Chapter VI. Of the Sacrifice of the Mass

Q. What do you mean by the Mass?

A. The Mass is the liturgy of the Catholic church, and consists in the consecration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, and the offering up of this same body and blood to God, by the ministry of the priest, for a perpetual memorial of Christ's sacrifice upon the cross, and a continuation of the same till the end of the world.

Q. Why is this liturgy called the Mass?

A, Some think this word is derived from the Hebrew word missach, Deut. xvi. which signifies a voluntary offering; others are of opinion, that it is derived from the missa, or missio, that is, from the dismission of the catechmens and others, who were not permitted anciently to be present at this sacrifice. But be this as it will, the name is of very ancient use in the church, as appears from St. Ambrose, 1. 2. Epist. 14. ad Sororem; St. Leo, Epist. 81. ad Dioscorum; and St. Gregory, Horn. 6. in Evangelia.

Q. Is the Mass properly a sacrifice?

A. Yes it is.

Q. What do you mean by a sacrifice?

A, A sacrifice, properly so called, is an oblation or offering of some sensible thing made to God by a lawful minister, to acknowledge, by the destruction or other change in the thing offered the sovereign power of God, and to render him the homage due to his supreme majesty.

Q. How then is the Mass a sacrifice?

A, Because it is an oblation of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, offered under the outward and sensible signs of bread and wine to God, by the ministry of the priests of the church, lawfully consecrated and empowered by Christ; and this oblation is accompanied with a real change and destruction of the bread and wine, by the consecration of them into the body and blood of Christ, and a real exhibiting of Christ our victim, heretofore immolated upon the cross, and here mystically dying in the separate consecration of the two different species; and this oblation is made to God to acknowledge his sovereign power, to render him our homage, and for all the other ends for which sacrifice is offered to his divine majesty.

Q. What are the ends for which sacrifice of old was offered, and is still to be offered to God?

A, For these four ends; first, for God's own honour and glory, by acknowledging his sovereignty and paying him our homage; secondly, to give God thanks for all his blessings; thirdly, to beg pardon for our sins; fourthly, to obtain grace and blessings from his divine majesty.

Q. Have the servants of God, from the beginning of the world, been always accustomed to hon-our him with sacrifices?

A, Yes they have. Witness the sacrifice of Abel, Gen. iv. the sacrifice of Noah, Gen. viii. the sacrifice of Melchisedech, Gen. xiv. the sacrifices of Abraham, Gen. xv. and xxii. the sacrifices of Job, ch. i. and xlii. and the many different kind of sacrifices prescribed in the law of Moses. Of these ancient sacrifices some were holocausts, or whole burnt-offerings, in which the victim or host was wholly consumed by fire, and thereby given fully to God without reserve for the more perfect acknowledgment of his sovereignty. Others were sin-offerings or sacrifices offered for sin: others were pacific or peace-offerings; and these were either offered in thanksgiving for blessings re- <jeived, or for obtaining of graces and favours from the divine Majesty. Again, some were bloody sacrifices, in which the victim was slain; others unbloody, as the sacrifice of Melchisedech, which was bread and wine. Gen. xiv. the sacrifices of fine flour with oil and frankincense, of unleavened cakes, &c. prescribed Levit. ii. of the scapegoat, Levit. xvi. &c.

Q. Were these sacrifices of the law of nature, and of the law of Moses, agreeable to the divine Majesty?

A. They were, as often as they were accompanied with the inward sacrifice of the heart; not for any virtue or efficacy that they had in themselves, as being but weak and needy elements, but in view of the sacrifice of Christ, of which they all were types and figures, and in consideration of the faith of those that offered them, by which they believed in a Redeemer to come, whose blood alone was capable to reconcile them to God.

Q. Why are all these sacrifices now abolished?

A. Because they were but figures of the sacrifice of Christ, and therefore were to give place to his sacrifice, as figures to the truth.

Q. How do you prove that these ancient sacrifices had no power nor efficacy of themselves, and were to make way for another sacrifice, viz. that of Christ?

A, This is evident from many texts of scripture; I shall only allege one at present, viz. Psalm xxxix. spoken in the person of Christ to his Father: 'Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not; but ears thou hast perfected to me, (or as St. Paul reads it, Heb. X. 5. a body thou hast prepared for me) holocaust and sin-offering thou didst require, then said I, behold I come.'

Q. What is then the sacrifice of Christians under the new law?

A. We have no other sacrifice but that of Christ, which he once offered upon the cross; and daily offers by the ministry of his priests upon the altar in the eucharist.

Q. Is the sacrifice of the cross and that of the eucharist the same sacrifice, or two distinct sacrifices?

A. It is the same sacrifice; because the victim is the self-same, viz. Jesus Christ; and the priest or principal offerer is also the self-same Jesus Christ: it was he that offered himself upon the cross: it is he that offers himself upon the altar. The only difference is in the manner of the offering; because in the sacrifice of the cross, Christ really died, and therefore that was a bloody sacrifice; in the sacrifice of the altar, he only dies mystically, and therefore this is an unbloody sacrifice. 1 say he dies mystically, inasmuch as his death is represented in the consecrating apart the bread and wine, to denote the shedding of his sacred blood, from his body, at the time of his death.

Q. Why do you say, that Jesus Christ is the priest that offers the sacrifice of the altar, since there is always another priest to perform this office?

A, Because the priest that officiates in the Mass, officiates as Christ's vice-gerent, and in his Person; and therefore when he comes to the consecration of the elements, in which this sacrifice essentially consists, he speaks not in his own name, but in the name and person of Christ, saying, ' This is my body, this is the chalice of my blood, &c.' So that Christ himself is the principal priest; the officiant only acts by his authority, in his name and person.

Q. But what need was there of the sacrifice of the altar, since we are fully redeemed by the sacrifice of the cross?

A, First, that we might have in the sacrifice of the altar a standing memorial of the death of Christ. Secondly, that by the sacrifice of the altar the fruit of his death might daily be applied to our souls. Thirdly, that his children might have, till the end of the world an eternal sacrifice, in which they might join together in,the outward worship of religion, as the servants of God from the beginning of the world had always done. Fourthly, that in and by this sacrifice, they might unite themselves daily with their high-priest and victim Christ Jesus, and daily answer the four ends of sacrifice.

Q. What proofs have you that the Mass is properly a sacrifice?

A. Because as we learn from many plain texts of scripture, quoted in the foregoing chapter, and from the perpetual tradition of the universal church, in the consecration of the holy eucharist, the bread and wine are really changed into the body and blood of Christ; and consequently in and by this consecration, the real body and blood of Christ our victim, which for us was immolated upon the cross, is in the Mass exhibited and presented to God. Therefore the Mass is properly a sacrifice, and the same sacrifice as that which Christ offered upon the cross. And that this sacrifice is propitiatory for the obtaining of the remission of our sins, we learn from the very words of Christ our Lord, at the first institution of it at his last supper, when in the consecration of the elements, speaking in the present tense, he tells us, (as his words are in the original Greek.) ' This is my body which is broken or sacrificed' for you,' 1 Cor. xi. 24. ' This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins,' Matt. xxvi. 28. St. Mark xiv. 24, or, ' This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which (cup) is shed for you, viz. for the remission of your sins.'

Q. Have you any other texts of scripture for the sacrifice of the Mass?

A, Yes, besides many figures of this sacrifice in the Old Testament (of which the most evident ^ that of the bread and wine offered by Melchisedech the priest of the Most-high God, Gen. xiv. according to whose order, Christ is said to be ajpriest for ever, Psal. ex. and that as the holy fathers¹ take notice, by reason of this sacrifice of the eucharist) we have the prophecy of Malachy, chap, i 10, 11. where God rejecting the Jewish sacrifices, declares his acceptance of the sacrifice or pure offering which should be made to him in every place among the Gentiles: which text the ancient fathers, both Greek and Latin, urge to shew that the eucharist is a sacrifice. See St. Justin in Dialog, cum Tryphone; St. Irenseus 1. 4. c. 32. St. Chrysostom in Psal. 92. St. Augustine 1. 18, de Civitate Dei, G. 35, &c.

In the New Testament we have Heb. xiii. 10. where the Apostle tells us, that under the new law we have an altar, (and consequently a sacrifice) whereof they have no right to eat whu serve the tabernacle, that is, they who continue in the service of the old law: and, 1 Cor. x. from ver. 14. to 21, the same x4postle makes a parallel between the partakers of the Christian sacrifice and those that partake of the Jewish and Heathenish victims, •so as evidently to suppose, that the Christian table which he mentions, ver. 21. is an altar, where 'Christ is mystically immolated, and afterwards •eaten by the faithful, as in the Jewish and Heathenish sacrifices the victim was first offered on "the altar, and then eaten by the people. From whence the Apostle infers, that they who were ipartakers of this great sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, ver. 16^ ought not to be partakers with devils, by eating of the meats sacrificed to idols, veri 21. The sacrifice of the Mass is also mentioned in the 13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, ver. 2. where what we read in the Protestant Testament 'As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, &c.' in the Greek original is, ' as they were sacrificing to the Lord, and fasting, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.' Where the word which we have rendered in English, sacrificing is the self-same which to this day is used by the Greeks to express the sacrifice of the Mass.

Besides these arguments from scripture for the sacrifice offered to God in the blessed eucharist, we have the authority and the perpetual tradition of the church of God, from the days of the Apostles. Witness the most ancient liturgies of all the churches and nations, Latins, Greeks, Goths, Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Indians, &c. Witness the manifold testimonies of councils and fathers of all ages; witness the frequent use in all Christian antiquity of the names of altar, sacrifice, oblation, priest, &c. Witness, m fine, the universal consent of Christians of all denominations before Luther's time, in offering up the eucharist as a sacrifice; which is a matter of fact that cannot be contested. To which, if we add another truth, no less notorious, viz. that no one of our adversaries can pretend to assign the time in which the use of this sacrifice first began; we cannot have a more certain proof of an apostolical tradition. It is the rule which St. Augustine gives to discern apostolical traditions by; 1. 4. de Bapt. c. 24.

Q. But does not St. Paul say, Heb. x. 14 that Christ, by one offering, viz. that of the cross, hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. What room then can there be for the sacrifice of the Mass?

A, What the Apostle says is certainly true, that the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, is that one offering by which we are perfected for ever, because the whole world was redeemed by that one sacrifice, and all other means of our sanctification or salvation have their force and efficacy from that one offering. Yet as that one offering, by which Christ has perfected for ever them that are sanctified, is no way injured, by his supplications which as man he makes for us to his Father in heaven, where, as the same Apostle tells us, Heb. vii. 25. ^He ever liveth to make intercession for us;' so neither is it any ways injured, but highly honoured by the representing the same offering to God in the sacrifice of the altar.

Q. But the Apostle tells us, Heb. xi. 25. that Christ does not offer himself often, what say you to this?

A. He speaks there of offering himself in a bloody manner, by dying for the redemption of the world; which was to be but once. But though the price of our redemption was to be paid but once* yet the fruit of it was to be daily applied to our souls, by those means of grace which Christ has left in his Church, that is, by his sacraments ano sacrifice.

CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTED lYf

Footnotes

1. St. Cyprian, Epist. 63. St. Chrysostom, Horn. 35, de Gen. St. Epiphanius, Hier. 55. St. Jerome, Epist. 126, ad Evang. St. Augustine, Cone. 1. in Ps. 33. 1. 15. de Civ. n 'C. 22. Lei. 18, c. 35, &c. St. Cyril, 1. 2. Glaphyrs Theo •deret Qu.*64, in Gen. ↩