offering, or sacrificing CHRIST Commemoratively is twofold, inward and outward. Outward, as the taking, breaking, and distributing this mystical bread, and pouring out the cup of blessing, which is the communion of the blood of CHRIST. The inward consisteth in the faith and devotion of the Church and people of GOD, so commemorating the Death and Passion of CHRIST, their crucified SAVIOUR, and representing and setting it before the eyes of the ALMIGHTY, that they fly unto it as their only stay and refuge, and beseech Him to be merciful unto them for His sake that endured all these things, to satisfy His wrath, and work their peace and good. And in this sense, and answerable hereunto that is, which we find in the Canon, where the Church desireth ALMIGHTY GOD, to accept those oblations of bread and wine which she presenteth unto Him; and to make them to become unto the faithful communicants the Body and Blood of CHRIST, Who the night before He was betrayed took bread, &c. ... And then proceedeth and speaketh unto ALMIGHTY GOD in this sort: Wherefore, O LORD, we Thy servants, and Thy holy people, mindful of that most blessed Passion of the same CHRIST Thy Son our LORD, as also of His resurrection from the dead: and His glorious ascension into heaven, do offer to Thy divine Majesty, out of Thine own gifts consecrated, and by mystical blessing made unto us the Body and Blood of Thy Son CHRIST, a pure Sacrifice, a holy Sacrifice, and an undefiled Sacrifice; the holy bread of eternal life, and the cup of everlasting salvation;" that is, we offer to Thy view, and set before Thine eyes, the crucified body of CHRIST Thy Son, which is here present in mystery and Sacrament, and the Blood which He once shed for our sakes, which we know to be that pure, holy, undefiled, and eternal Sacrifice, wherewith only Thou art pleased; desiring Thee to be merciful unto us for the merit and worthiness thereof, and so to look upon the same sacrifice which representatively we offer to Thy view, as to accept it for a full discharge of us from our sins, and a perfect propitiation; that so Thou mayest behold us with a pleased, cheerful, and gracious countenance. This is the meaning of that prayer in the Canon; supra quæ propitio et sereno vultu respicere digneris, &c. as the best interpreters of the Canon do tell us.... There is nothing therefore found in the Canon of the Mass, rightly understood, that maketh any thing for the new real offering of CHRIST to GOD HIS FATHER, as a propitiatory sacrifice to take away sins; neither did the Church of GoD at and before Luther's time, know or believe any such thing, though there we some in the midst of her that so conceived of this mystery as the Romanists now do.-pp. 203-206. : were This is the present doctrine of the Roman Church; but this was not the doctrine of the Church at the time of Luther's appearing for the best and principal men then living, taught peremptorily that CHRIST is not newly offered any otherwise, than that He is offered to the view of God; nor any otherwise sacrificed, than in that His sacrifice on the cross is commemorated and represented. "The things that are offered in the Sacrament are two (saith the author of the Enchiridion of Christian Religion, published in the provincial Council of Cologne,) the true Body of CHRIST with all His merits, and His mystical Body, with all the gifts which it bath received of GOD. In that, therefore, the Church doth offer the true Body and Blood of CHRIST to GOD the FATHER, it is merely a representative Sacrifice, and all that is done is but the commemorating and representing of that Sacrifice which was once offered on the cross. But in that it dedicateth itself, which is the mystical body of CHRIST unto God, it is a true, but a spiritual Sacrifice, that is, an Eucharistical Sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving, and of obedience due unto GOD. CHRIST, therefore, is offered and sacrificed on the Altar, but sacramentally and mystically; in that in the Sacrament there is a commemoration and remembrance of that which was once done...." The most reverend Canons of the Metropolitan Church of Cologne agree with the author of the Enchiridion..... In the book proposed by Charles V., written by certain. learned and godly men, much commended to him by men worthy to be credited, as opening a way for the composing of the controversies in religion, we shall find the same explication of this point, touching the Sacrifice that I have already delivered out of the former authors. . . . Hosius was of the same opinion with those before recited.. Michael, Bishop of Werspurge, a man learned, godly, and truly catholic... and with him agreed another learned Bishop (Thomas Watson,) sometime Bishop of Lincoln, in his Sermons upon the Seven Sacraments. . . . With these Gregorius Wicelius, a man much honoured by the Emperors Ferdinand and Maximilian, fully agreeth, defining the Mass to be a Sacrifice rememorative, and of praise and thanksgiving and in another place he saith, the Mass is a commemoration of the passion of CHRIST celebrated in the public assembly of Christians, where many give thanks for the price of redemption. With these agreeth the Interim, published by Charles V. in the assembly of the States of the Empire, at Augusta, March 15th, 1548, and there accepted by the same states. But some man haply will say, here are many authorities alleged, to prove that sundry worthy Divines in the Roman Church, in Luther's time, denied the new real offering or sacrificing of CHRIST, and made the Sacrifice of the Altar to be only representative and commemorative, but before his time there were none found so to teach. Wherefore I will show the consent of the Church to have been clear for us, touching this point, before his time, and against the Tridentine doctrine now prevailing. Wherefore that which Bellarmine hath, that Aquinas and the other Schoolmen, for the most part, do no otherwise say that the Sacrifice of the Mass is an immolation of CHRIST, but in that it is a representation of CHRIST'S immolation on the cross, or because it hath like effect with that true and real sacrificing of CHRIST that implied His death, is most true; his evasion is found too silly, and it is made clear and evident that the best and worthiest amongst the guides of God's Church, before Luther's time, taught as we do, that the Sacrifice of the Altar is only the Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and a mere representation and commemoration of the Sacrifice once offered on the cross, and consequently, are all put under the curse, and anathematized by the Tridentine Council. . . . Wherefore, to conclude this point, it appeareth by that which VOL. IV.-81. G hath been said, that neither the Canon of the Mass, rightly understood, includeth in it any such points of Romish religion, as some imagine, but in sundry, yea, in all the capital differences, between us and them of the Roman faction, witnesseth for us, and against them; and that the Prelates and guides of the Church formerly made no such construction of it, as now is made. . . For the Canon of the Mass, rightly understood, is found to contain nothing in it contrary to the rule of faith, and the profession of the Protestant Churches; .. and the construction that they now make of the word sacrifice, so often used in it, appeareth to be a mere perverting of the meaning of the Canon to a sinister sense, never intended by the authors of it, nor ever allowed by the best men in the Church. This Canon, notwithstanding, is found to have some passages, that, in the judgment of men rightly learned, cannot well have any true meaning, unless the old custom of offering bread and wine on the LORD's table, out of which the Sacrament may be consecrated, be restored; so that those parts, that custom being discontinued, may well be omitted. Some other parts are obscure, and need explication, which being added or inserted, it will differ little or nothing from those forms of consecration of those holy mysteries, that now are in use in the Reformed Churches of England, and some other places, therefore brought in because in later ages many things were added to the Canon anciently in use, which the best and gravest in the Church thought fit to be taken away, and a new form of divine service to be composed. So that the Church that formerly was, having no different judgment touching matters dogmatical, no liking of those abuses in practice, which some had brought in, and wishing things to be brought to such a course as Protestants now have brought them, it may well be said to have been a Protestant Church, in such sort as I have formerly showed.-pp. 210-221. Yet let us see what it is that this grave censurer reprehendeth..for first, as he saith..we have no altar. . we admit no sacrifice. For answer whereunto, I say briefly, (for he deserveth no large answer) that we have altars in the same sort the Fathers had, though we haye thrown down Popish altars that we ... admit the Eucharist to be rightly named a Sacrifice, though we detest the blasphemous construction the Papists make of it. p. 761. BUCKERIDGE, BISHOP.-Discourse concerning Kneeling at the Communion 1. The first reason then is this: It is Pars cultus Dei, a part of divine worship; in which sense I understand not the worship of God in a large sense, for every act that concurreth in the worship of God; but in a more near and proper sense, as it doth exhibit and offer up somewhat to GOD... Now the Sacrament is a part of God's worship . . . in which, as GoD offereth to us His SoN in His Death and Passion, and the graces of the HOLY SPIRIT, so we offer to Him ourselves. ... In Baptism. we offer up ourselves and our children to be sons of God by grace. . . . The like is done in the Eucharist . . . we there give and offer up our whole selves a holy and living Sacrifice acceptable to GOD, which is our reasonable service of Him. In which respect the Fathers call this Sacrament Latreiam, divine worship.-" While we do show the death of the Only Begotten Son of God, that is, JESUS CHRIST, and His resurrection from the dead, and His assumption into heaven, we profess to perform the unbloody worship of GoD in the Church"... so saith St. Cyril. And St. Augustine saith:-" We do owe to GOD that service, which in Greek is called divine worship, either in certain sacraments or in ourselves." Again, "The oblation of Sacrifice pertaineth ad cultum latreia, to divine worship." And again; "Sacrifice is divine worship." And again; "Infants know not that which is set upon the altar, and performed in the celebration of piety:" where this Sacrament is called "piety." As, in the law, circumcision did consecrate and seal the seed of Abraham to GOD; and the Passover did prepare them to the sacrifice of God in the wilderness; yea, and this Passover is called Religio, Religion; "what is this service?" Exod. xii. 26. and Victima transitus Domini, ver. 27. "the Sacrifice of the LORD'S 1 Subjoined to a Sermon preached before his Majesty at Whitehall, March 22nd, 1617, touching prostration and kneeling in the worship of GOD. 1618. |