that sacrifice which He has bidden us commemorate by the same. This, as I have already shewn, is all that the ancient liturgies contemplated. And to this purpose is that saying of St. Augustine, cited in the canon law. (Decret. iii. P. de Consecr. dist. ii. § 32.) "Sacrificium visibile, invisibile est sacramentum." (De Civitate Dei, lib. x. c. 5.)

PAGE 300.-(Himself to be sacrificed by the Church.)

If by this is meant that our Lord is really and actually sacrificed in the Eucharist, as Harding contended, it is simple downright blasphemy. If all that it means is, that there is a commemorative sacrifice of His death; in other words that the oblation of bread and wine in obedience to His institution, is an action representing, and commemorating, and presenting before God, that great and only sacrifice which sense is warranted by the context, and in this sense it is used by many of their most eminent writers—we have no objections to offer to it. For in this sense it has been again and again acknowledged by our most eminent divines. Thus Archbishop Bramhall, in his works, Dublin, 1677, p. 36. "We acknowledge a representation of that sacrifice to God the Father, we acknowledge an impetration of the benefit of it, we maintain an application of its virtue: so here is a commemorative, impetrative sacrifice." Mede, Christian Sacrifice, book ii. c. 7. "The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, or the Lord's Supper, is a sacrifice according to the style of the ancient Church. It is one thing to say, that the Lord's Supper is a sacrifice, and another to say that Christ is properly sacrificed therein." (Ibid. c. 9.) “Although the Eucharist be a sacrifice, yet is Christ in this sacrifice no otherwise offered than by way of commemoration only of His sacrifice once offered. But this commemoration which is to be made to God His Father, is not, as is commonly supposed, a bare remembering or putting ourselves in mind, but a putting God in mind. The commemoration therein must be made to God." Mason, Vindic.

"On the cross there was a shedding of blood; in the

Eccles. Anglic. Lond. 1625, p. 566. true, real, proper, and substantial Eucharist it is improper, mystical, commemorative, and representative." Jewell, Replie to Harding, Lond. 1609, p. 424. He cites Chrysostom, in Epist. ad Hebræos Homil. xvii. who says, "We offer indeed, but in remembrance of His death. This sacrifice is an example of that sacrifice. This that we do, is done in remembrance of that that was done. We offer up the same that Christ offered, or rather, we work the remembrance of that sacrifice" and then Jewell adds, "Thus we offer up Christ, that is to say, an example, a commemoration, a remembrance of the death of Christ. This kind of sacrifice was never denied." Archbishop Cranmer, cited by Collier, Eccles. Hist. ii. p. 243. "The oblation and sacrifice of Christ in the mass is not so called because Christ indeed is there offered and sacrificed by the priest and people, for that was done but once by Himself upon the cross: but it is so called because it is a memory and representation of that very true sacrifice and immolation." Bishop Andrews, Seventh Serm. on Resurrect. 1641, p. 453, "This is it in the Eucharist that answereth to the sacrifice in the Passover, the memorial to the figure. To them it was, Do this in prefiguration of me; to us, in commemoration of me. To them, foreshow; to us, show forth. By the same rule that theirs was, by the same may ours be termed a sacrifice. In rigour of speech neither of them. For, to speak after the exact manner of divinity, there is but one only sacrifice properly so called." Ibid. Answer to Cardinal Perron. Lond. 1629, p. 6, "The Eucharist ever was, and by us is considered, both a sacrament and a sacrifice."

Compare these with Cardinal Perron, du S. Sacrement de l'Eucharistie, Paris, 1622, p. 348. "Que l'action du sacrifice externe de l'Eglise soit figure ou exemplaire de ces grands mystères là, à sçavoir de l'occision du corps de Christ en la croix." De Marca, Traité de l'Eucharistie, p. 3, cited by Courayer, in his defence of his dissertation upon the English Ordinations, lib. iv. "L'Eucharistie ainsi composée nous sert de mémoire du

sacrifice de la croix. Cette commemoration célébrée en l'Eucharistie s'appelle sacrifice par les Pères." Mærat, in Sum. Theolog. Thom. Aquin. Paris, 1633, tom. iii. p. 416, "Appellatur incruenta Christi immolatio illa actio, quæ est vera expressaque cruentæ Christi immolationis figura seu repræsentatio et per quam efficitur aliquid quod Christum mortuum repræsentat: sola autem consecratio hujusmodi actio est." Clingius, Sum. doct. Chr. Colon. 1570, p. 299, “Mendacium est quod Missa sit novum vel distinctum aut singulare sacrificium. . sed est solum memoria istius sacrificii quod (quæ ?) non meretur remissionem; sed oratio, seu petitio est ut nobis condonetur remissio peccatorum propter actum crucis." Ibid. p. 283, "Missa est memoria solum Christi passionis et instituta ad memoriam non ad remissionem peccatorum. Non enim ob manducationem et potationem est promissa remissio, sed ob traditionem corporis et sanguinis effusionem est promissa salus credenti." Cardinal Hosius, c. 40. Colon. 1584, p. 106, "Sacrificium hoc vocat exemplar illius, quod in cruce peractum est. Ibi enim vere oblatus, vere passus, vere mortuus est: hic eorum quæ ibi acta sunt, fit repræsentatio." Ibid. ch. 41, p. 113, “Admonemur Christi passionis, atque hac ratione vocatur hoc sacramentum sacrificium. Sie enim a Cypriano dictum est: passio Christi est sacrificium quod offerimus." Cassander, Opera, Paris, 1616, p. 998, “Manifestum est enim veterem illam Ecclesiam ita semper sensisse: corpus et sanguinem Christi semel in cruce oblata, ad salutem totius mundi victimam esse perpetuam, quæ semel oblata consumi non potest, sed efficax manet ad remissionem quotidianorum delictorum, quare et Christus in cœlis perpetuum habens sacerdotium quotidie hanc perennem victimam pro nobis quodammodo offert, quando apud patrem interpellat pro nobis. Itaque Ecclesiæ ministri idem illud corpus Christi, ex ipsius mandato quotidie offerunt, per mysticam repræsentationem et commemorationem sacrificii semel peracti, cujus sacrificii perpetuam victimam, in cœlis ad dexteram Patris assistentem in sacra mensa præsentem habent, per quam Deo Patri supplicant. Non igitur hic novum

est sacrificium, nam et eadem hic est nostra, quæ in cruce oblata fuit, et sacrificii illius in cruce peracti in mysterio commemoratio, et continuati in cœlis sacerdotii et sacrificii Christi in imaginem repræsentatio, quo non efficitur nova propitiatio, et remissio peccatorum, sed ea quæ semel sufficienter in cruce facta est nobis quoque efficax esse postulatur." And so just before the Council of Trent, we find the doctrine of the sacrifice in the holy Eucharist expounded by the chapter of Cologne in their antididagma set forth in opposition to the work which Herman, their Archbishop, had published under the directions of Bucer. Cologne, 1542, p. 56. "Cum jam (passionem Christus) subire decrevisset, instituit et reliquit nobis sui sacrificii imaginem quandam, tanquam sacrificium quo iterum atque iterum subinde in Ecclesiis sacrificaremus. Atque hoc ipsum est alterum istud sacrificium, non cruenta sed incruenta recordationis, gratiarum actionis, et laudis oblatio. Præcepitque ut sanctissimum illud sacrificium Patri cœlesti iterum atque iterum ac semper quousque veniat, spiritualiter et commemorative offeramus, non ad demerendam eo primum remissionem peccatorum, quasi non sit per Christum semel in cruce omnibus credentibus plenarie et sufficienter impetrata, verum in ejus suæ redemptionis memoriam, hoc est, ut passionem ejus et mortem Deo Patri sanctissimis istis mysteriis mystice et figuraliter repræsentemus et proponamus."

These extracts, to which others, if need be, could be added, suffice to show the wisdom of that caution with which the Church of England has expressed herself in the thirty-first Article upon this point: "The sacrifices of masses in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." When it is considered by whom the Articles were drawn up, it is clear that this condemnation is not directed against the sacrifice of the mass understood as Cranmer expounded it, (see above, p. 393,) but against such a gross actual sacrifice as that for which Harding and other writers of the Roman communion have contended: but which is wholly

disclaimed by the writers I have adduced, since the Council of Trent, and is at utter variance with the collective exposition by the chapter of Cologne, a few years before the Council. The article does not hold out the notion which it condemns as one authoritatively taught in the Church of Rome; but as a common report or superstition upon the subject. Many English persons have supposed that the framers of the article had the Tridentine decrees in view, and put forth their article with the express view of condemning those decrees; but such persons forget that the English Articles were passed in 1552, and the Tridentine decrees upon the mass not till ten years afterwards, 1562. After all,

the chief difficulty in allowing that exposition of the doctrine, as given by the Chapter of Cologne and the other writers here cited, and which vindicates it from the objectionable and revolting sense in which we have been taught to regard it, arises from the doctrine of transubstantiation. For if transubstantiation is supposed to have taken place in the recital of the words, "hoc est corpus," which is the common Roman theory, it seems difficult to understand how the priest who offers up in his hand the transubstantiated thing, i. e. the actual substantial body and blood, and soul of Jesus Christ, can do, or suppose himself to do otherwise than actually, substantially, and in very deed, offer up afresh the Son of God. But both de Marca and Mærat since the Council of Trent, as Paschase Radbert, and others, had done before it, distinctly deny that there is any necessary connexion between transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass. Thus de Marca Dissertat. Posth. p. 114, "Hinc colliges sacrificii rationem non esse ponendam in actu transubstantiationis." Mærat, Paris, 1633, tom. iii. p. 420, " Octavum corollarium est transubstantiationem panis in Christi corpus et sanguinem ad Missæ sacrificium non pertinere. Novum est, substantialem quoque Christi in Eucharistiæ productionem, ad Missæ sacrificium non spectare;" and so before, Paschasius Radbert, Paris, 1618, p. 1564, "Veritas ergo est, dum corpus Christi et sanguis virtute Spiritus in verbo ipsius ex panis vinique substantia efficitur.