CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. SECTION I. ON SACRIFICE IN GENERAL. J. THE necessity of interior and exterior worship.-2. Sacrifice offered from the beginning of the world.-3. What sacrifice is.— 4. The four ends of sacrifice.-5. The legal sacrifices were of no avail when unconnected with the future death of the Redeemer. -6. A new sacrifice was necessary.-7. The sacrifice of the Cross a true sacrifice.-8. All the ancient sacrifices comprehended in it.-9. The unbloody sacrifice of the New Law. SECTION II. THE MASS A SACRIFICE. 10. The Mass a true sacrifice.-11. Sacrifice of Melchisedech.— 12. The sacrifice of Melchisedech elucidated by the Fathers.— 13. Illustrated by an ancient Mosaic at Ravenna.-14. The Paschal Lamb a figure of the sacrifice of the Mass.-15. Accomplishment of the prophecy of Malachias in the sacrifice of the Mass.-16. Christ announces a new sacrifice.-17. The sacrifice of the Mass proved from St. Paul. SECTION III. ON THE REAL PRESENCE. 18. The Real Presence.-19. The promise made by Christ that he would give us his flesh and blood to eat and drink.-20. Objection answered. PART THE SECOND. CHAPTER I. ON THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. SECTION I. ON SACRIFICE IN GENERAL. I. NECESSITY OF INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR WORSHIP. RELIGION is that reverential homage of the heart and mind which connects us with God by a perfect submission of ourselves to his sovereign majesty, and the profound prostration of the soul before the throne of his omnipotence, which we exhibit by exterior worship. It is true that the most grateful offering to the Lord, is that inward adoration-the homage and the breathings of the heart: because God is a spirit, and they that adore him must adore him in spirit and in truth.* But man is a compound, not a simple being. He is gifted with a soul which assimilates him to *St. John, C. iv. V. 24. the angelic spirits; and he possesses a body, which constitutes a part of the visible creation. Composed, therefore, of a body and a soul, we must, through the very constitution of our nature, offer up this oblation outwardly, in order to furnish a visible and a public manifestation of the inward emotions of the spirit towards the Divinity; and hence we must necessarily associate along with interior worship, the rites of some exterior ceremonial, which, in fact, is nothing more than an outward sign, and a sensible declaration, indicative of that interior oblation of ourselves, which each one of us is bound to make to God our Creator, and perpetual preserver. It is, therefore, impossible that true Religion can in any way subsist without interior and exterior adoration. This will be more evident when we consider that religion, as its very name implies, is, as it were, a bond—a ligature, connecting men with one another, by the profession of a common faith, and a similarity of public worship, in which they outwardly unite to acknowledge their dependence upon God, and to manifest their affection and devotion towards him. II. SACRIFICE OFFERED FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD. Nature herself invariably inspired man with the idea that sacrifice was the first-the most essential act of exterior religion. From the world's foundation to the present moment, its existence may be more or less discovered amongst men throughout the earth, however widely separated from each other by almost immeasurable distance, or the interposition of barriers erected by nature, and utterly impossible to be surmounted. The earliest record of the human race represents Cain as offering to God the fruits of the earth, and Abel as making a similar acknowledgment of homage with the 'firstlings of his flock."* After the waters of the deluge had subsided, and Noah, with his family, had issued from the Ark, 'he built an altar unto the Lord; and taking of all cattle, and fowls that were clean, offered up holocausts upon the altar.'+ The Almighty condescended to attest the holiness of Job by imparting efficacy to the prayers and the sacrifice which that model of resignation to the will of Heaven presented in behalf of his less righteous neighbours. The oblation of Melchisedech is too well known to demand our observations; while Abraham was so sedulous in sacrificing, that he was even ready to make a victim of his only, and well beloved son Isaac. The dictates inspired by nature, were ratified in the law delivered by God himself to Moses, in which are described with much minuteness the various sacrifices to be offered by the Hebrew people, and in *Gen. C. iv. V. 3, 4. + Gen. C. viii. V. 20. |