pitiated by earthly sacrifices, but by spiritual1." "We offer (writes Eusebius 2) to the Supreme God a sacrifice of praise; we offer the Divine and venerable and sacred Sacrifice; we offer after a new way, according to the spirit of the New Testament, 'the pure sacrifice;' 'the sacrifices of God (we are told) are a broken spirit.'" Even in the twelfth century, on the eve of the Council which declared Transubstantiation de fide, the primitive doctrine was still maintained. It is no less a man than Peter Lombard who has left these words on record: "That which is offered and consecrated by the Priest, is called a sacrifice and oblation because it is a memorial and representation of the true Sacrifice accomplished on the altar of the Cross. Christ died once upon the Cross and there was sacrificed in Person: Sacramentally He is daily sacrificed, because in the sacrament there is a remembrance of that which was done but once3." 6. Conclusion. Thus historically as well as logically the doctrine of Rome upon the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the offspring of her erroneous view of the Eucharistic Presence. Both are perversions of the ancient Catholic faith: both proceed from the darkest of the "dark ages:" both tend to dishonour and degrade this Holy Sacrament. But, as is commonly the case, the child is worse than the parent: Transubstantiation is a mere metaphysical folly when compared with the "blasphemous fables" and "dangerous deceits" of the Roman Mass 4. No doubt we must be 1 Adv. Jud. V. 3 Sent. iv. 12. 2 Dem. Evang. I. 4 The words Roman mass are used advisedly, for the mass did not always deserve the censure which under its Roman guise it so fully merits. Missa (whence our mass) originally imported "nothing more than the dismission of a careful not to lose sight of the blessed fact that the Eucharist is a true Feast upon the Once offered Sacrifice, a Rite which at once commemorates and exhibits before God and man the perfected Atonement of our Lord, a Centre for all the praises and thank-offerings, the prayers and intercessions of the Christian Church. But there is yet greater need of caution lest we suffer the Eucharist to usurp in any measure the place of “the full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction which our Lord Himself has offered for the sins of the whole world." The warning which has descended to us from the Reformation-era is not without its importance for ourselves: "We must take heed lest of the memory the Holy Supper be made [in the stricter sense] a sacrifice; lest of a communion it be made a private eating; lest of two parts we have but one; lest applying it for the dead we lose the fruit that be alive1." Church assembly :" (ite, missa est). The Catechumens withdrew after the prayers and reading of Scripture; the faithful after the Holy Communion. Hence these two parts of the Service came to be called respectively missa catechumenorum and missa fidelium. In the next place, the defining genitives were dropped, and either part was called simply missa. At length the term was confined to the Holy Communion, and so answered in the Latin Church to the Greek λειτουργία. S. Ambrose is said to be "the earliest writer now extant who mentions the mass in that emphatical sense” (Bingham, II. 569; Waterland, Doctr. of the Eucharist, c. i.). Thus in the patristic writings, (1) missa often includes the whole of Divine Service, or signifies either half indifferently; (2) when applied to the Eucharist it carries along with it no notion of a propitiatory sacrifice. Homily concerning the Sacrament. From the wording of the Article ["sacrifices of masses," "it was commonly said"] it has been supposed that the English Church condemns the practical errors of the Roman system, rather than its theory of Sacrifice. Cf. Tract. XC. (ed. Pusey), p. 61. Palmer, On the Church, 11. 347; the statement is of course reproduced in the anonymous Kiss of Peace (pp. 33—37). But it is hard to see the point of the distinction, if the abstract doctrine of "the Sacrifice of the Mass" necessarily leads to "sacrifices of masses;" if, again, the priests of Rome are not only "commonly said," but said (in effect) even by the Council of Trent, "to offer Christ for the quick and dead" (cf. Sess. XXII. Ch. ii. and Canon iii). The following extract from Dr Wordsworth On the Church (p. 87) well sums up the points of difference between our "Order of Holy Communion" and the Roman Mass. "The Church of England has all the Sacrifice which the Catholic Church has, and she dares not have more...She has a sacrificium primitivum [i.e. of primitia, or first-fruits]...a sacrificium eucharisticum [i. e. of praise and thanksgiving]...a sacrificium votivum [i. e. of our own souls and bodies]...a sacrificium commemorativum, repræsentativum, impetrativum, applicativum [in which the Sacrifice of our Lord is commemorated, exhibited, pleaded, and applied]....But she has no sacrificium defectivum, in which the Cup is denied to the lay communicant; nor, on the other hand, has she a sacrificium suppletivum to make up for any supposed defects in the One great Sacrifice offered once for all upon the Cross." CHAPTER X. OF PENANCE. CHURCH OF Rome. If any one saith that in the Catholic Church, Penance is not truly and properly a Sacrament, instituted by Christ Our Lord for reconciling the faithful unto God, as often as they fall into sin after baptism, let him be anathema." "If any one denieth that for the entire and perfect remission of sins there are required three acts in the penitent which are as it were the matter of the sacrament of Penance, to wit, contrition, confession, and satisfaction, which are called the three parts of Penance...let him be anathema." CHURCH OF ENGLAND. "Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, ...Penance, etc. are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles." Article XXII. "Almighty God ... hath given power and commandment to His ministers to declare and pronounce to His people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins."-Order for Daily Prayer. "If there be any of you who ...cannot quiet his own conscience herein, but requireth further comfort and counsel, let him come to me or to some other discreet and learned minister of God's Word and open his grief." - Order of Holy Communion. "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with mand of Christ and is a human invention: let him be anathema." "If any one saith that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act, but a bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring sins to be forgiven to him who confesses...let him be anathema." 66 If any saith that the satisfactions by which penitents redeem their sins through JESUS Christ are not a worship of God, but traditions of men which obscure the doctrine of grace, and the true worship of God and the benefit itself of the death of Christ: let him be anathema."—Co. of Trent, Sess. XIV. Can. i. iv. vi. ix. xiv. After any weighty matter. "Our Lord JESUS Christ ...hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him."-Ibid. "Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven."Ordering of Priests. 1. Meaning of "Penance." The word "Penance" is but a contracted form of "penitence," pœnitentia, the Latin equivalent of μerávoia, ("change of mind.") Thus for μeravoeîte (S. Matt. iii. 2) the Vulgate gives "Pœnitentiam agite," and the R. C. English Bibles, preserving the Latin idiom to the detriment of the sense, render the verb, here and elsewhere in the New Testament, "Do penance." Yet no one can suppose that S. John Baptist intended to prescribe to his hearers a Sacrament of the Church, or that his words convey anything more than what is expressed in the authorized English Version, "Repent ye1." "Penance," then, in its simplest use, is synonymous 1 See this frankly acknowledged by the Council of Trent, Sess. XIV. c. I. Yet such passages are frequently made to bear the burden of proving the "Romish doctrine concerning Penance." |