allow Antiquity to take place of Scripture, or to set up either an Article of Faith, or essential part of Worship which is not in Scripture, and our Adversaries seem to agree with us in this, that there must be a divine Institution for a sacrifice, or else it can have no true foundation; so that if Scripture fails them, 'tis in vain to fly for refuge to Antiquity, yet we doubt not but that Scripture and Antiquity will be fairly reconciled and be made very good Friends in this point; and both of them against the sacrifice of the Mass, as 'tis taught and practised in the Church of Rome.  
The name of Sacrifice and oblation is often given both in Scripture and Antiquity, in an improper general and metaphorical sense, thus it is applied to the inward actions of the mind, to penitence and sorrow for sin, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God thou wilt not despise, Psal. 51.17. To the outward Thanksgivings of the mouth, when we render unto God the Calves of our lips, Hosea 14.2. When we offer unto him Thanksgiving, Psal. 50.14. or as the Apostle more fully expresses it when he commands Christians, to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, Heb. 13.15. where the Metaphor is carried on in several words; and in the very next verse 'tis applied to works of Mercy and Charity and beneficence to others, but to do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased, verse 16. and St. Paul in another place calls the Philippians Charity, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God, Philip. 4.18. Nay he calls preaching the Gospel, a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which our Adversaries earnestly contend to mean nothing less than a sacrifice, and the converting the Gentiles he calls a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an offering acceptable to God, Rom. 15.16 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . And in another place he calls the Faith of Christians a sacrifice, Philip. 2.17 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. . And his own Martyrdom an Oblation, Ib. 1 Tim. 4.6. St. Peter not only calls works of Piety, Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, but he ascribes a holy Priesthood to all Christians to offer these up, 1 Pet. 2.5. and upon that account St. John also gives them the Title of Priests, Rev. 1.6. Now as the holy Spirit of God often chooses to use this phrase, and metaphor which is very easy and natural, so from hence and in accommodation probably both to the Jews and Heathens, the greatest part of whose Religion was sacrifices, the ancient Writers also do very frequently make use of it, and apply it both to actions of morality, and to all parts of Religious Worship, but especially to the blessed Eucharist, which is the most sacred and solemn of all other, but they do not do this in the strict and proper sense of the word sacrifice, as is plain from the foregoing instances but in a large, and general, and metaphorical one, so that though our Adversaries could muster up ten times as many places out of the Fathers wherein the Eucharist is called a sacrifice and oblation, and in the celebrating of which we are said to offer and immolate to God, with which they are apt to make a great show, and to triumph as if the victory were perfectly gained against us, yet they are all to no purpose, and would do no real execution upon us, unless they can prove that these are to be taken in a strict and proper sense, which it is necessary they should be to make a proper sacrifice, and not in a large and Metaphorical one as we are willing to allow, & in which the Scriptures, we see, do understand them, and so do the Fathers, as I shall evidently demonstrate. Upon what accounts and in what sense the Fathers do call the Eucharist a sacrifice and oblation, and apply the phrases of immolating and offering and the like to it, I shall now particularly consider. And  
1. They do this, upon the account of those oblations of bread and wine, and other things which it was the custom for Christians to bring when they came to the Communion, out of which a part was consecrated for the Eucharist, and the remainder was for a common Feast of love and a Religious entertainment, or for the maintenance of the Clergy, and the poor, to whom they were afterwards distributed. This Custom the Apostle takes notice of the, 1 Cor. 11. and the Ancient Writers expressly mention it in several places, after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Feasts of Love were for some abuses laid aside; Clemens Romanus in his first Epistle, the most ancient & most unquestioned piece of Antiquity we have, speaks expressly of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Oblations, and joins them with the sacred and Religious Offices 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Climens' Ep. 1. ad Corinth. p. 85. Edit. Oxon. , and commends those who make these their oblations orderly, and at the appointed times 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ib. p. 86. . The Apostolic Canons that go under his name though their credit is not so authentic, speak very particularly of these offerings, and of their being brought to the altar for a sucrifice 
(a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. Canon. 3. . Ignatius speaks also of offering and of bringing the sacrifice 
(b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. sc. absque Episcopo. Epist. ad Smyru.  Justin Martyr mentions, these offerings as accompanied with prayer and thanksgiving, and as the way by which Christians worshipped the Creator instead of the bloody sacrifices and libations, and incense that were offered by others 
(c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.— Justin Martyr Apolog. 2.  and these, says he, we account the proper way of honouring him, not by consuming his gifts in the fire, but by thus offering them for the poor, and for ourselves. Irenaeus says, The Church offers to God, who affords us food, the first-fruits of his Gifts, and the first-fruits of his Creatures, not as if he wanted but that we may be grateful 
(*) Ecclesis,— offered Deo, ci qui nobis alimenta praestat primitias suorum munerum,— primitias Deo offerre ex suis creaturis non quasi indigenti sed ut ipsi nec insructuosis, nec ingrati sint. Iraen. advers. Haeres. l. 4. c. 32.  And though Fevardentius in his Notes upon this and the other places of Irenaeus, wherein he speaks of this oblation would have it meant of the oblation of Christ himself in the Eucharist, yet that is clearly disproved by his so often calling it the offering. to God of his own Creatures, and the first-fruits of his Creatures 
(d) Primitias earum quae sunt ejus creaturarum offerentes,— offerens ei ex gratiarum actione ex creatura ejus. Ib. c. 34.  which must be no other than of bread and wine and the like, and from hence he proves against the Marcionites that Christ was 
(e) Quomodo autem constabit eum panem inquo gratiae actae sunt— si non ipsum fabricatoris mundi filium dicant, Ib.  the Son of the Creator and Maker of the World, because that his creatures were offered in the Eucharist. St. Cyprian condemning and blaming some of the rich Women who came to the Sacrament without bringing these oblations, thou comest, says he, into the Lord's house, without a sacrifice and takest part of that sacrifice which the poor hath offered 
(f) in Dominicum sine sacrificio vonis, quae partem de sacrisicio, quod pauper obtuli● sumis. Cypr. de Oper. & Eleemos.  St. Austin insists upon the same thing and bids them offer the oblations which are consecrated upon the Altar, a man who is able aught to blush if he eat of another's oblation 
* Oblationes quae in altari consecr antur osserte, erubescere debet homo idoneus; si de alienâ oblatione communicet. Aug. Serm. 13. de Temp.  without offering himself. These oblations are expressly called a sacrifice in the Apostolic Canons, in Ignatius, and in St. Cyprian, as Alms, and Works of Charity are in the Epistle to the Hebrews chap. 13. ver. 16. and these in our Church's prayer before the Sacrament we beg God to accept of. In the Apostolic Constitutions where we have the largest if not earliest account of the Eucharistic office, the oblation is thus described, We offer to thee King and God according to thy appointment, this bread and this cup, and we beseech thee to look graciously upon these gifts set before thee, O thou God who wantest nothing, and send thy holy Spirit upon this sacrifice 
(b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Apostol. Constit. l. 8. c. 12.  i. e. upon these oblations, and make them to be the body and blood of Christ, i. e. Sacrumentally and Virtually. In the Ordo Romanus, and in the Canon of the Mass itself 
(c) Te igitur Clementissime Pater per Jesum Christum Filium tuum Dominum nostrum supplicts rogamus a● petimus ut accepta habeas & benedicas haec dona, haec munera, haec Sancta Sacrificia illibata in primis quae tibi offerimus,— Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae sed & cunctae familliae tuae quaesumus Domine ut placatus accipias— Quam Oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quaesumus benedictam, ascriptam, ratam, rationabitem, acceptabilemque facere digneris: ut nobis corpus & sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Ordo Romanus p. 62. Edit. Hittorp. Canon Missae.  there is this prayer over the oblations, that God would accept and bless these Gifts, these Presents, these Holy and undefiled sacrifices which we offer to thee, etc. and another to the same purpose said by their Priest with his hand stretched over the oblata, This oblation therefore of our service and of thy whole Family, we beseech thee, O Lord, mercifully to receive, etc. And again, This oblation, O Lord, we beseech thee to make blessed, &c signing upon the oblata. That it may be to us the body and blood of thy dearest Son our Lord Jesus Christ. All these prayers over the oblations whereby they are presented to God, are made before Consecration, so that the oblations which are here called Holy and pure Sacrifices are thought worthy of that Name before they are become the Body and Blood of Christ, and so made a proper sacrifice in the present sense of the Church of Rome, the Canon of the Mass is Older than their New doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, and affords plain evidence for applying the name of sacrifice to the Eucharist, upon the account of those offerings and oblations that were made there.  
2. The Eucharist is called a sacrifice by the Ancients upon the account of those religious Acts and Pious Exercises which are there performed by the devout Communicants, and which are called sacrifices both in Scripture and in the Fathers, thus our Prayers may be as well a morning as an evening sacrifice, Ps. 141.2. And therefore as Irenaeus says speaking of the Eucharist, God would have us continually offer a gift at his Altar, to wit, our Prayers and Oblations, which are directed to the heavenly Altar 
† Vult nos quoque sine intermissione offer munus ad altar, est ergo altare in coelis, illue enim preces & oblationes nostrae diriguntur. Iren. l. 4. advers. Haeres. c. 33. , though they are made at the Earthly. So our Praises and Thanksgivings which are then raised to the highest pitch when we have the greatest instance of the Divine Love offered to our minds, are that sacrifice which we are then to offer to God giving thanks to his name, Heb. 13.15. Namely for that Miracle of kindness Christ dying for us, from which the Eucharist has its name, and for which reason it is oalled a sacrifice of Praise in the Ordo Romanus 
† Memento Domine famulorum famularumque tuarum & omnium circumadstantium, quorum tibi fides cognita est & nota devotio qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis pro se suisque omnibus pro Redemptione animarum suaerum, pro spo salutis, etc.— tibique reddunt vota sua, Ordo Romanus p. 62. , viz. for our Redemption and hope of Salvation, and also for those vows which we then render unto God, when we present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, Rom. 12.1. as the Apostle speaks; and as St. Austin expresses it, the Church is then offered to God, and is made one body in Christ, when we are made to drink into one Spirit, 1 Cor. 12.13. and this is the sacrifice of Christians 
(b) Hoc est sacrificium Christianorum, multi unum corpus sumus in Christo, quod etiam sacramento altaris fidelibus noto frequentat Ecclesia uhi ei demonstratur, quod in eâ oblatione quam offert ipsa offeratur. August. Civitate Dei, l. 10. c. 6.  not only a sacrifice of Praise as 'tis called by Eusebius 
(c) Demonstrat. l. 1. c. 10.  St. Basil 
(d) Liturg.  St. Austin 
(e) Ad Pet. Diac. c. 9  and other Fathers, whereby we offer up unto God the calves of our lips in the Scripture phrase, but wherein we offer and present unto God ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable holy and lively sacrifice unto him, and though we are unworthy to offer unto him any sacrifice, yet beseech him to accept this our bounden duty and service, according to the Prayer of our Church in its excellent office of the Communion. Melchior Canus, in his Defence of the sacrifice of the Mass, has unawares confessed this Truth, That Christ did only offer up at his last Supper a sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving, For to give thanks, says he, after the Jewish manner, and take the Cup into his hands, and lift it up, is truly to offer a sacrifice of Thanksgiving. When Christ therefore said, Do this, he plainly commanded his Apostles that what they saw him do they should do also by offering up a sacrifice of Eucharist, that is, of giving of Thanks 
(f) Ritu quippe Judaico gratias agere calicem in manibus accipiendo, & levando vere est hostiam gratiarum actionis offer, Quùm itaque dixit Dominus, hoc facite, planè jussit Apostolis ut quod ipsum facere cernebant, id quoque illi facerent Eucharistiae hoc est gratiarum actionis hostiam exhlbendo. Canus in locis Theolog. l. 12. p. 806.  and he expressly speaks against Christ's offering up a Mass-sacrifice for sin then when the day of the bloody sacrifice was now near, and the very hour approaching, and when their general sacrifice was nigh by which it pleased the Father to forgive all sins 
(g)— Christum in caenâ sacrificium non pro peccato quidem sed gratiacum tamen actionis obtulisse,— quod cum sacrificii cruenti dies instaret jam planè, aut certè jam appropinquaret hora, non oportibat hostiam in caenâ pro peccato Mysticam exhibere, cum impenderet generalis hostia illa in quâ Patri complacuit omnia peccata resolvi. Ib. p. 834.  which is to make the Eucharist what we are willing to own it a sacrifice of Thanksgiving, and is in a few words to cut the very throat of their Cause, as to this Controversy.  
3. The Eucharist is called a sacrifice as it is both a Commemoration and a Representation of Christ's sacrifice upon the Cross, so 'tis a commemorative and representative sacrifice, as we call that a bloody Tragedy which only represents a Murder, and we give the name of the thing to that which is but the resemblance and likeness of it. The Jews called that the Passover which was but a memorial of it, and the Apostle says, we are buried with Christ in Baptism, and rise with him, Col. 2.12. when those are but remotely signified, thus Christ is immolated and sacrificed in the Eucharist, as St. Austin speaks, when according to the Gloss upon his words, his immolation is represented and there is made a memorial of his passion 
(a) Christus Immolatur i. e. Christi immolatio repraesentatur & sit memoria Passionis. de Consec. Dist. 2.  Christ, says he, was but once offered and yet in the Sacrament he is daily immolated, neither does he lie who says Christ is immolated, for if Sacruments had not the likeness of those things whereof they are sacraments, they would be no sacraments at all, but from this likeness they received the names of the things themselves 
(b) Nun Christus semel oblatus est & tamen in Sacramento quotidie populis immolatur, nec mentitur qui dicit Christum immolari, si enim sacramenta non haberent similitudinem, earum rerum quarum sunt sacramenta, nullo modo essent sacramenta, sed ex similitudine saepe nomina earum accipiunt. August. Ep. 120. ad Honorat.  Thus as he there gives several instances, wherein that which is the memorial of a thing, does for its similitude to that thing of which it is a memorial receive its name. When Easter approacheth, we say to morrow or next day is the passion of Christ, and on the Lord's day, we say this day Christ arose, when Christ's passion was but once and that several years ago, and that day is said to be Christ's Resurrection which yet it is not 
(c) Illud quod alicujus memoriale est propter similitudinem saepe ejus rei cujus memoriale est nomen accipiat, ut appropinquante Paschate, dicimus cras aut perendie est passio Christi, cumsemel tantum ante multos annos sit passus, & die Dominicâ dicimus, hodie Christus resurrexit, propter similitudinem enim dies ille id esse dicitur, quod tamen non est. Ib.  What we call then a sacrifice is a memorial or a sign and a representation of a sacrifice, as he says in another place 
(d) Quod appellamus sacrisicium signum est & repraesentatio sacrificii. August. de Civit. Dei l. 10. c. 5.  We offer the same sacrifice that Christ did, for the passion of Christ is the sacrifice? which we offer, 
(e) Passio enim Domini est sacrisicium quod efferimus. Cypr. Ep. 3.  in St. Cyprians words; or rather we perform a remembrance of a sacrifice as St. Chrysostom speaks 
(f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysost. in Heb. 10. Hom. 17. , and after him Theophylact, We always offer him or rather we make a remembrance of his offering 
(g) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Theophylact. in Heb. 10.  don't we offer unbloody sacrifices, yes, we make a remembrance of his bloody death 
(h) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ib.  so that instead of a sacrifice, i. e. a proper one, he hath commanded us perpetually to offer up a memorial, as Eusebius more strictly words it 
(i) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Euseb. Demonstrat. l. 1. c. 10. . If we come down to the Elder Schoolmen before the sacrifice of the Mass was understood in so strict and proper a sense as it is now in the Church of Rome, and in the Council of Trent, we shall find them calling it a sacrifice only upon this account that it is, a memorial and representation of the true sacrifice, and of the sacred immolation made upon the Altar of the cross, which are the very words of Peter Lombard 
(k) Ad hoc breviter dici potest illud quod offertur & consecratur à sacerdote vocari sacrificium & oblationem quia memoria est & repraesentatio veri sacrificii, & sanctae immolationis factae in arâ crucis. Bombard. l. 4. Dist. 12.  Master of the Sentences, and Father of the Schoolmen; whom Thomas Aquinas seems wholly to follow, and more largely thus to explain the reason why the celebration of the Sacrament may be called a sacrifice and immolation of Christ, because, says he, first it is an image of Christ's passion, for as St. Austin says to Simplicius, Images used to be called by the names of those things of which they are Images, as when we look upon a painted Table or Wall, we say this is Cicero and this is Sallust, but the celebration of this Sacrament is a representative image of Christ's passion which is the true immolation. Another way as to the effect of Christ's passion it may be called a sacrifice, because by this Sacrament we are made partakers of the fruit of the Lords Passion 
(c) Tum quia hujus sacramenti celebratio imago quaedam est passionis Christi, tum etiam quia per hoc Sacramentum participes essicimur fructus Dominicae passionis— convenienter dicitur Christi immolatio. Primò quidem quia sicut Augustinus ad Simplicium, solent imagines earum rerum nominibus appellari quarum imagines sunt, sicut cum intuentes tabulam aut parietem pictum, dicimus ille Cicero est, & ille Salustius, celebratio autem hujus Sacramenti imago quaedam est repraesentativa passionis Christi, quae est vera ejus immolatio— alio modo quantum ad effectum passionis Christi quia sc. per hoc sacramentum participes efficimur fructûs Dominicae passionis. Thom. Aquin. sum. 3. pars qu. 83.  Had the Church of Rome gone no further than this and not made the Eucharist a sacrifice in any other sense then as it is commemorative and exhibitive of Christ's true sacrifice and immolation upon the cross, we had not blamed them, nor had there been any controversy between us in this matter; or had they been contented to have used the word sacrifice in a large and figurative and improper sense as the Fathers do, when they call the Eucharist a sacrifice, and therefore they immediately correct themselves as it were with this addition, or rather a remembrance of a sacrifice, and explain the reason why they give it that name; but this would not serve our Adversaries purpose, this would not make it a true proper propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead, this would not give it those virtues which they assign to it as a proper sacrifice in itself distinct from its being a sacrament, this would not make it so applicable to others who never partook or communicated of it, and so would not make it of so great price and value, that is, so marketable to themselves, and therefore the Council of Trent condemns this notion of its being a sacrifice of Praise, and Thanksgiving or a mere commemoration of Christ's sacrifice upon the cross and not a propitiatory one, or that it profits only him that takes it; or that it ought not to be offered for the quick and dead, for sins, for punishments, for satisfactions and other necessities 
(a) Siquis dixerit Missae sacrificium tantum esse laudis & gratiarum actionis aut nudam commemorationem sacrificii in cruse peracli non autem propitiatorium vel soli prodesse sumenti, neque pro vivis & desunctis, pro peccatis, paenis, satisfactionibus & aliis necessitatibus afferri debere, anathema sit. Concil. Trid. de sacrif. Missae. Canon 3.  They make it to have the true virtue of a sacrifice in its self, as a true price and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and compensation to God for sin, and a true satisfaction to divine Justice for the punishment thereof, as much as the sacrifice upon the cross, and that they have the power of applying this whensoever, and for whomsoever they offer it, which is to have the greatest treasure in the World in their hands, and to be able to make a proper propitiation for sin, which belongs only to Christ; but they can offer Christ, as truly as he offered himself, and set him upon the Altar as true a sacrifice as he hung upon the cross. Christ I own is in some sense offered up to God by every communicant in the Sacrament when he does mentally and internally offer him to God and present as it were his bleeding Saviour to his Father, and desire him for his sake to be merciful to him and forgive him his sins, this internal oblation of Christ and his passion is made by every faithful Christian in his particular private devotions, and especially at the more solemn and public ones of the blessed Sacrament. When he has the facred symbols of Christ's death before him, and does then plead the virtue of Christ's sacrifice before God, not of the sacrifice then before him, but of the past sacrifice of the cross. This is all done by the inward acts the Faith, the devotion of the mind, whereby as St. Austin says, Christ is then slain to any one when he-believes him slain 
(b) Tum Christus cuique occiditur cum evedit occisum. August. quaest. Evang. l. 2.  and when we believe in Christ from the very remains of this thought Christ is daily immolated to us 
(c) Cum credimus in Christum ex ipsis reliquiis cogitationis Christus nobis quotidie immolatur, Id. in Psal. 73.  as St. Hierom says, when we hear the word of our Lord, his flesh and blood is as it were poured into our Ears 
(d) cum audimus Sermonem Domini caro Christi & sanguis ejus in auribus nostris funditur. Hieron. in Psal. 147.  and so St. Ambrose, calls the virgin's minds those Altars on which Christ is daily offered, for the Redemption of the Body 
(e) Vestras mentes confidenter altaria dixerim in quibus quotidiè pro Redemptione corporis Christus offertur, Ambr. de Virg. l. 2.   
The Minister also does not only offer to God the oblations of the faithful at the Altar, and their spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise which it is his proper duty in their names to present unto God, but he does offer as it were Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for the people by praying to God for the people as a public Minister, in and through the merits of Christ's death and passion, and by consecrating and administering the blessed Sacrament; which is hereby made not only a commemorative sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, but does with the outward sign, really exhibit the thing signified to the people. So that 'tis no wonder to meet with the words offering, and offering Christ's body and blood as attributed peculiarly to the Minister, as in those known places of Ignatius his Epistles, 'tis not lawful for the Priest to offer without the leave of the Bishop. And in Tertullian, when the Priest is wanting, thou baptizest and offerest, and art a Priest to thyself, and in the Council of Nice, where Deacons are forbid to offer the body of Christ, Can. 14. To offer, and to offer Christ's body and blood is made the peculiar office of the Priest, as he alone is the steward of these Mysteries of God, and the proper Minister to consecrate and celebrate this Holy Sacrament, and in that to offer up the people's requests to God in the name of Christ and his meritorious cross and passion, and by virtue of that to mediate for the people, and present as it were Christ's sacrifice on their behalf; that is Christ's body and blood as an objective sacrifice in heaven, and as formerly truly offered upon the cross, and now sacramentally and improperly upon the Altar, but not as an external visible proper sacrifice, subjectively present and placed upon the Altar by the hands of the Priest, and by a visible and external action presented to God, and offered up as the Jewish sacrifices used to be by any consumption or alteration as they hold the sacrifice of the Mass to be. No such can be found in any of the Fathers or ancient Ecclesiastic Writers though they speak often of sacrifices and oblations, and sometimes of offering Christ, and the body of Christ in the Eucharist, yet not at all in the present sense of the Romish Church, or according to the doctrine of the Council of Trent, or the Writers since that; which how contrary it is to Antiquity I shall show by a few general Remarks and Considerations.  
1. Had they had any such sacrifice they might have given another answer, to their Jewish and Heathen Adversaries, who charged them with the want of outward Sacrifices and Altars as with a great impiety; to which they made only this return in their Apologies, that they had indeed no proper Altars, nor visible and external sacrifices, but instead of those they offered the more spiritual sacrifices of Praise and Thanksgiving, and of an honest and good mind, and of virtuous and holy actions which were the only sacrifices of Christians, and more acceptable to God than any other: this is the answer which runs through all their excellent Apologies in return to that accusation of their having no sacrifices, which they owned to be true in the sense their Adversaries urged it; that is, that they had no proper external visible sacrifices, such as the Jews and Heathens had, & such as the Roman Church will needs have the Mass to be, but their sacrifices were of another nature, such as were so only in an improper and metaphorical sense which the Romanists will by no means allow that of the Eucharist to be. We are not Atheists, says Justin Martyr, as they were chargged to be, because they had not the visible Worship of facrifices, but we Worship the maker of all things who needs not blood, or libations, or incense, with the Word of Prayer and Thanksgiving, giving him Praise as much as we can, and counting this the only honour worthy of him 
(a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Justin Martyr Apolog. 2.  and we are persuaded he needeth no material oblation from men 
(b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ib.  And in another place he says, Prayers and Praises made by good men are the only perfect and acceptable sacrifices to God 
(c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Dialog. cum Tryph.  We are charged by some with Atheism, says Athenagoras, who measure Religion only by the way of sacrifices, and what do ye tell me of sacrifices which God wanteth not, though we ought to bring him an unbloody sacrifice, and to offer him a rational Worship 
(d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Athanag. Legat. pro Christ.  where the rational worship explains the meaning of the unbloody sacrifice. Tertullian in his Apologetic answering that charge, That Christians did not sacrifice for the Emperors, it follows says he by the same reason we do not sacrifice for others, because neither do we do it for ourselves 
(e) Pro Imperatoribus sacrisicia non pendltis, sequitur ut eadem ratione pro aliis non sacrificemus quia nec pro nobis ipsis. Tertull. Apologet. adversus gentes, c. 10.  but in answer to this he declares how Christians prayed for the Emperor, c. 30. and in another place, he says, they sacrificed for the Emperor's health, that is, with a pure prayer as God has commanded 
(f) Sacrificamus pro salute Imperatoris, i. e. purâ price sicut Dius praecepit, Idem ad Scapul.  and I offer to God, says he, in the same Apologetic speaking against other sacrifices, a rich and a greater sacrifice than le commanded the Jews, Prayer from a chaste body, from an innocent soul proceeding from the Holy Spirit 
(g) Ei offero opimam & majorem hostiam quam ipse mandavit, orationem de carne pudicâ, de animâ innocenti, de Spiritu sancto profectam. Ib. Apol. c. 30.  This is the Host to be offered, says Minutius Felix, a good mind, a pure soul, a sincere conscience, these are our sacrifices, these are the sacred things of God, in answer to their not having Altars and Shrines 
(h) Cum sit litabilis hostia bonus animus & pura mens & sincera conscientia— haec nostra sacrificia, haec Dei sacra sunt— Minuc. Octau. 
Sc. delubra & arras non habemus. Ib.   which objection made also by Celsus is after the same manner replied to by Origen, Our Altars are the mind of every one that is righteous from whence is truly sent up sweet smelling sacrifices, to wit, Prayers from a pure conscience 
(i) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Origen contra Celsum. l. 8. p. 389.  Lactantius when he proposes to speak of sacrifice, shows how unsuitable any external one is to God, and that the proper sacrifice to him, is praise and an hymn, blessing alone is his sacrifice, we ought therefore to sacrifice unto God by word, the chief way of worshipping God is Thanksgiving out of the mouth of a just man directed to God 
(k) Nunc de sacrificio ipso pauca dicemus,— sacrificium laus & bymnus— hujus sacrificium sola benedictio, verbo ergo sacrificari oportet Deo— summus igitur colendi Dei ritus est, ex ore justi hominis ad Deum directa laudatio. Lactantius de vero cultu l. 6. §. 25.  Can those excellent Advocates for Christianity have no other ways assoiled the charge drawn up against them, that they had no sacrifices like all other Religions, but by flying to such spiritual and improper sacrifices as Praise and Thanksgiving? this plainly demonstrates that they had no proper and visible sacrifice, which indeed in so many express words they deny when the word sacrifice was understood strictly and properly 
(l) Quid ergo sacrificia censetis nulla esse omnino sacienda? nulla. Arnob. disput. adversus Gent. l. 7. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clemens Alexandrin. Strom. l. 7. p. 707. Par.   Had they so accounted the sacrifice of the Mass as our Adversaries do now, this might have been given in as the Christian sacrifice instead of all others, and yet it is strange they scarce ever mention the Eucharist in those discourses of theirs, wherein if it had been a sacrifice it had been most proper and pertinent to have spoke of it, and the sacrifice of a man under the species of bread and wine had outdone all the Jewish and most of the Heathen sacrifices, and had been a full answer to the objection as it was made by them; but say our Adversaries they would not speak of so great a mystery as the Eucharist to unbelievers which they were used to conceal even to Catechumen that were not yet perfectly initiated into the Christian Rites; but surely they would not have told a downright lie, and denied that they had any proper sacrifices, had the Eucharist been one, as we see they did, neither did they keep the service of the Eucharist so secret as not to let the Heathens be acquainted with it, as is plain from Justin Martyrs Apology, where he largely discourses of its whole performance to Antoninus the Emperor 
(a) Apolog. 2. versus sinem. ; and to take off this little subterfuge of our Adversaries, I shall add one thing more on this head, which shows beyond all dispute that the Primitive Church had no such opinion of the Eucharists being a sacrifice, and that is the same charge of Julian the Apostate who very well understood Christianity and had been a Reader of it in the Church, who notwithstanding objected the same thing to the Christians with the Jews and Heathens, namely that they had no Sacrifices, and that they did not erect altars to sacrifice upon to God 
(b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Julian apud Cyril. Alexand. contra Jul. l. 10. p. 343. . He knew too well the Mysteries of their Religion, so as not to be ignorant that the Eucharist was a proper sacrifice had it really been believed to be so by the Church at that time, and Cyril's answer to him plainly shows that it was not, for he owns the charge, and pleads only that we have spiritual and mental sacrifices which are much better 
(c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ib. p. 345.  and instead of Sheep and Oxen, and the like visible sacrifices, we offer, says he, for a sweet savour Faith, Hope, Charity, Righteousness and Praise 
(d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ib.  but not a tittle of offering the sacrifice of the Mass which would have been greatly to the purpose had there been any such thing, and there was no reason to have refused the mentioning it to Julian who had once been a Christian, and so must certainly have known it, had there been any such thing in the Christian Church.  
2. When the Fathers do call the Eucharist a sacrifice, they add such Epithets and Phrases to it as do quite spoil the Roman notion of it, for they call it a spiritual sacrifice, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as 'tis in Eusebius 
(a) Demon strat. Evangel. l. 5. c. 3.  Cyril of Jerusalem 
(b) Mystagog. Catech. 5.  Theodoret 
(c) Histor. Relig.  and others besides the Greek Liturgies, and the Apostolic Constitutions, where the word spiritual is generally added to it. Now a spiritual sacrifice they must own is not a proper one, for it cannot be an external and visible one, nor is there any matter or substance to be destroyed. So 'tis called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a reasonable sacrifice 
(d) Constitut. Apost l. 6. c. 23. Curil Cat. mystag. 5. Chrysost. Hom. 11. in Heb.  so then it cannot be an outward bodily one, which the Priest takes up in his hands and sets upon the Altar, 'tis called an unbloody one, not only by the Fathers but themselves, but if it be Christ's body 'tis not without blood, and though it be unbloody in the manner of oblation, yet it could not be called so generally and in itself. 'Tis called a mystic and symbolic sacrifice, and that is very different from a true one, Christ, is said, to be there sacrificed without being sacrificed 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diatypos. Concil. Niceni apud Gelas. Cuzic. , i. e. in figure and representation, he is offered in Image as St. Ambrose expressly says 
(e) Offertur in imagine, Ambros. de Officiis l. 1. c. 48.  and as it is in the book of sacraments attributed to him, this oblation is for a figure of the body and blood of Jesus Christ 
(b) Quod sit in sigurant corporis & sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi; de Sacram. l. 4 c. 5.  if it be a figure it cannot be the thing itself, no more than a man is his own picture; 'tis called also a memorial and commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ as St. Austin says, Christians by the holy oblation at the Eucharist, and by partaking of the body and blood of Christ celebrate the memory of the same sacrifice that was accomplished 
(c) Jam Christiani peracti ejusdem sacrisicii memoriam celebrant sacrosanctâ oblatione & participatione corporis & sanguinis Christi. August. contra Faust. l. 20. c. 18.  We offer, says Chrysostom, but 'tis by making a remembrance of Christ's death and we offer the same sacrifice or rather a remembrance of a sacrifice 
(d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysoit. in Heb. Hom. 17.  And Eusebius in his Demonstrations giving an account why Christians do not offer sacrifices to God as the Jews did, says, Christ having offered an admirable sacrifice & an excellent victim to his Father for the salvation of us all, hath ordered us to offer always to God a memorial instead of a sacrifice 
(e) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Euseb. Demonstrat. Evang. l. 1. c. 10.  or in the place of a sacrifice, as the word and drift of the discourse clearly imply. If it be then a memorial of a sacrifice, it cannot be the sacrifice itself, for the thing remembered must be distinct from that which is to remember it by; and if it be performing a remembrance of a sacrifice rather than a sacrifice, and the memorial of a sacrifice in stead, or in the place of a sacrifice, these accounts of it do most perfectly destroy and are wholly inconsistent with that other notion of its being in itself a true and proper sacrifice.  
Thirdly, The Novelty of private Masses which were brought in by making the Eucharist a sacrifice to God instead of a sacrament to be partaken by Christians, is a plain Argument of the late and novel Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, as they are a certain consequence of it, for when it began to be believed that the Eucharist was a true sacrifice that was beneficial and of extraordinary virtue merely as it was offered to God without being received by themselves, than the people left off frequent communicating according to the Primitive custom in which there is no such thing to be found as is now introduced into the Church by this new Doctrine, namely, the Priests communicating alone without the people, and celebrating Mass without the Communion of others. Bellarmine owns, that there is no express instance to be found of this in any of the Ancients, but this he says may be gathered from conjectures 
† Nam etiamsi nusquam expresse legamus à veter ibus oblatum sacrificium sine communione alicujus vel aliquorum praeter ipsum sacerdotem, tamen id possumus ex conjecturis facilè colligere. Bellarm. de Missâ l. 2. c. 9 , but how groundless they are, and how contrary these private Masses be to the Primitive practice, I shall show from certain and undeniable Authorities. Justin Martyr in his account of the Christian Assemblies, and their manner of celebrating the Lord Supper, says, the Deacons give to every one of those that are present to partake of the blessed Bread and Wine 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Justin Martyr Apolog. 2. . Ignatius who was before him says, one bread is broken to all, and one cup is distributed to every one 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat. Epist. ad Philadeiph. ; the Apostolic Canons command, All the Faithful who were present at the Prayers and Reading of the Scriptures, to continue also at the Communion, or else commands them to be turned out of the Church 
* Canon 9 . So do the Ancient Canons of the Council of Antioch Excommunicate all those who come to the Church, and Prayers with their Brethren, but refuse to communicate of the Holy Eucharist 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Concil. Antioch. Can. 2. . So great a crime was it for any not to keep to constant Communion, which was to be done as much by all the faithful as by the Priest himself; every Christian in those devout ages who was baptised, and had not notoriously violated his baptismal Covenant, so as to be put into the state and number of the public penitents did always communicate as often as there was any Sacrament, which was I believe, as often as they assembled for public Worship, and he that had not done that in those first and purest times would have been thought almost to have been a Deserter and to have renounced his Christianity. All the Catechumen indeed or the Candidates for Christianity, who were admitted to the Prayers and Sermons, but were not yet baptised, they were commanded to withdraw when the Mass or Communion-service began; and so were the Penitents and the Energumeni; and this is the true meaning of the word Missa, the Deacon in the Latin Church, crying out, Ite Missa est, when they came to the office of the Eucharist. In the Apostolic Constitutions 
† l. 8. c. 6, 7, 9  he speaks to them particularly, and dismisses them in these words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faithful who received the Communion were allowed to be present at the celebration of it, which is a very good Argument against our Adversaries opinion of the sacrifice of the Mass, for had they believed the Eucharist though received only by the Priest had done good as a sacrifice to those who were present although they did not partake of it, as they now do in the Church of Rome, what need they have put out and excluded all those who were Non-communicants; the Jews did not shut the people out of the Temple when the sacrifice was offering. If the Eucharist as a sacrifice had been a part of Worship only to God, an oblation to him, and not a Sacrament to be received by themselves, why might not they have been present at it as wellas at the Prayers which were offered to God, and at all the other parts of their Religious Worship? The most ancient accounts we have of the manner of celebrating the Eucharist, and the most ancient Liturgies or Eucharistic forms have not the least shadow of any private Communion by the Priest alone, but always speak of the communion of others with him; in the Apostolic Constitutions there is a Relation in what Order all the Faithful received. First the Bishop, than the Priests and Deacons, than the Deaconesses, and Virgins, and Widows, than all the whole people in order, and after all have received then the Deacons take away the remainder. St. Cyril speaks plainly of numbers receiving the Eucharist and not of a single person, for he mentions the Deacons speaking to them at first to embrace each other, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,) & give the kiss of Charity: those very ancient Forms and Responses, Lift up your hearts, and the answer, we lift them up unto the Lord 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , Let us give thanks unto our Lord God, It is just and meet so to do, and afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, these all show that the Priest did not communicate alone but had always the company of others at the Sacrament to join with him. St. Denys called the Areopagite speaks of the Priests exhorting others at the Cummunion, and praying that they who partake of these Mysteries, may partake of them worthily. The same is in all the Liturgies which go under the name of St. James, St. Mark, and St. Peter, in which there are the distinct parts of the people, as well as of the Priest, as when the Priest is to say peace be with you all, the people are to answer, and with thy spirit, and the service is so framed as to suppose and require company in Communicating, or else it would be nonsensical and ridiculous for the Priest alone to pray to God to breathe upon us his servants that are present, to grant that the Sacraments may be to all us that partake of them, the Communion of the blessedness of eternal Life; and after the Communion is over, after all have received, for the priest to give the blessing to all, and pray, God to bless and protect us all who were partakers of the Mysteries; The same form of speaking in the plural is in the more Authentic Liturgies of St. Basil, and St. Chrysostom, where it is very odd for the Priest to exhort others to pray, to give thanks and the like, and to pray God that they may be worthy partakers of the Sacrament, if none were to partake of it but himself. The Roman Missal which is much older than these private Masses, or then the Doctrine of the Mass, as I shall presently show, speaks after the same manner, and makes the Priest pray for all that are present, and that all who have communicated may be filled with all heavenly benediction and Grace. These must be all very improper for the Priest to say when he communicates by himself, and he may with as good reason make a Congregation by himself alone, as make a Communion. Private Masses then which sprang up from the sacrifice of the Mass, and are wholly suited and agreeable to that Doctrine, these being so contrary to the best Antiquity, show that that Doctrine also on which they are founded, and from whence they arose is so too. And I have the more largely considered these because they are another great corruption of the Eucharist of the Roman Church, though they are originally derived from the sacrifice of the Mass.  
Fourthly, The very Canon of the Mass, as 'tis at present in the Roman Church, has very little in it agreeable to this new Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, but though it is somewhat difficult to give a certain account of the time of its composition, it being made at first by an unknown Author, whom St. Gregory calls Scholasticus, who is supposed by some to be Pope Gelasius, though had St. Gregory known this he would hardly have given him that name; and it having a great many additions given to it by several Popes, as is owned by their own Writers upon the Ordo Romanus 
* Walasrid. Strabo de rebus Eccles. c. 22. Micrologus de Ecclesiast. Observat. c. 12. Berno. Augiensis, c. 1. & alii in Collectione, Hittorpii. , yet it is no doubt much ancienter than their present Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, which is very near as late as the Council of Trent. The first manner of celebrating the Communion was very plain and simple, so that St. Gregory tells us, The Apostles consecrated the host of oblation only with the Lords Prayer 
† Mos Apostolorum fuit ut ad ipsam solammodo orationem Dominicam oblationis hostiam consecrarent. Gregorii Regist. Epistol. 64. l. 7. , if they did so, and used no other form in that sacred Office, 'tis certain they could not make a sacrifice of the Eucharist nor offer it as such to God, because there are no words or expressions in that prayer, whereby any such thing should be meant or signified, so that this is a most authentic testimony against any such Apostolic practice, but the present Canon Missae or Communion Office of the Roman Church does not fully come up to, nor perfectly express or contain the present Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, there is no offering of Christ's body and blood under the species of Bread and Wine in any formal words as might be expected in conformity to their Trent Doctrine, nor is there any mention of Christ's being there in his natural body or offered to God by the Priest as a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead, for sins, for punishments, and for other necessities. Neither this nor their great Doctrine of Transubstantiation is contained in their present office, so that 'tis to me a plain evidence of the novelty of both of them, and that they are a great deal later than the Canon of the Mass; there are several prayers indeed that make mention of a sacrifice and of an oblation, but most of them, and the most express of them are before consecration, so that they plainly belong to those Gifts and Oblations, which according to the Primitive custom were brought by the Communicants, and which as I have shown were one great reason of the Eucharist's being called a sacrifice, God is desired to accept and bless these gifts, these presents, these holy and pure sacrifices which we offer to thee, for thy holy Catholic Church— together with thy servant our Pope N. and our Bishop N. and for all the Orthodox, and for all those that hold the Catholic and Apostolic Faith. 
* See Canon Missae. , and then follows the commemoration Prayer, Remember O Lord, thy servants and thy handmaids, N. and N. and all those who are present, whose Faith and Devotion is known to thee, for whom we offer to thee, or who offer to thee this sacrifice of praise for themselves, and for all others, for the Redemption of their Souls, for the hope of their Salvation and their safety, and render their vows to thee the Eternal, Living and True God, then after the memorial of the Saints, We beseech thee O Lord, that thou wouldst mercifully receive this Oblation of our service and of all thy Family, and dispose our days in peace, and command us to be delivered from eternal damnation, and to be numbered in the fold of thine Elect, through Jesus Christ our Lord; then immediately follows this prayer, which Oblation thou O God, we bescech, vouchsafe to make altogether blessed, ascribed, ratified, reasonable and acceptable. Ascripta and Rata are words which they are as much puzzled to understand as I am to Translate. All these prayers are before consecration so that they cannot belong to the sacrifice of Christ's Body, but only to the oblation of the gifts, and the sacrifice of praise, as 'tis there expressly called; and yet these are a great deal more full and large than the prayers after consecration, wherein there is no manner of mention of offering Christ's Body and Blood, but only offering the consecrated Elements as they were offered before when they were unconsecrated, We offer unto thy excellent Majesty of thy gifts and presents, a pure host, an holy host, an immaculate host, the holy bread of Eternal Life, and the cup of Eternal Salvation. The first Composers would have used other words than Bread and Cup had they meant thereby Christ's very natural Body and Blood, and it is plain they were not those by what follows, Upon. which vouchsafe to look with a propitious and kind countenance, and to accept of them as thou didst accept the gifts of thy righteous child Abel, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham, and that which Melchisedec thy High Priest offered to thee, an Holy Sacrifice, an immaculate Host. Now to compare Christ's very Body and Blood with the sacrifices of Abel, Abraham and Melchisedec, and to desire God to look upon his own Son, in whom he was always well pleased with a propitious and kind Countenance is very strange and uncouth, to say no worse of it; and to desire according to what follows, that God would command these to be carried by the hands of his holy Angel, into thy sublime Altar, in the presence of thy Divine Majesty. These cannot be meant or understood of Christ's natural Body and Blood, which is already in heaven, and is there to appear in the presence of God for us, as Menardus expressly owns in his notes upon this prayer in Gregory's Sacramentary 
† Jube haec perferri) non Christi carpus sed memoriam passionis, sidem, preces & veta sideliam. Menardi notae & observat. in lib. Sacrament. Gregorn Papae p. 19 , and if so, as we have the confession of the most Learned Ritualist of their own Church, than there is nothing at all in the Canon of the Mass, that does truly belong to these, or that does any way express or come up to the new Tridentine Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass; so that we need go no further than their own office to show the Novelty of this, and as in other things, namely in their prayers to Saints they are forced to use very gentle and softening interpretations to make the words signify otherwise then what they do in their proper and literal meaning, so here they must put a more strong and hard sense upon them, than they will really bear or was at first intended to make them speak the new meaning of the Mass-sacrifice; so that they must here contrive a way to raise the sense of the Church as they do in other cases to let it down, or else their Prayers and their Doctrines will never be brought to suit well together. The commemoration for the dead has nothing in it but a mere Remembrance and a Prayer, that God would give to them a place of refreshment, light and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord, not through the merit or virtue of that sacrifice which is then offered, there is not the least mention or intimation of any such thing nor any expression that looks that way. The Priest indeed a little before he communicates prays Christ, to deliver him from all his sins, and from all evils by this his most sacred Body and Blood, which he may do without its being a sacrifice, and I know no Protestant would scruple the joining in such a petition. There is a prayer indeed deed at the last by the Priest to the Holy Trinity, that the sacrifice which he has unworthily offered to the eyes of the Divine Majesty may be acceptable to it, and through its mercy be propitiable for himself, and for those for which he has offered it, and this seems the fullest and the most to the purpose of the Mass-sacrifice, and yet it may very fairly be understood in a sound sense without any such thing, as 'tis a sacrifice of prayer and as God is thereby rendered merciful, and propitious both to ourselves and others, but it is to be observed that this prayer is not in the old Ordo Romanus where the others are, nor in the Gelasian or Gregorian Missal, nor in any other ancient one put out by Thomasius, Menardus, Pamelius, Cardinal Bona or Mabillon, but was I suppose added of later days to those old Forms.  
Fifthly, The new Addition to the form of Ordination in the Roman Church, whereby 
* Accipe potestatem offerre sacrificium Deo Missasque celebrare tam pro vivis quam pro mortuis.  power is given to the Priest to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Masses both for the dead and living, this discovers the novelty of their Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass; for there was no such form of Ordination in the primitive Church, nor is there any such thing mentioned in any Latin or Greek Ordinale for near a thousand years after Christ; The most ancient account of the manner of Ordaining is in the fourth Council of Carthage, where there is nothing else but, 
† Presbyter cum Ordinatur, Ep●scapo cum benedicente & manum super caput ejus tenente, etiam ●●nes Presoyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manum Episcopi super caput illius tenent. Canon 3. Concil. Carthag.  the Episcopal Benediction and Imposition of hands by the Bishop and all the Priests. In the Apostolic Constitutions, there is a pretty long prayer of the Bishops over the Priest who is to be Ordained, 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Constirut. Apostol. de Ordinat. Presbyt. l. 8. c. 16.  that God would look upon his servant chosen into the Presbytery by the vote and judgement of all the Clergy, and fill him with the spirit of Grace and Wisdom to help and govern the people with a pure heart— that he may be filled with healing operations, and instructive discourse, and may teach the people with all meekness, and may serve God sincerely with a pure understanding, and a willing Soul, and may perform the sacred and pure Offices for the people through Jesus Christ. And this with laying on of hands is all the Form of Ordination which is so anciently prescribed; St. Denis who is falsely called the Areopagite, but was a Writer probably of the fifth Century before the Council of Chalcedon, he has acquainted us with much the like manner of Ordination in that time, 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Dionys. Hierarch. Eccles. c. 5.  The Priest kneeling before the Altar with the Holy Bible and the Bishop's hand over his head was consecrated with holy Prayers. Only there was then added the sign of the cross, and the kiss of peace, but no such thing as the receiving of power to offer sacrifice, and to celebrate Masses for the living and the dead. This was a thing unheard of in the ancient Church either Greek or Latin, neither was it brought into the Latin till about the year 1000 as is confessed by Morinus 
* de sacris Ordinat. pars 3. c. 6. , nor is it to this day used in the Greek. In that age of Ignorance and Superstition when Transubstantiation and a great many other Errors and Corruptions crept into the Latin Church, this new Form of Ordination was set up, and the Priests had a new power given them, and a new work put upon them, which was to sacrifice and say Masses for the quick and dead, which had it been agreeable to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church, and had there been any such opinion then of the Mass-sacrifice as there is now in the Roman Church, there would no doubt have been the same form of Ordination, or something like this would have been specified in the consecration of a priest. They now make this the great and proper office of the priest, and these words with the delivery of the holy Vessels or sacred Instruments is made the very matter and form of the Sacrament of Orders, and if is made a charge by them against our Ordinations, that we want this essential part of priesthood, which is to offer sacrifice, but since the primitive Church had no such Form as is fully made out by Morinus, a man of great Learning and Credit among themselves who has made a great collection of the most ancient Ordinale's to show this, and there is no such thing now in the Greek Churches as appears from Habertus on the Greek Pontifical, we have hereby not only a full defence of our own Orders without any such Form, but a plain demonstration of the novelty of that in the Roman Church, and consequently of that Doctrine which is brought in by it, or perhaps was the occasion, of it, of the sacrisice of the Mass.  
4. It is in itself unreasonable and absurd, and has a great many gross Errors involved in it. As  
1. It makes an external visible sacrifice of a thing that is perfectly invisible, so that the very matter and substance of the sacrifice which they pretend to offer is not seen or perceived by any of the senses, for 'tis Christ's body, and not the Bread and Wine which is the subject-matter and the sacrifice itself. Now this is the strangest sacrifice that ever was in the World, a visible oblation of an invisible thing; had the Jews offered their sacrifices in this manner, they had offered nothing at all, and had Christ thus offered himself to God upon the cross only in phantasm and appearance as some Heretics would have had him, and not in the visible substance of his body, it would have been only a fantastic sacrifice, and we had been redeemed by a shadow. 'Tis contrary to the nature of all proper sacrifices to have the thing offered not to be seen, and not visibly presented to God; an invisible sacrifice may as well have an invisible Altar, and an invisible Oblation, and an invisible Priest, for why the one should be more visible than the other, I cannot imagine. Bellarmine's definition of a sacrifice is this, which we are very willing to allow of, but how it agrees to the sacrifice of the mass I cannot see; 
* Sacrificium est oblatio externa facta soli Deo, quâ ad agnitionem humanae infirmitatis & professionem divinae Majestatis à legitimo Minisho res aliqua sinsibilis & permanens ritu myslieo consecratur & transmutatur. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 1. c. 2.  A sacrifice is an external Oblation made to God alone, whereby for the acknowledging of humane infirmity, and owning of the Divine Majesty, some sensible and permanent thing is by a lawful Minister, and by a Mistic Rite consecrated and changed. Now Christ's Body and Blood being the res sacrificii, the matter of the sacrifice, and that being offered to God, I cannot understand how that is a res sensipilis, a sensible thing in the Eucharist, and therefore how according to him it is a sacrifice; so necessary is it for a great man to blunder in a bad cause when he must either weigh in a false balance, or whatever he says will quickly be found light.  
2. It makes a proper sacrifice without a proper facrificing Act, the Consumption and Destruction of the sacrifice was always necessary, as well as the offering and bringing it to the Altar, and without this it was not properly given to God, but kept to themselves as much as it was before, if it were not either poured out, or burnt, or slain, which was parting with the thing and transferring it wholly to God; & this consumption is so Essential to all sacrifices that Bellarmine puts it into the definition of a sacrifice 
* ut supra. , and says, 
† ad verum sacrificium requiritur ut id quod offertur Deo in sacrificium planè destruatur. Id. de Miss. l. 1 c. 2.  that to a true sacrifice it is required that that which is offered to God in sacrifice be plainly destroyed. But how will this now belong to Christ's body in the sacrifice of the Mass? Is that destroyed there? is not that the sacrifice? and is not that now in a Glorious, impassable State that can suffer no destruction? Bellarmine is in a sad plunge to get out here, and let us see how he throws himself about, but sticks fast still in the mire. By consecration, says he, the thing which is offered is ordained to a true real and outward change and destruction, which was necessary to the being of a sacrifice, for by consecration the Body of Christ receives the Form of food, but food is for eating, and by this it is ordained for change and destruction; Is the Body of Christ then destroyed by eating? If it be they are true Cannibals or Capernaitical feeders that eat it: I had thought that Christ's body was not thus grossly to be broke by the Teeth, or chewed by the jaws of the priest, or Communicants, so as to be destroyed by them. The Gloss upon Berengarius his Recantation says this is a greater Heresy than his, unless it be understood of the species and not of the body itself; and they generally disown that Christ's body is thus carnally eaten, but only the Sacramental species, but the species are not the sacrifice, and therefore 'tis not sufficient that they be destroyed, but the sacrifice, that is the body of Christ must be so. Christ's body as it is food is not a sacrifice but a Sacrament, they make two distinct things of it as it is a sacrifice, and as it is a Sacrament, as it lies in the Pix, or is carried to the sick it is food and a Sacrament but they will not allow it to be then a sacrifice, and on Maunday Thursday, it is eaten but not accounted a sacrifice 
† Feriâ sextâ majoris hebdomadae nou censetur sacrisicium Missae propriè celebrari licet vera hostia adsit & frangatur & consumatur. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 1. c. 27. B. . The Consumption then by eating belongs to it not as a sacrifice but a Sacrament, and the body of Christ is not then consumed but only the species, nay the body of Christ is not then consumed under the species, for the real consumption belongs only to the species, for the real consumption belongs only to the species and not to the body of Christ, which is no more truly consumed with them, or under them, than it is as sitting in heaven, no more than a man's flesh is consumed when only his clothes or his mantle is tore though he were in them. What though it ceases to be really on the Altar, and ceases to be a sensible food, as he farther explains, or rather entangles it; Is Christ's body ever a sensible food? And is its ceasing to be upon the Altar, a consumption of it? Then Isaac was consumed when he was took off from the Altar on which Abraham had laid him, and if his Father had been as subtle as our Roman Sophisters and Sacrificers, he might only have covered him with the skin of the Ram, and have consumed that as an external species by fire, and so Isaac had been both sacrificed, and consumed, and destroyed too, and yet have been as live as ever for all this. Such absurdities do they run into when they will make their notion suit of a true sacrifice and that which is not one, and a man of sense must yet destroy his sense one would think before he can talk at this rate.  
They are most sadly nonplussed and most extremely divided among themselves about the Essence of this their sacrifice of the Mass, and wherein they should place the true sacrificial act, whether in the Oblation of the Elements, or in consecration of them whereby they suppose them turned into Christ's Body and blood, and so in the express Oblation of those to God, or in the fraction and commistion of the consecrated Elements, or in the manducation and consumption of them: Suarez and Vasquez and others are for the last of all; the Council of Trent seems to be for Oblation; Bellarmine is for consecration, whereby instead of Bread and Wine Christ's Body and Blood are placed upon the Altar, and ordered for consumption. Melchior Canus is for all the four last, and he tells us it is the Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, 
† docuisse Thomam sacrificium ante fractionem hostiae esse peractum, sumptionemque spectare propriè ad sacramentum, oblationem verò ad sacrificium. Can. Loc. Theol. l. 12. p. 833.  that the sacrifice is performed before the fraction of the Elements, and that the sumption of them belongs properly to the Sacrament, the Oblation to the sacrifice; so that they know not what to pitch upon to constitute it a sacrifice, and if we examine them all we shall find no true proper sacrificial act in any of them; the Oblation of the Elements before consecration can by no means make such a sacrifice as they design, for that is but an offering of earthly things not of Christ's body, neither are they thereby changed or consumed, and though they are an offering, they are not a proper sacrifice, though in some sense they are a sacrifice and were accounted so by the Fathers, as I have shown. The Fraction of the Elements after they are consecrated which is done by the Priest, not for distribution, for they give them whole to the people, but for another mystical reason, this is not the formal Essence of the sacrifice, for Christ they own did not break them in this manner at his last Supper, when yet they will have him sacrifice, and this is sometimes omitted by themselves; neither is manducation, for this is performed by the people as well as the priest when they communicate, and sacrificing does not then belong to them, nor is it ever their work but only the Priests, and yet they then eat and consume the sacrament as well as the priest, so that sacrificing cannot properly lie in this, neither can it be proved that Christ did himself eat when he is supposed to sacrifice; and besides both this fraction and manducation belongs only to the species, they are the only proper subject of those actions, but it is the Body and Blood of Christ that is sacrificed and not the species. For this reason therefore consecration itself cannot well pass for the formal act of sacrificing, for 'tis the Bread is consecrated not Christ's body: 'tis the bread only is changed by consecration, that is supposed indeed to be destroyed when it is consecrated, and if this be sacrificing it is sacrificing of nothing, or at most 'tis but sacrificing of bread which is a meaner sacrifice than many of the Jewish, neither is this change of it visible and external, but they will needs have the sacrificing action to be sensible and external or else the sacrifice will not be so, and if it be only a spiritual and internal and mental offering up of Christ's body and blood to God this is not proper sacrificing of it again, but only by inward Faith and Devotion which we are very willing to allow. But consecration must set Christ's body upon the Altar and put it into the hands of the priest and then it must be visibly offered to God, and visibly consumed, and this is the true way of sacrificing it, for Bellarmine takes in consumption as necessary together with consecration, the oblation he owns is not verbal, neither did Christ thus offer his Body and Blood at his last Supper but after he had blessed and broke the bread he gave it to his Disciples, but placing this upon the Altar by the words of consecration is a real Oblation of it, and then eating and consuming it there formally constitutes the sacrifice. The Bishop of Meaux in his Exposition seems to make the whole Essence of the sacrifice consist in Consecration alone without any manducation or destruction, which Bellarmine makes absolutely necessary; Christ, he says, is placed upon the holy Table, clothed with those signs that represent his death in virtue of the words of consecration which are the spiritual sword that make a mystical separation betwixt the Body and the Blood. Now if Christ be thus only sacrificed mystically and by representation, he is not sacrificed truly and properly, nor is there any true and proper propitiation made hereby, which is the true state of the Controversy between us; Christ may be sacrificed representatively, as Caesar may be slain in a Tragedy, without being really present, and if he were present and placed upon the Altar, as they will needs have him, yet he is no more sacrificed by the mystical representation then if Caesar's Picture were stabbed and he were behind it unhurt. I see no reason why Christ's presence should be necessary to make such a mystical representative, or commemorative sacrifice, and if Christ were present I see not how he is more sacrificed than if he were absent. So that they only confound their thoughts to make a proper sacrifice where there is none, and when they have boasted of a true proper visible external sacrifice, they know not where to find any such thing, and it comes to no more at last then a mere commemorative and representative one, or in plain words to a sacramental and Mystical representation and remembrance of a past sacrifice, which there is neither any need nor any possibility of renewing.  
Their differences about the proper sacrificial act whereby they do with good success destroy one another's notions of it, and so taken together destroy the thing itself, these are the more considerable because 'tis not the res sacrificii which makes the sacrifice, though that were never so truly present, but the sacrificing Act, or the Actual sacrificing it, for as Bellarmine says, 
* Nam non res illa, sedgeis illius oblatio proprie est sacrificium, sacrificium enim est actio non res permanens. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 2. c. 4. D.  A sacrifice is an action not a permanent thing, and 'tis not the thing itself, but the offering it is properly the sacrifice. So that though Christ's natural Body and Blood were never so much present in the Eucharist even according to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation itself; yet so long as there is no proper action there to sacrifice it, or no sacrificing act, it would signify nothing to the making it a sacrifice.  
3. This Doctrine of the Mass makes a living body a sacrifice which requires it should be dead, and yet at the same represents it dead when it supposes it present in a state of life, which is as odd a jumble as making a man to be by at his own funeral, and at the same time bringing in the person alive, & yet dressing up his picture to remember him dead and in the habit of death itself. The Eucharist is to remember and represent Christ in a state of death, his body and blood as separated from one another, and the one broken and the other poured out, and the words of consecration are the spiritual sword, as the Bishop of Meaux calls them, that are to do this, and so to constitute the sacrifice, but whilst this is a doing, nay by the very doing this thing, the same spiritual sword becomes a spiritual word, and raises the same body living, and sets it in that state upon the Altar, so that by this means it destroys the sacrifice a great deal more than it made it before, for it makes it be then truly living, whereas it only represented it before as dead. So that 'tis at the same time a dead representative sacrifice, and a living proper sacrifice, which is in truth no sacrifice at all, for a living sacrifice is just as much sense as a dead Ammal, that is, 'tis a contradiction, and one of the Terms destroys the other. If a Jewish Priest had knocked down the Ox with one hand, and raised him up with the other, or restored him to life after he had slew him, this would have made but a very odd sacrifice; and to make Christ dead by the sacramental signs, and to sacrifice him thus in Effigy, and to make him alive again under the sacramental signs, and so to sacrifice him truly this is a strange and unaccountable riddle. I would ask whether the consecrated species of Bread and Wine by which Christ's blood is shed mystically, and death intervenes only by representation, as the Bishop of Meaux phrases it, whether these would make a real sacrifice without Christ's living body under them? if not, 'tis not this mystical representation of death makes the sacrifice? Or whether Christ's living body without those species and signs of his death would be a sacrifice? If not then 'tis not the placing that upon the Altar and so a real Oblation of it there makes the sacrifice, and then what is it that does so? Is it not very odd that the same person must be there seemingly dead, and yet really alive at the same time to make up this sacrifice?  
4. The making it truly propitiatory is a very great Error, and inconsistent with itself. All our Religious Duties and all our virtuous actions may in a large and improper sense be said to be propitiatory, as they are said also in Scripture to be sacrifices, for no doubt but they make God kind and propitious to us, and incline him to have Mercy upon us; and the blessed Eucharist as it exhibits to us all the graces and benefits which Christ hath by his death purchased for us, whereof Pardon and Remission of sin which is hereby sealed to us, is a very great one, so far may be called propitiatory, and it may be instituted for the Remission of sin, so far as it is to apply to us the virtue of Christ's body and blood and make us partakers of his sacrifice upon the Cross, but this it may do as it is a Sacrament without being any sacrifice, much less without being a propitiatory one as the Council of Trent hath determined it, to be truly propitiatory 
(b) Vere propitiatorium esse, Injus quippe oblatione placatus Dominus. Concil. Trident. Sess. 6. c. 2.  by the oblation of which God is appeased, and this in opposition to a sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving 
(c) Si quis dixoit Missae sacrisicium tantum esse laudis & gratiarum actionis— non autem propitiatorium, Ib. Can. 3.  Now as it is a sacrifice of Praise and spiritual Devotion, it is no doubt, in the Bishop of Meauxes words, acceptable to God and makes him look upon us with a more propitious eye 
(d) Exposition of the Doctrine of the Cathotick Charch, p. 35.  Is this then all the meaning of its being propitiatory? Did ever any Protestant deny it to be thus? And is not this to explain away the true meaning of the word, and to give up the Controversy? The true notion of a propitiatory sacrifice is this, that it suffers a vicarious punishment in anothersstead, that by it the punishment is transferred from the offender to that, and so he is discharged from it, and God is pleased for the sake of that not to be angry but kind and propitious to him; this I think cannot be denied, and let us see if this will fit to the Eucharist; If Christ be really present there, yet does he safer any punishment there in our stead? does he pay any price there for our sins? If not, there cannot be any true propitiation then made, nor can the sacrifice be truly propitiatory; Christ did once upon the Cross, where he suffered as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a vicarious punishment for our sins by his one oblation of himself once offered make a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole World 
* Brave of Consent at. in Commun. Seru. , and Bellarmine is forced to own, That 'tis the sacrifice of the Cross, is properly meritorious and satisfactory, because Christ when he was then mortal could merit and satisfy, but the sacrifice of the Mass is properly only impetratory, for Christ being now immortal can neither merit nor satisfy 
* Nam sacrificium crucis fait meritorium, satisfactorium & impetratorium verè & propriè, quia Christus tunc mortalis erat & mereri ac satisfacere poterat, sacrificium Missae propriè salum est Impetratorium quia Chrisius nunc immortalis nec mereri nec satisfacere potest. Bellarm. de Missa l. 2. c. 4. C. . Thus truth will out at last, though there be never so much art used to stifle and conceal it, and this is very fairly to give up the question, and surrender the cause; for he owns it is not properly propitiatory and gives a very good reason for it, because Christ in his immortal state cannot merit or satisfy or be a true propitiation for us; the Bishop of Meaux was ware of this and therefore he makes Christ's presence upon the Altar to be not a propitiation, but a powerful Intercession before God for all mankind, according to the saying of the Apostle that Jesus Christ presents himself, and appears for us before the face of God, Heb. 9.24. So that Christ being present upon the holy Table under this figure of death, intercedes for us, and represents continually to his Father that death which he has suffered for his Church 
† Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church. . But how comes this Intercession of Christ to be upon Earth? Is it not to be in heaven, and is not Christ there to appear in the presence of God for us? Is not Christ entered into the heavens for that purpose as the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the great sacrifice of Atonement after that was offered upon the Altar? Does not the Apostle thus represent it in that place in allusion, and with relation to that Jewish Oeconomy, and could any but Monsieur de Meaux have brought that place to show that Christ intercedes for us by being present upon the Altar, when the Apostles discourse is as directly contrary to that as can be, and makes him to appear only in Heaven, or in the presence of God for us, and there present himself and his sacrifice to God, as the Jewish High Priest carried the blood of the Anniversary sacrifice of Expiation into the Holy of Holies, and there sprinkled it before the Mercy-seat. Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands which are the figures of the true, but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Christ therefore making Intercession for us only in heaven and propitiation only upon the Cross, how the sacrifice of the Mass should be either Intercessory, which is a new way of de Meauxes or propitiatory as the Council of Trent has determined it, I cannot understand. Some of them tell us it is propitiatory only relatively, and by application as it relates and applies to us the propitiatory virtue of the sacrifice of the Cross, but this it may do as a Sacrament, and then it is not propitiatory in itself, for sins, for punishments, and for satisfactions, as the Council declares it, and as propitiatory sacrifices used to be, which were in themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, satisfactory payments and prices for sins, and for the punishments due to them. Bellarmin having owned it not to be properly propitiatory, he says, 
* Cum autem dicitur propitiatorium vel satisfactorium id est intelligendum ratione rei quae impetratur, dicitur enim propitiatorium quia impetrat remissionem culpae, satisfactorium quia impetrat remissionem poenae. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 2. c. 4. C.  When it is called propitiatory or satisfactory, this is to be understood by reason of the thing which is impetrated by it, for it is said to be Propitiatory, because it impetrates Remission of sin; Satisfactory because it impetrates Remission of punishment: But thus our Prayers may be said to be propitiatory because by them we beg and obtain Mercy and Pardon at the hands of God, but a propitiatory sacrifice is to do this not only by way of petition and impetration but by way of price, and payment, and satisfaction; so that after all this improper sacrifice of the Mass is but very improperly propitiatory, and when they come closely to consider it they are forced to confess so, and cannot tell how to make out their Councils Doctrine, that 'tis truly propitiatory for sins and for punishments.  
5. Let us consider next how it is impetratory, if they mean only that it is so upon the account of those Prayers which are there made, and which are more efficacious in that solemn office of Religion, as the Eucharist has relation to the Cross, and the sacrifice of Christ upon it, which is the foundation of all our Prayers, and by virtue of which we hope to have them heard and answered by God, so in that solemn, Religious and express memorial of it, we may suppose them to have a greater virtue and efficacy; if this be all they mean who will deny it, and why may not this be without the Eucharist's being a sacrifice, 'tis only Christ's sacrifice and offering upon the Cross that gives virtue and power to our prayers at that time when we are devoutly celebrating the remembrance of it, and 'tis not any offering of him up then any otherwise then by Faith and the inward devotion of our Mind that makes our prayers the more powerful either for ourselves or others.  
We are to make Prayers and Supplications for all men, and for theirs and our own wants and necessities in this solemn and public office of our Religion, and so did the first Christians pray then for Kings and all that were in Authority as the Apostle commands, and as we find they did at large in St. Cyril 
* Catech. Mystag. 5. , and the Apostolic Constitutions 
† l. 8. c. 12. , and it was in the Sacrament they used their Litanies or general Supplications for all men, and for all things; as is evident beyond all dispute from those places where they prayed not only for the Church and the Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, and all the faithful, but for the King or the Emperor where they lived, for the City and all its inhabitants, for the sick, for the Captives and banished, for all that Traveled by Sea or by Land, and so for all things for the peace of the Church and for the quiet of the Empire, and for all temporal mercies, as well as spiritual, for the fruits of the Earth, and for the temperature of the Air, and for all things they stood in need of. Now they did not think the Eucharist did as a sacrifice impetrate all this, or as a real instead of a verbal prayer as Bellarmine represents it to be 
* Ipsa enim oblatio tacita quaedam sed officacissima est invocatio. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 2. c. 8. B. ; but they made particular and express prayers for these in the Eucharist, and did not think that was to supply the place of prayer or be a prayer in action, or in dumb signs instead of words, neither did the primitive Church ever say a Mass for to quench a fire or stay an Earthquake, much less to cure the Murrain in Cattle, or to recover a Sheep, or a Cow, or Horse when they were sick, as is scandalously and shamefully done by those who ascribe such an impetratory power to it that it shall do the work in all cases.  
6. To make it a sacrifice truly propitiatory in its self and yet only applicatory of the virtue of another sacrifice is if not a contradiction, yet a great absurdity, for if it only apply the virtue and efficacy of another sacrifice, viz. That of the Cross, which is the only sacrifice of Redemption that made true expiation for sin, how can this than be called truly propitiatory, if only that other be propitiatory and this is but applicatory of that other? A certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or infallible medicine for all Diseases is given and applied to us by such a vehicle, is the vehicle therefore that applies this the Medicine itself? Or has that an infallible virtue because the Medicine that is applied by it has such a virtue? Is laying on a Plaster or applying it to the wound the same thing with the Plaster itself that was made up or compounded long before? If the Mass-sacrifice be truly propitiatory it must be a sacrifice of Redemption, if it be only Applicatory, and not a sacrifice of Redemption in itself then 'tis not truly propitiatory. The Eucharist we all say doth apply to us the sacrifice of the Cross, or the benefits of Christ's death as it is a Sacrament, but it is not therefore propitiatory as it is such, nor is it any way necessary it should, and as a sacrifice it cannot be applicatory, for it must be offered to God, and therefore as such it could not apply any thing to us, for our giving it up or sacrificing it to God is quite another thing and very different from Gods giving or applying it to us. God gives Christ's body and blood to us in the Eucharist as it is a Sacrament, but as it is a sacrifice we must give it to him, and that would be as strange a way of applying it to ourselves, as a Patients returning his Physic or making a present of it to the Doctor, would be a new and strange method of taking it himself. And that the Priest's intention should apply this is still as strange, for the Priest's intention in the Mass is to consecrate and so to sacrifice, and that is giving the thing to God and not applying it to others; if he gives them the sacrament indeed to eat then he applies the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood to them; but how he can do this when he does not give it them but only give it to God, that is, sacrifice it, I do not understand: The Jews had the virtue of their sacrifices applied to them by eating of them, or by having the blood sprinkled upon them or by some such Ceremony to make them partakers of them, but that another sacrifice was offered or the same sacrifice reiterated in order to applying of them is a thing unknown and unheard of Christ's sacrifice is applied to us by the sacrament of Baptism and therefore that also is called a sacrifice as it both represents Christ's death, and confers to us the benefits of it, thus Chrysostom expounds that place of Scripture there remains no more sacrifice for sin 
* Heb. 10.26. , that is, he can be no more baptised 
† Chrysostom. Homil. 16. in Epist. ad Hebr. , and Bishop Canus says, 
* hinc illi (antiqui) baptisma translatitiè bostiam nuncupârunt. Can. loci common. l. 2. c. 12.  the ancients from hence called Baptism. a sacrifice, but figuratively, and not properly, and just thus indeed they called the Eucharist: Bellarmine was so sensible that this would destroy the notion of the Eucharists being a proper sacrifice, that he absolutely denies that 
* Nusquam Patres baptismum vocant sacrificium, hostiam— Bellarm. de Miss. l. 1. c. 15.  the Fathers do ever call baptism a sacrifice, but he is shamefully mistaken, as appears from the confession of Bishop Canus, and because I will not wholly depend upon that I will produce one or two plain Authorities for it out of St. Austin, 
† Holocaustum Dominicae passionis to tempore pro se quisque offered, quo ejusdem Passionis side dedicatur. August. in Exposit. ad Roman.  Every one, says he, does offer for himself the sacrifice of Christ's passion, at that time when he is dedicated in the Faith of his passion. And the sacrifice of our Lord is in a certain manner offered for every one then when in his name he is signed by Baptism 
* Holocaustum Domini tunc pro unoquoque offertur quodammodò cum ejus nomine baptizando signatur. Ib. . Baptism is then called a sacrifice as well as the Eucharist, though it is only properly a Sacrament, and the sacrifice of Christ is there plainly applied to us without a sacrifice, and so it may be as well in the Eucharist.  
7. They suppose it to be the same sacrifice with that of the Cross, but not to have the same virtue and efficiency, which as Bellarmin says, seems very strange 
* mirum videtur cur valour sacrificii bujus sit finitus, cum idem sit hoc sacrificium cum sacrificio crucis. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 2. c. 4. F. , for the Council of Trent declares it to be one and the same sacrifice with that of the Cross, and one and the same offerer namely Christ by the Ministry of the Priests, and to be differing in nothing but in the manner of offering 
† una enim eademque est hostia idemque offerens sacerdotum ministerio— sola offerendi ratione diversâ. Concil. Trid. Sess. 6. c. 2. . Now if the manner of offering be not such as makes it a sacrifice, it can be no sacrifice at all, if it be, it can make no difference as to its value and efficacy, for 'tis not the way of offering but the worth of the thing offered that gives value to the sacrifice. The Beasts were slain upon an Altar and had their blood spilt there as Christ's was upon the Cross, but his being the blood of a person of the greatest dignity even of the Son of God, this made his sacrifice once offered to be of infinite value and efficacy, and sufficient to propitiate God and make expiation for all the sins of the World, now if the same sacrifice be as truly offered in the Mass though not after the same manner, and Christ does by the hands of the Priest as truly offer himself there as he did upon the Cross, why should not this be of as infinite value and efficiency as the other, but if it were says Bellarmine, what need so many Masses be offered for the same thing 
* Nam si Missae valor infinitus esset, frustrà multae Missae praesertim ad rem eandem impetrandam offerrentur. Ib. , so many thousand for example to get a soul out of Purgatory, which if it were not, it would quite spoil the market and utterly destroy the Trade of them; but surely this is but like paying the same full sum of a debt so many times over, when one payment amounts to the whole, and 'tis but the same is brought so many times again; It is to be feared that it is not accepted by God or else it need not be so often tendered, and paid again and again so many several times, but as Bellarmine says, both the sacrifice itself, and Christ who then offers it are infinitely acceptable to God 
* Ipsa hostia & offerens Christus infinito modo sunt Deo grata. Ib. . What account then can be given of this? He is the most miserably put to't that ever good guesser was at this unaccountable thing, and with a salvo to better judgement 
† Videntur mihi, salvo meliore judicio, tres esse causae hujus rei. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 2. c. 4. F. , which is a squeamish piece of modesty that he is seldom guilty of at other times, he offers at three reasons, though he owns the cause of it is not certain 
† Causa non est adeo certa. Ib. . The first is, in respect of the sacrifice itself which is offered, in the sacrifice of the cross, says he, Christ in his very natural being, and human form was destroyed, but 'tis only his sacramental being is so in the Eucharist 
* Prima sumitur ex parte hostiae quae offertur, nam in sacrificio destruebatur ad honorem Dei ipsum esse naturale Christi in formâ humanâ, in sacrificio Missae destruitur tantum esse sacramentale. Ib. , but Christ I hope is as much in his natural being in the Eucharist as he was upon the cross, else what becomes of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation; and he is offered as truly to God in his natural being there, why should not then his natural being be as valuable in the one as in the other, if his natural beings not being destroyed there makes it to be no true sacrifice as one would think he had it here in his thoughts, then indeed he gives a good and a true reason why the one is not a sacrifice nor upon that account so valuable as the other, but for fear of that he quits this reason and goes to the next, which is, 
* Secunda sumitur ex parte offerentis, nam in sacrificio crucis offerens est ipsa persona filii Dei per se at in sacrificio Missae offerens est filius Dei per ministrum. Ib.  in respect of the offerer, because in the one the offerer is the very person of the Son of God by himself, but in the other the offerer is the Son of God by his Minister, but surely if the oblation be the same, of the same worth and value, the offerer will by no means lessen and diminish it, and how often do they tell us that Christ himself is the offerer of the sacrifice of the Mass, when we charge them with the great boldness and presumption of having a mortal man offer up Christ, and so consequently purchase our Redemption, and make propitiation for sin, which none but Christ can do; to avoid this the Bishop of Meaux says, That Christ being present upon the Table offers up himself to God for us in the Eucharist 
* Exposition of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. . So that the Priest is only to set him upon the Table according to him by the words of consecration, and then Christ offers up himself to God, and Christ being present upon the holy Table under this figure of Death, intercedes for us, and represents continually to his Father that death which he has suffered for his Church 
* Ib. . And the Council of Trent says, It is the same offerer as well as the same sacrifice that was upon the cross, and the difference between that and the sacrifice of the Mass is not at all upon the account of the offerer, but only the manner of offering 
† una eademque hostia, idemque offerens, sola offerendi raetione diversâ. Conc. Trid. Sess. 6. c. 2. . This therefore can be no true reason of the different value of the two sacrifices and oblations.  
The Third is taken from the will of Christ, for though Christ 
(c) Tertia ratio sumitur ex ipsâ Christi voluntate, nam etiamsi possit Christus per unam oblationem sacrificii incruenti sive per se, sive per ministrum oblati quaelib● à Deo & pro quiouscunque impetrare, tamen noluit petere nec impetrare nisi ut pro singulis oblationibus applicetur certa mensura fructûs passionis suae sive ad peccati remissionem sive ad alia beneficia, quibus in hâc vitâ indigemus. Bella. de Miss. l. 2. c. 4. H.  could by one oblation offered either by himself or his minister obtain any thing or for any person, yet he would not otherwise desire or impetrate this, but only that in every oblation a certain measure of the fruit of his passion be applied either to Remission of sin, or to other benesits which we want in this Life, but where does this will of Christ appear? Christ may dispose of his merits and the fruits of his passion as he pleaseth, but how do they know that he intends thus to parcel them out, and to distribute them in such small measures and scantlings as they think fit and as serves only for their purpose? If the sacrifice and oblation be the same, it ought to be without doubt of the same infinite value with that upon the Cross, and though it be very bold and precarious to guess at Christ's will without some declaration of it from himself, yet I cannot see how it was possible that it should be Christ's will to have it the same sacrifice, and yet not have the same virtue, which is as if a Physician should have an Universal Midicine, that by once taking would certainly cure all Diseases whatever, and yet should for some reasons so order the matter that the very same Medicine should if he pleased have only a limited virtue, & cure but one Disease at a time, or only some lesser & smaller illnesses, and that even for those it must be often taken; This would certainly bring a suspicion either upon his Medicine or himself, and no body but would doubt either that it had not such a virtue in it at first, or that it was not the same afterwards, nor made truly by him as he pretended.  
8. They make the Priest in the Mass-sacrifice, to do all in the name of Christ, and to act as his Agent and Deputy, and so they say 'tis the same Priest who offers, as well as the same Sacrifice which was offered upon the Cross, and that he pronounces those words of Consecration, This is my Body in Christ's name, not by an Historical reciting of them, but as speaking authoritatively in the Person of Christ himself, and that this makes the Sacrifice great and valuable, as it is thus offered to God by Christ himself. I ask then whether all the sacrificial Acts in the Mass, are performed by Christ? Does Christ consecrate his own Body? for Consecration is the most principal part of the sacrificing Action, if not the whole of it; or if as some think, the Consumption of the Sacrifice is the great thing that makes it perfect and consummate, I ask whether Christ does then eat his own Body every Mass, when it is eaten by the Priest; If as Bellarmine owns the Consumption of the Sacrifice be absolutely necessary to make a sacrificial Oblation, and the true Offerer be Christ himself, as the Council of Trent says, than Christ himself must consume the sacrifice, that is, he must eat his own body: Bellarmine is really pinched with this difficulty, and he hath so wisely managed the matter, that as he brought himself into this straight, so he knows not how to get out of it, but he is forced to confess, 
† Tamen ipse dici potest consumere sacramentum. Bellarm. de Miss. l. 1. c. 27.  That Christ may in some sense be said to consume the Sacrament, i. e. himself, for 'tis Christ's body and blood is the Sacrament, and not the species, at least not without those. We always thought it a prodigious if not a horrid thing for another to consume Christ's real body, but now for Christ himself to be made to do this, is to expose, Christ shall I say? or themselves? or that cause which is driven to these Absurdities, and which can never avoid them whilst it makes the Mass a true sacrifice, and Christ himself the offerer of it.  
9 The Offering this Sacrifice to redeem souls out of Purgatory, as it is made one of the greatest ends and uses of this Sacrifice of the Mass, so is one of the greatest Errors and Abuses that belong to it, for besides that it contains in it all the foregoing Errors and Absurdities of its being a proper Sacrifice, and so benefitting those who do not at all receive it as a Sacrament, and being properly propitiatory at least for lesser sins, and for the temporal pains that they suppose due to greater sins after they are forgiven, which is another cluster of Errors that grows likewise to this Doctrine, though it belongs to another place to consider them. I say besides all those Errors it takes in also the groundless and uncomfortable and erroniou; opinion of Purgatory, whereby a great many departed Souls are supposed to be in a sad state of extreme pain and torment till they are delivered from it by these Masses and sacrifices which are offered for them to that purpose. And this is indeed the great advantage of them, I mean to the Priests that offer them, who hereby make Merchandise not only of the Souls of Men, but of Christ's Body and Blood, and are made by this sacrifice a sort of Money-changers in the Temple, and instead of Doves sell Christ himself, and the souls in Purgatory are redeemed out of it by such corruptible things, as Silver and Gold, which are to purchase Masses, that is, Christ's body and blood at a certain price. This is a most horrible abuse of Christianity, which exposes it to infinite scandal and reproach, the selling of Masses and Indulgences is so visible a blot in Popery that though nothing has more enriched, yet nothing has more shamed it then these have done; both those have relation to Purgatory which is an unknown Country in the other World, that hath given rise to those two profitable Trades and to all that spiritual Traffic that is carried on by it. A Late excellent discourse has so fully considered that subject, that I am no further to meddle with it here then as the sacrifice of the Mass is concerned in it. Our Adversaries most plausible and specious pretence for both those Doctrines is taken from the ancient custom of oblations for the Dead, which cannot be denied to be of great antiquity and general use even very near the beginnings of Christianity, and to have had a long continuance in the Christian Church. Tertullian mentions them as made on every. Anniversary of their birth 
† Oblationes pro defunctis pro natalitiis annuâ die facimus. Tertul. de Corona militis, c. 3. , i. e. on the day wherein they died to this World, and were born into immortality. St. Cyprian speaks of them as so generally used for all persons, that it was made the punishment of him who should leave a Clergyman his Executor, and so take him off from his sacred employment to secular Troubles and Affairs, that 
(a) Ac siquis hoc fecisset non offerretur pro eo nec sacrificium pro dormitione ejus celebraretur. Cyprian Epist. l. 1. Edit. Ox.  no offering should be made for him, neither should any sacrifice be celebrated for his departure, 
(b) Episcopi antecessores nostri religiose considerantes & salubriter providentes censuerunt nequis frater excedens ad tutelam vel curam Clericum nominaret, etc. Ib.  and this was an Order, he says, made by former Bishops in Council, and therefore he commands that Geminius Victor, who had made Geminius Fanstinus Tutor to his Will, or his Executor, 
(d) Non est quod pro dormitione ejus apud vos fiat oblatio, aut deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in Ecclesiâ frequentetur, Ib.  should have no oblation made for his departure nor any Prayer used in his name in the Church. St. Austin gives it in as the custom of the Universal Church in his time, that a sacrifice was offered for the dead, 
(e) Non parva est Ecclesiae Vniversae quae in hâc consuetudineclaret, authoritas—, si nunquam in Scriptures veteribus scriptum legeretur— sc. oblatum pro mortuis sacrificium, August. cura pro mortuis.  and this, he says, is sufficient authority for it, though there were nothing of it in Scripture; and having shown that what happens to the dead body is of no concern to the departed soul, 
(f) Non existimemus ad mortuos pro. quibus curam gerimus pervenire, nisi quod pro eis sive altaris, sive orationum sive ele●●osyn arum sacrificiis solenniter supplicamus. Ib. versus finem.  none of our care, says he, can reach the dead but only that we supplicate for them by the sacrifices of the Altar, of Prayers or of Alms, and the same thing he mentions in several other places of his works, and in his own oblations at the Altar for his Mother Monica after she was dead. Now what can we think of these Oblations unless with the Papists we allow such a state of departed souls as they call Purgatory, that is, neither Heaven nor Hell; for if they were either in the one or the other of those, these oblations would signify nothing to them, and how plain is it that they thought them to be some way benefitted or relieved by the sacrifice of the Mass or Altar. I answer that neither of those Opinions as they are now held, and received in the Church of Rome do follow from the Primitive Custom of offering for the Dead, but that they were of another nature then what they account them, and this I shall evince from the following considerations.  
1. Then these Oblations were made for departed Souls who were not supposed to be in a state of pain, as they now believe Purgatory to be, but in a state of ease and happiness, as St. Austin believed his Mother to be when he offered for her, and when he prayed for her, 
* & credo quod jam seceris quod te rogo, sed voluntaria or is mei approba Domine, August. Confess. l. 9 c. 12.  he did believe that God had already granted her what he prayed for, but he begged him to accept these free Will offerings of his mouth. It was not then a doubt of her state but only the voluntary expressions of his Love and Duty which he designed by his Prayers and Oblations for her, and those Olations were made even for Saints and Martyrs, and the most holy Christians of whose future happiness there was no manner of question, and for all indeed who died in the Communion of the Church. And therefore  
2. They were an honorary Testimony given to them of their good state, and of their dying in the Peace and Communion of the Church: to have their names recited at the Altar service out of the Diptyches or folded Tables was an honorary memorial and mention of them as members of the Church, and 'twas a disowning them as such to expunge, or blot their names out of those Diptyches; and so the making or receiving Oblations for them at the Altar, was an acknowledgement of their right to the Altar, & to the Christian Communion, and therefore no oblations were received of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those who were not Communicants, or had not a right to Communion, of those who were guilty of scandalous sins or of those who were in a state of Penance for them, as may be seen in the Apostolic Constitutions 
† l. 4. c. 5. l. 3. c. 8. , and in one of the most ancient Councils, 
(a) Episcopum placuit ab eo qui non communicate, murera accipere non dibere. Council Eliber. c. 28.  which forbids the Bishop to take oblations from him who does not communicate. Petavius has largely made this out in his Notes on Epiphanius 
(b) Animadvers. in Epiphan. Exposit. fid.  and produces a Council which provides 
† Concil. Vasense. Ib.  that the Oblations of those penitents should be received, who were surprised by a sudden death in a journey. Which was a receiving them into the Church's Communion, quasi ex Postliminio.  
3. By having these Oblations received and offered for them they were made partakers of the prayers that were made for them at the Altar: what ever benefit these prayers were believed to be of to departed souls, which I am not here to examine, that did accrue to them by having these oblations made and received for them; for by this means they were particularly mentioned and recommended in the Prayers at the Altar, and thus both Tertullian, St. Cyprian and St. Austin explain the sacrifices and oblations which they mention as made for the dead. 
(c) Vxor pro animâ defuncti mariti or at & offered annuis diebus dormitionis ejus. Tertull. de Monogam.  The Wife prays for her hushands soul and offers on his Anniversary. And again, 
(d) Neque enim ad altare meretur nominari in jacerdotum prece qui ab altari jacerdotes & ministros suos avocari voluit. Cypr. Ep. 1.  He deserves not to be named in the prayer of the Priests at the Altar of God, who takes off God's ministers from the Altar, in the  case of making a Clergyman Executor. 
(e) Vbi in precibus sacerdotis quae Domino Deo ad ejus altare funduntur, locum suum habet etiam commendatio mortuorum. August. cura pro mor●uis.  And in the prayers of the Priest which are poured out to God at his Altar, the commendation of the dead has place. So that the good they had by these oblations was upon the account of these Prayers, and not by any virtue in these oblations as they were a sacrifice, distinct from the benefit of the Prayers; as they were Alms indeed together with prayers they thought the dead benefitted by them together with the prayers, and so St. Austin in the forequoted place mentions the sacrifices of the Altar which he explains by prayers and Alms, both which he calls sacrifices 
* sive altaris, sive orationum, sive eleemosynarum sacrificiis supplicamus. ut supra. , but not in a proper and strict sense as our Adversaries must acknowledge. For these sacrifices I hope were not true and proper ones such as the sacrifice of the Mass is held to be, nor were they properly propitiatory for their sins, nor did the Ancients who prayed for the dead at the Altar and made oblations for them, think that these oblations were properly propitiatory, or satisfactory for their sins, as the Church of Rome believes the sacrifice of Mass now to be: there is nothing that amounts to this in any of those places where they speak of offerings for the dead, nor would St. Cyprian or the Bishops who ordained in Council that no offerings should be made for him who appointed a Clergyman Executor to his Will, have inflicted so severe a punishment upon so small a fault, had they thought this would have deprived his soul of a true and real propitiation for his sins, nor would blotting out of the Diptyches have been so commonly put in use, had this been consigning the soul to the punishments of another World.  
There was therefore no such thing meant as our Adversaries would now draw from that ancient custom of Oblations for the Dead; and yet that this quickly degenerated into superstition and has been farther improved in aftertimes and is now come to very great perfection in the Roman Church we willingly own; & that the first beginnings of this were laid in this unscriptural custom, as the Worship of Saints was from the Anniversary memory of the Martyrs is not to be denied: But corruptions in Religion like Diseases in the body might proceed at first from very small causes, but by neglect and carelessness grow oftentimes very great and dangerous, especially when the Physicians that should have cured them, thought it for their purpose and interest rather to heighten and increase them.  
10. The sacrifice of the Mass must either be unnecessary, or else must reflect on the sacrifice of the Cross, if it be not necessary for obtaining the pardon and remission of any sin, or for the relief of any spiritual want and necessity for which there has been no provision made by the sacrifice of the cross, than it is wholly useless & unprofitable; if it be necessary for any such purpose then the sacrifice of the cross is not perfect and sufficient for all those ends, but requires this sacrifice of the Mass to make up what is lacking, and behind of the sufferings of Christ upon the cross, which is a great diminution to the infinite value of them. It is impossible to avoid these inconveniences, for if the merit of the cross be so great as to expiate all manner offin, and to take away all kinds of punishment that are due to it, and to supply all the spiritual wants and necessities whatever of all Christians, then what possible need can there be of any other sacrifice? And if Christ's sacrifice once offered upon the cross can do all this, why should there be any new offering or any reiteration of the same sacrifice, when by being once offered it hath done the whole business that it can do were it offered never so often: but if there be any kinds of sins, which because they are daily committed by us therefore require a daily sacrifice, as they pretend, to be offered for them, which implies that the constant and abiding virtue of the cross cannot reach them, which is yet as efficacious to all Christians now as the first day it was offered, or as it could be if it were offered every day by Christ himself; or if there be any such temporal remains of punishment after the eternal guilt of them is pardoned, which are not discharged by Christ's sacrifice upon the Cross, but there is this small handwriting still however against us and continues uncancelled notwithstanding the Death of Christ, than we are not perfectly redeemed from all punishment, and from the whole Curse of the Law by the sacrifice of the cross, but there is something more necessary to deliver and save us if not from Hell yet from Purgatory, and whatever Christ has done for us yet the Mass sacrifice must still help us, not as an instrument of Religion to work upon us and make us better, but as a sacrifice to God to prevail with him to free us from punishment, or else we are in a miserable condition, which is the true contrivance of the sacrifice of the Mass, that necessarily renders it very injurious to the most perfect and sufficient sacrifice of the cross.  
I might add many other Errors belonging to this Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, such as saying their Masses in an unknown Tongue, putting confidence in the mere opus operatum, offering up Masses to the honour of the Saints, and the like, but those do more properly fall under other heads of controversy, and are the peculiar subjects of other Treatises that are written on purpose upon those matters; for though these all run into this Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, which is the great Lake into which most of the Popish Errors empty themselves, yet the first head and rise of them is not from hence, and so I shall not take them in here.  
The Mass sacrifice contains in it a whole Legion of Errors, but 'tis only the principal one which I have endeavoured by this Discourse to cast out, and that is its being a proper and truly propitiatory sacrifice, which I have shown to be founded upon two monstrous Errors, to have no true foundation in Scripture, nor no just claim to Antiquity, but to be plainly contrary to both those, and to be in itself very absurd and Unreasonable, which is enough in conscience against any one Doctrine or any Church that maintains it, however Infallible they may both of them pretend to be, if this be clearly and strongly made out against them, as has been Attempted in this Treatise.  
FINIS.   

Books Sold by Brabazon Aylmer, at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchinge in Cornhill.  
A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host, as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome; Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject, And to Monsieur Boleau 's late Book, De Adoratione Eucharist.  
A Discourse of the Communion in One Kind: In Answer to a Treatise of the Bishop of Meaux 's, of Communion of both Species.  
An Answer to a Book, Entitled, Reason and Authority: Or the Motives of a Late Protestant's Reconciliation to the Catholic Church: Together with a brief Account of Augustine the Monk, and Conversion of the English.  
A Request to Roman Catholics, To Answer the Queries upon these their following Tenets. Sect. 1. Their Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue. 2. Their taking away the Cup from the People. 3. Their withholding the Scriptures from the Laics. 4. The Adoration of Images. 5. The Invocation of Saints and Angels. 6. The Doctrine of Merit. 7. Purgatory. 8. Their Seven Sacraments. 9 Their Priest's Intention in Baptism. 10. The Lambo of unbaptized Infants. 11. Transubstantiation. 12. The Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass. 13. Private Masses. 14. The Sacrament of Penance. 15. The Sacrament of Marriage, with the Clergies Restraint therefrom. 16. Their Sacrament of extreme Unction. 17. Tradition. 18. That Threadbare Question, Where was your Church before Luther? 19 The Infallibility of the Pope with his Councils. 20. The Pope's Supremacy. 21. The Pope's Deposing Power. 22. Their uncharitableness to all other Christians.