THE MASS. THE FIRST MASS.

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We can adduce the unequivocal testimony of the ablest ecclesiastics of their time-the ornaments of the Roman Church-most strenuously put forth against this dogma as soon as it appeared before the world in a tangible form; and, if our opponents can bring forward a hundred authors who say nothing on the subject, what is that to the purpose? It was foretold of the false prophets that were to arise in the Church, that they would "privily bring in damnable heresies." Error is, in its progress, generally insidious and stealthy. The great deceiver appears as an angel of light, concealing the cloven foot under a robe of simulated charity. The maxims of his policy are wiles; and hence his master-stroke of delusion is appropriately styled "the mystery of inquity.'

LETTER XI.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-The creed of Pope Pius IV., which is received by your Church as an infallibly correct summary of the faith, thus speaks of the Mass :

"I profess, likewise, that in the Mass there is offered to God a proper and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. And that, in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there are truly, really and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ: and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood: which conversion the Catholic Church calls Transubstantiation. I also confess that under either kind alone, Christ is received whole and entire, and a true sacrament."

This is in exact accordance with the decrees of the Council of Trent, and is now the universally received doctrine of the Church of Rome. Deferring the question of Transubstantiation for examination in a subsequent letter, I shall apply myself to what is termed the sacrifice of the Mass.

I trust you will consider my arguments with the candour which the importance of the subject demands—that you will prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. If it be your duty to prove all things, then it is manifest there must be a judging faculty to be exercised, and a standard with which it compares the doctrinal and moral subjects that are brought before it. These things are necessary to our accountability. Where there is no law, there is no transgression; and where there is no conscience, as in the case of idiots and lunatics, transgressions are not imputed. We shall refer, then, "to the law and the testimony.

A person who had learned his theology only from the Bible would be sadly puzzled on meeting the word Mass. What can it mean? And why should we look in vain for a word so important in a book which is said to contain the mystery which it denotes ? The name is nowhere to be found; but it is contended that the thing is contained in the institution of the Lord's Supper. Who could have thought that? In the Douay Catechism, and in the Grounds of the Catholic Doc

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LAST SUPPER.-UNBLOODY SACRIFICE.

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trine, it is stated that CHRIST said the first Mass!-and we are referred to the Last Supper for proof. Have the goodness to turn to the following passages :—Matth. xxvi. 26, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body." Luke xxiv. 30, "And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them." 1 Cor. xi. 23-25, 66 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread:" After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me." Now tell me, candidly, do these passages contain anything like the mass. When you go next to chapel, observe attentively everything the priest does, and if you can discover a similitude, I think you must draw largely on your imagination. He took bread, and, when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, "Take, eat.” In like manner he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, "Drink ye all of this." Is this saying mass? Did the Redeemer hereby "offer himself to God as a true propitiatory sacrifice?" It might be a eucharistic, or thanksgiving offering; but an atoning sacrifice it could not be.

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No blood was shed, and the shedding of blood both Jews and Gentiles regarded as essential to a propitiatory sacrifice. Indeed, this is the doctrine taught us by the Holy Spirit Without shedding of blood there is no remission"-Heb. ix. 22. Cain confessed no sin, and obtained no pardon by offering "of the fruits of the ground"—while Abel offered by faith a more excellent sacrifice, ""of the firstlings of his flock.”

But a sacrifice must be offered to God; the bread and wine, however, were offered to the disciples. "Take, eat," was said to them; "do this in remembrance of me." The memorial of a sacrifice is not a sacrifice. Besides, if Christ offered himself at the Last Supper, it is admitted that he offered himself again on the Cross; therefore, he offered himself twice. If so, St. Paul must have been greatly mistaken, when he said, "Christ was onçe offered to bear the sins of many ;"- "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."—Heb. ix. 28, and x. 10. Here is a contradiction. Which shall we believe-the

Church or the Apostle? If Jesus offered himself on the table, why should he offer himself on the cross? If a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice was offered in an upper room, what need of another on Calvary?

But the Apostle argues that, if he were "offered often, then must he often have suffered."-Heb. ix. 26. Does not this set aside your Church's distinction between a bloody and an unbloody sacrifice? "A sacrifice unbloody and yet propitiatory!" Who ever heard of such a thing? What Jew?-what Pagan? A sacrifice for atonement cannot be unbloody, for "without shedding of blood there is no remission." Could sin be pardoned by mere doing without suffering?—by mere action without passion? Is it not a truth written, as it were, with the finger of God on the heart of man, that the pardon of sin requires the death of a victim? If a sacrifice may be unbloody and yet propitiatory, wherefore did the blood of

OFFICE OF PRIEST.-MELCHIZEDEK.

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animals stream for ages on Jewish altars, according to Divine appointment? But, above all, why did the Son of God die a death so cruel if an unbloody offering would have sufficed to save the souls of men? If the doctrine of an unbloody atonement were true, would it not then have been possible for the bitter cup to pass from the Redeemer? I entreat your impartial and earnest attention to these questions.

I have carefully examined the Bible, and I find not the slightest mention of any offering of Christ but once as an atonement or propitiation for sin. I have also examined the writings of your own divines, and I have never met a proof of any such offering, either before or after the crucifixion. Was it not my duty, therefore, to reject the Mass as a doctrine of man's invention? But I have more to say on this dogma of your Church. Where there is a sacrifice there must be a priest; and your clergymen profess to be priests in the strict sense of the word. Now, what do you say to the fact, that the ministers of the Gospel are never once called priests in the New Testament? Jewish ministers had bloody sacrifices to offer, and are therefore called priests. The same may be said of the Pagans. In allusion to the Jewish priesthood, Christians, as such (including the laity, of course), are figuratively called priests. Thus Peter (1 Peter, ii. 5, 9) calls believers a "holy priesthood"—"a royal priesthood"- -"to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." See also Rev. i. 6, and v. 10, where all the redeemed are said to be made "kings and priests unto God." But it is a remarkable fact, which members of your Church should weigh deliberately, that the word priest is never applied in Scripture to any one of the apostles, evangelists, prophets, or pastors of the New Testament. In the present dispensation, there is no priest but JESUS CHRIST.

I know you will reply that Melchizedek is called the Priest of the most High God, though he offered only bread and wine. But to whom did he offer these? Manifestly not to God as a sacrifice, but to Abraham as refreshment, when he had returned in triumph from the battle; or if to God on Abraham's account, it must have been to give thanks for his victory, and not to atone for his sins. (Gen. xiv. 18-20.) He blessed Abraham, and received as a gift the tenth of the spoils, because he was a priest of the Most High God, and a remarkable type of Christ. It is not to this transaction we are to look in order to discover him performing the peculiar functions of the priest's office. Like all the patriarchssuch, for instance, as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, &c.-he offered bloody sacrifices, which the heads of families and tribes were accustomed to do before the appointment of the Aaronic priesthood. Melchizedek, then, was strictly a priest-" a priest on his throne;" and as such a most eminent type of Immanuel.

You will also, perhaps, attempt to set aside my argument by simply denying the fact on which I build it. You will assert that the ministers of the Gospel are frequently styled priests, and appeal to the Rhemish Testament for proof. If so, I must repeat again the assertion, that the proper Greek word for priest (igeus) is never applied to a Christian minister; although I am aware that the English translation of it is found

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several times in that Testament; but in these cases it is employed as the rendering of gioCuregos (“ elder.") The Greek word just mentioned occurs sixty-five times in the New Testament, and is for the most part translated "ancient" in your Bible; while in six places of its occurrence they call it "priest." These places are the following:-Acts xiv. 23, and xv. 2; 1 Tim. v. 17, 19; Titus i. 5; James v. 14. I do not know whether you are aware of the fact, that the English versions of the Bible in your Church have been made not from the Greek and Hebrew originals, but from the Vulgate, and are thus the translations of a translation. But it is curious to remark, that the translators have often departed from their copy, and especially in the six places above referred to. To justify the translation of the Rhemish Testament, the Latin word sacerdos (the proper rendering of itgeus), a priest, should have been found in all the passages above mentioned. But it does not occur in any of them. I could not discover a single passage (and I believe nobody can) in your standard Latin Bible in which sacerdos, a priest, is applied to a New Testament minister. Not one! It gives "presbyterus " and "senior" for the Greek geoburgos, elder; but restricts sacerdos to its proper signification, a sacrificing priest, never applying it to any of the ambassadors or ministers of Christ under the present dispensation. It does, however, apply it to Jesus Christ, who is our great and only priest. Again I repeat the assertion, and I challenge all the scholars in Ireland to contradict it, that there is under the Christian economy NO PRIEST BUT JESUS CHRIST.

If you ask me why the Rhemish translators did not keep to their copy in these particulars, I am afraid the true answer cannot be given without impeaching the motives of these reverend gentlemen. They wished to stand by their order. They professed to offer daily a true, proper, and expiatory sacrifice; and, therefore, they must be, in the strict sense, priests; but as the word was not found connected with the ministerial office in the Sacred Record, not even in their own version of it-a version of which a canonised saint was the author, which a general council sanctioned, and of which two successive Popes were the editors-they were determined to insert it at all hazards! But surely such guides might have been safely followed. Why, then, were they not followed? There

was, it seems, a reason.

The Jesuits of Bordeaux published a French New Testament, in 1686, full of gross interpolations. For instance-Acts xiii. 2—"Now, as they offered unto the Lord the sacrifice of the mass.

When Monsieur Vernon was asked why he had thus wrested the passage from its proper meaning, he replied, "Because I have been often asked by the Calvinists what Scripture affirmed that the apostles said mass.

If texts are to be coined in this manner, no man can be at a loss for Scriptural arguments! It is distressing to remark that the grave and reverend Fathers of the Council of Trent were actuated by similar considerations in compiling their canons. It was not so much a question what God had taught, and the primitive Church believed, as what would most

Father Simon's Critical History of the New Testament.

THE GREAT HIGH PRIEST.--SUPREME PONTIFF.-HUMAN DEPRAVITY. 75

pointedly condemn the doctrines of Luther. Yet if this "pressure from without" leads to more violent resistance to the work of reformation, it may also issue in important concessions to the spirit of inquiry. Innumerable and most important are the advantages that have thus indirectly resulted from religious discussion. Truth must be a gainer by free inquiry; but as for popular ignorance, its pestiferous exhalations diffuse a moral desolation around.

Jesus was

It appears evidently, then, that there is nothing in Scripture to countenance the mass. Our blessed Lord offered no expiatory sacrifice at the Last Supper. There cannot be remission of sins without the shedding of blood, and therefore the mass cannot be an atoning sacrifice. offered but once. Were he still to be offered, according to your creed, then must he still, according to St. Paul, be subject to suffering the idea of offering or immolation, apart from suffering, being a palpable absurdity. It has also been demonstrated, even on the authority of the Latin Vulgate, that there is no priest under the New Testament but JESUS CHRIST.

"Now, of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum: we have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.". For such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens."- Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, JESUS, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession."

The question of the Priesthood is discussed at large in the Epistle to the Hebrews; see particularly chapters 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10. In the whole of the Apostle's reasoning on this subject, there is not a hint about the supreme pontiff at Rome, or about the inferior tribes of the sacerdotal order.

Closely connected with the Priesthood is the question of Atonement, or the ground of the sinner's justification before God, and to this your attention will be directed in my next letter.

LETTER XII.

MY DEAR FRIEND, -Our Creator has given us a law which we are, of course, bound to obey; and which, being holy and just and good, contributes directly and invariably to the happiness of those who yield to its requirements. The summary of that law, given by JESUS himself, is at once simple, rational, and sublime. It demands that we should love GOD above all things, with all our powers, and our neighbour as ourselves. Here in one brief, intelligible sentence, which commends itself to every conscience, we have the whole duty of man.

But, alas, man is not disposed to do his duty. world with a nature prone to evil and averse to good. his heart is depraved, and his life, so soon as he

He comes into the His mind is ignorant, begins to exert his fa