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THE
THEOLOGICAL WORKS
OF THE
BEY. JOHN JOHNSON, M.A,
VICAR OF CRANBROOK IN THE DIOCESE OF CANTERBURY.
VOLUME I.
OXFORD;
JOHN HENRY PARKER.
M DCCCXLVITI,
Ores Ye fet ae
eh. of Eng.
OXFORD: PRINTED ΒΥ 1, SHRIMPTON,
THE
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE,
AND eer A.B: UNVAILED and SUPPORTED, -
ἘΝ WHT Corr
Ϊ | |
The nature of the Eucharist is explained according to the sentiments of the Christian Church in the four first centuries;
PROVING,
That the Eucharist is a proper material Sacrifice, That it is both Eucharistic, and propitiatory,
That it is to be offered by proper officers,
That the Oblation is to be made on a proper Altar, That it is properly consumed by manducation :
To which is added,
A Proof, that what our Saviour speaks concerning eating His Flesh, and drinking His Blood, in the vith Chapter of St. John’s Gospel, is ἢ
meant of the Eucharist,
With a Prefatory Epistle to the Lord Bishop of Norwicu;
Animadversions on the Reverend Dr. Wise’s Book, which he calls The Christian Eucharist rightly stated :
And some reflections on a stitched book, entituled, 4n Answer to the exceptions made against the Lord Bishop of Ox¥ ORD’s'Charge.
Nil aded quod obduret mentes hominum, quam simplicitas Divinorum operum, i. e. Sacra- mentorum, gu@ in actu videtur; δ᾽ magnificentia, que in effectu repromittitur. Tertullian, De Baptismo, mox ab initio. Κρατοῦμεν τὴν OMOAOTIAN ἕως ἂν ζήσομεν [C@uev. Ed. Ben.] Origen. contra Celsum, Lib. 8.
By JOHN JOHNSON, M.A. Vicar of Cranbrook in the Diocese of Canterbury.
LONDON: Printed for Roperrt Knaptock, at the Bishop’s- Head, in St. Paul’s Church- Yard. MDCCXXIV.
ane
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
ConsIDERABLE delay has occurred in the publication of this Volume, from accidental circumstances. Owing to the difficulty of obtaining a copy of the Second Edition, (which came out in 1724, in the Author’s life-time, and which is now become extremely rare,) it was found necessary to begin working with the First Edition, (that of 1714;) and the Volume had been completely prepared for the press as early as July last, before a copy of the Second Edition was ob- tained; which, of course, involved a thorough examination de novo. For the loan of that copy, the Committee is in- debted to the courtesy of the Rey. C. L. Cornish, M.A. of Exeter College. All the passages, inserted by the Author in his Second Edition, have been distinguished in the pre- sent by being inclosed in brackets; only it must be ob- served, that where instances occur of single words brack- etted, they have been put in by the Editor on his own responsibility ; and he trusts that it will clearly appear from the context, that in the very few instances of their oc- currence such a course was necessary. There are several passages in the text of the First Edition, which the Author has entirely omitted in the Second ; these it has been thought advisable to retain in the present Edition in the shape of notes. The reader will thence have an opportunity of dis- criminating the shades of theological difference (if any such really exist,) to which Johnson’s mind was subject in a decade of years; and the Editor is thereby spared the invidious task of assuming their arbitration. A few sentences only have been entirely omitted, which the Author has withdrawn in his Second Edition, and wherein he had been betrayed, by the heat of controversy, into an undue asperity of expression.
It may be as well to remark, that wherever the word ‘ Sa- crifice’ is here employed to designate the mysterious oblation
vi EDITOR’S PREFACE.
in the Christian Eucharist, it is marked by a capital initial ; whereas the ‘sacrifices’ of the Elder Dispensation, and their heathen counterfeits, are left in small letter. The same rule obtains with regard to ‘ Blood,’ when applied to the adora- ble and spiritual Mystery of our Saviour’s Presence; ‘ Bread and Wine,’ when they signify the Sacramental symbols; and generally all specific terms of the Catholic Ritual and Theo- logy are so marked. It might have been expected, that ac- cording to the usual custom, this work should have opened with a Memoir of the Author; but the bulk of the present Volume has necessarily precluded it. A biographical notice at considerable length has been prefixed to a posthumous Edition of his Sermons; which may on a future occasion be published. It will then be necessary to give some account of the various adversaries, with whom our Author broke a lance in the polemical lists; Dr. Hancock, Dr. Pelling, Dr. Whitby the Commentator, Dr. Henry More of Cambridge (of Platonic celebrity,) Mr. Lewis of Margate, and Dr. Thomas Wise, are among the opponents to whom we are introduced in this Volume. It has been a subject of regret with the Editor, that he has been unable to verify the references to Dr. Wise’s pamphlet; and the urgency, with which this long-delayed, long-promised Volume has been called for, admitted not of further investigation. It is consoling, however, to reflect, that the omission is not of material importance to the eluci- dation of the important subject of the present work, it being simply a record of contemporary controversy ; and it may be allowed
kal ὑπὸ στέγῃ ὃ Πυκνᾶς ἀκούειν Ψεκάδος εὑδούσῃ φρενί.
In verifying the references to the works of the Fathers and other writers, the best Editions have been used by the Editor, without confining himself to those employed by the Author, as will be seen by the following List.
R. O. Jesus Coll. Feb. 19, 1847.
* [Sophocles apud Ciceronis Epp. ad Att., Lib. ii. Ep. 7. ]
Ambrosius, S. Paris. 1686.
Aquinas, S. Thomas, Summa Theolo- gica, Duaci, 1614.
Athanasius, S. Paris. 1698..
Athenagoras, Oxon. 1706.
Augustinus, S. Bened. 1679.
Barclay, Apology, 1736.
Barnabas, S. Hefele, 1842.
Basilius, S. Paris. 1721.
Bellarminus, De Missa, 1601.
Bennet, Rights of the Clergy, 1711.
Beveregii Synodicum, Oxon. 1672.
Beza, In Nov. Testamentum, Canta- brigie, 1642.
Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, Galland. 1770.
——— Colon. 1618.
-«----.- Paris. 1624.
Bingham’s Works, London, 1840. Binius, 1636.
Calepine, Dictionarium, Lugd. 1681. Calvini Institutiones, Lugd. 1654. Harmonia Evang. Geneve,
1595. Canus, Melchior, Colon. Agripp. 1605. Catena PP. Grzcorum, Corderio. Chrysostomus, S. Joh. Savil. 1612. Clarke’s, Dr. Samuel, Works, 1738. Clemens Alexandrinus, S. Potter, Oxon. 1715. Clemens Romanus, S. Hefele, 1842. Codex Canonum Eccles. Africane, Justelli. Concilia, Labbe. et Cossart. 1728. Confessio Waldensium, Basil. 1568. Cowell’s Law-Interpreter, Cambridge, 1607. Cyprianus, S. Paris. 1726. Cyrillus Alexandrinus, S. Paris. 1638. Cyrillus Hierosolym. S. Paris. 1720. Ephrem Syrus, S. Rome, 1732. Epiphanius, S. Paris. 1622.
LIST OF EDITIONS EMPLOYED IN VERIFYING THE PRESENT VOLUME.
Eusebius, De Prezparatione Evang. Paris. 1628. —— De Demonstratione Evang. Paris. 1628. Hist. Eecles. Zimmerman,
1822.
Eustathius, Rome, 1551.
Fasciculus Rerum, Brown, Lond. 1690.
Fulgentius, S. Lugd. 1633. Gerhard, 16457.
Gregorius Magnus, S. Sacrament. Par. 1642. Gregorius 1778.
Gregorius Nyssenus, S. Paris. 1638.
Grotii Opera, Amstelodami, 1679.
Hakewell, Dr. Dissertation with Dr. Heylyn, 1641.
Hammond, On the New Testament, 1059.
Hancock, Dr. Patres Vindicati, 1709.
Heroldi Heresiologia, Basil. 1556.
Hieronymus, S. Paris. 1706.
Hilarius Pictaviensis, S. Paris. 1693.
Ignatius, S. Hefele, 1842.
Irenzus, S. Paris. 1710.
Isidorus Hispalensis, S. Colon. Agr. 1617.
Justin Martyr, S. Paris. 1742.
Larroque, Histoire d’Eucharistie, Am- sterdam, 1671.
Lightfoot, Synopsis Critic. Cant. 1674.
Maximus, Contra Marcionitas, Wet- sten. 1673.
Mede’s Works, 1664.
Melanchthon. Explic. in Mal. Wite- berg. 1601.
Optatus, S. Paris. 1679.
Origenes,’ Paris. 1733.
Outram, De Sacrificiis, 1677.
Pearson, Annotationes in D. Ignatium, Oxon. 1709.
Philo Judeus, Mangey, 1742.
Nazianzenus, 5. Paris.
Vill LIST OF EDITIONS REFERRED TO.
Plutarchus, Francofurti, 1599. Theodori Archiep. Cant. Peenitentiale, Socini Opera, 1656. Paris. 1677. Sozomenus, Valesio, Paris. 1668. Theophylactus, Lindsell. Londini, 1636. Spencer, De Legibus Hebreis, Can- Thuanus, London, 1733.
tab. 1685. Vitringa, Observationes Sacre, Frane- Surii Sanctorum Historie, Col. Agripp. quer, 1689.
1576—81. Voigtus, Gothofred. Thysiasteriologia Tertullianus, Paris. 1664. sive De Altaribus Veterum Chris- Theodoretus, Paris, 1642. tianorum, Hamburg. 1709.
A
PREFATORY EPISTLE
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH,
AFTERWARDS OF WINCHESTER.
My Lorp,
Wiru all the submission and deference that is due from a Priest to a Bishop, I crave leave to inscribe your name to these papers; not that I think your Lordship disposed to patronise them, but because you have been pleased to shew your inclination to be a judge in this dispute, to whom there- fore I, as an humble advocate, have thought fit to address myself.
And, my Lord, I have just reason to expect that you should not discountenance my plea, as you are one of that Right Reverend Order which has always been esteemed, till now of very late, to have had the guardianship of the Altar in an especial manner committed to it by Christ Jesus Himself.
“One Bishop, and one Altar,” has been looked upon as the distinguishing motto of the Apostolical Church ever since the time of St. Ignatius, and to contend pro Aris, ‘for the Altars,’ has ever been thought honourable in all men, but especially in those whose business it is continually to attend them.
Some may suggest to your Lordship, that several of our Bishops since the Reformation have declared against the doctrine for which I plead, but I am persuaded that this is all mistake. Our Protestant Bishops have indeed with good
JOHNSON. B
2 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
reason pronounced judgment against the Sacrifice of the Popish Mass, and we all unanimously and heartily concur m subscribing to their determinations in this particular ; but, my Lord, it is the Sacrifice of St. Cyprian, Irenzus, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, Clement of Rome, the Apostles, and Christ Jesus Himself, for which we now contend; that sacrifice which Archbishop Laud and his most learned and pious chaplain Mr. Mede asserted in the last age, and which no Bishop before your Lordship had ever disapproved. The only person of your venerable order who may seem to have shewed his dislike of it, was he whose name rather glares than shines in our English history, I mean Archbishop Williams, and yet it is well known that he rather opposed his rival and superior Archbishop Laud, than the Altar and Sacrifice itself. [ And indeed the Altar against which he particularly expressed his indignation and resentment, was literally a Popish Altar, on which the sacrifice of the Mass had formerly been offered, and which a private vicar had re-erected in his church*:] so that I must, till better informed, consider your Lordship as the first Christian Bishop that ever yet openly declared against that Sacrifice for which we now plead; but heavens forbid that you should finally persist in your hostility agaist so primitive and Divine an institution.
Some may think that your Lordship has already passed a definitive sentence against it, or that you are gone too far to retreat; but, my Lord, I have seen a very learned and upright temporal judge sittimg upon the bench, who upon the first opening of the cause has with some degree of vehe- mence espoused the plaintiff’s plea, and yet upon hearing the adverse counsel and evidence has finally pronounced sentence for the defendant. And, my Lord, that candour and impartiality, by which your Lordship stands distinguished in the opinion of those who pretend best to know you, give me reason to hope that you will upon a full hearing be convinced that Dr. Hancock (of whose learning and judgment you had entertained so favourable an opimion) has imperfectly and falsely represented the case now in dispute: and, my Lord, the whole learned world can look upon what you have hitherto said on this subject as no more than the propensities
a The words between brackets are not in the edition of 1724.
eee ee ργ,
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 3
of a judge to one side of a cause, before the witnesses have been thoroughly examined, and the arguments of each side laid in an equal balance; and all reasonable men will allow that it is very consistent with the integrity and ability of the greatest human judges to pass final sentence against that side which they themselves favoured during the trial. And, my Lord, it is the design of these papers to take off those false colours which our adversaries have endeavoured to lay upon their errors, and to state and clear the notions of the ancients upon this weighty subject according to the best light I had from Scripture, and the most early monuments of primitive antiquity.
Further, my Lord, the censure you was pleased to pass upon somewhat that I had said upon this subject in the Second Part of The Clergyman’s Vade Mecum”, gives me a right to say something in my own defence. I did indeed in the postscript to The Propitiatory Oblation, consider the most specious appearance of argument which your Lordship had urged against that passage mm the Vade so far as the doctrine itself was concerned, but I was not so solicitous for the reputation of that book or the author of it, as for what concerned the Oblation itself, and therefore deferred the vin- dication of them till some further opportunity should offer itself, as now it does.
And I choose to make my defence by way of Prefatory Epistle, because I desire to convince your Lordship and the world that I make a great distinction between you and those who pass under the name of adversaries in the following book ; for, my Lord, I abhor the thoughts of being an adver- sary toa Bishop. I thank God I was always bred under an awe and reverence of the Episcopal character, and I hope I shall never so far forget myself as to be guilty of any inso- lence or contempt toward the persons that are invested with it, whatever treatment I receive from any of that bench.
My conscience bears me witness that the book (I mean the Second Part of the Vade Mecum) which has fallen under your Lordship’s displeasure, was compiled from one end to the other with a sincere design of serving the Established Church, and especially the Bishops themselves, and all things
> Part II. first ed.
B 2
A PREFATORY EPISTLE.
that bore any relation to them, of which I esteemed the Altar and Sacrifice not the least; and he who when I pub- lished that book should have told me that one of those Bishops, and particularly your Lordship would be the first, and in effect the only man that would condemn it, I should have looked upon as a person that either did not understand your Lordship’s temper, or was disposed to misrepresent it ; for I could not believe that any of our English Bishops were for obliging enemies and giving up friends, a counsel which is believed to have undermined and shaken the royal throne and can never support the episcopal.
My Lord, I shall use a true English freedom throughout this whole book, and particularly this epistle, and therefore think necessary to bespeak your Lordship’s patience and good temper. For I am one that have always studied truth much more than complaisance, and I think it my duty in this case, which I take to be of great moment, not to suppress my sentiments. If I had not been fully persuaded of the justice of my cause, I would never have so heartily espoused it, and he who is in earnest convinced of any Divine truth, and of the great moment and consequence of it, cannot but think that he has a right to speak what he believes, and that those arguments which have determined his own judgment, will have the same power in determining the judgments of others when duly considered and applied. Your Lordship will give me leaye to speak with competent assurance of the truth of the doctrme for which I am now pleading, if I may be be- lieved when I do most solemnly declare that if I had had any the least doubts or mistrusts either of the certainty of the doctrine, or my own integrity and disinterested zeal for it without any sinister or indirect view, I would never have troubled the world with a new book upon this subject.
But there are several topics made use of by those that are adversaries of the Sacrifice, to inflame the minds of men against the thing itself and the assertors of it, which it will be very proper for me briefly to consider, and humbly to lay before your Lordship my thoughts upon every one of them. Whatever concerns the merits of the cause is, I hope, fully treated of in the following book; but there are objections which do not at all affect the cause itself, but the reputation
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 5
only of those who write for it, and these I have reserved for this place; and I will not omit any that I have hitherto met with, either in the books that have been written, or in the conversation I have had with others upon this subject.
1. The first and capital objection of this sort is, that the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is right down Popery; if by Sacrifice be meant a material proper Sacrifice, which is what I have asserted in this treatise. And this indeed is a very terrible objection if it were a true one. If any of us asserted the Sacri- fice of the Mass, I would readily grant that no reproaches were too hard, no censures too severe against them, who were guilty of attempting to introduce so abominable a corruption. But, my Lord, it is evident to any man that is not exceed- ingly prejudiced, that the Sacrifice of the Primitive Church, for which we plead, and that of the Church of Rome, are substantially and essentially distinct. The Sacrifice of the Primitive Church consists of bread and wine, consecrated into the Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ by the secret operation of the Holy Spirit. The Sacrifice of the Church of Rome consists (if we may believe the Papists) of the very substantial Body and Blood of Christ, together with His human soul and Divine nature, or, in a word, of the one very true Christ, both God and man. And what necessarily follows from hence is, that the Sacrifice of the Primitive Church was thought to be effectual and prevalent, in virtue of the grand Personal Sacrifice, but the Sacrifice of the Church of Rome is affirmed to be the very same in substance that was made on the cross, and therefore of itself expiatory and satisfactory; and I am very sure that to all impartial inquirers this is a sufficient compurgation of the crime ob- jected against us.
I confess, my Lord, it is one thing for men to answer and confute any criminous objection laid against them, and it is another thing to free themselves from all suspicions of it. And it fares with us as it does with many other honest men, our own consciences acquit us, and we can abundantly refel all the arguments brought against us, but we cannot cure the jealous heads, or silence the reproachful tongues and pens of our adversaries; and whether this be our fault or theirs I submit to your Lordship’s judgment.
6 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
Popery has ever been the watchword of the enemies of the Church of England, whereby they have alarmed the people to the destruction of those that have stood in their way, and opposed their assaults upon the constitution; within these hundred years it was Popery with some, nay and is so to this day, to assert the co-operation of the will of man with the grace of God, or to contradict those notions of predestination or reprobation, which Mr. Calvi and his followers had made the fundamental article of religion. The Solifidians and Antinomians have produced as plausible allegations from some of the first reformers in behalf of their execrable opinions, as our adversaries can now pretend to brmg from the same writers against us. Episcopacy and Liturgy, and all those particular doctrines and practices by which the Church of England is happily distinguished from the several sorts of dissenters, are to this day cried out upon as rank Popery by the main body of those who separate from us; they have indeed been taught better manners by those who have of late had the management of them, than to beard or insult our prelates with this sort of rhetoric; but those of the clergy whose duty requires them frequently to converse with these dissenting brethren on the level, know full well the truth of what I say by daily experience. And sure we have no just reason to be concerned, that the very same artillery is now employed against us which was formerly made use of against the whole constitution of our Church, and especially the defenders of it. There is indeed one con- sideration that does very much sharpen the edge of this objection, which is, that it comes from the tongues or pens of those of our own communion. This is a demonstration that our adversaries do too much symbolise with the hot bigoted fanatics, and are learning their language and logic; and I must have leave to say, that this reproach does no more affect the assertors of the Sacrifice, than the assertors of Episcopacy and Liturgy ; and I have reason to expect that all impartial men should believe what I now say, till our opponents can produce a proof of a Bishop without an Altar, or a Liturgy without a proper Sacrifice, from the remains of genuine antiquity.
Therefore I am heartily sorry that my Lord Bishop of
PREFATORY EPISTLE. Ἶ
Oxford in his last year’s Charge®, should say of this among other doctrines, “that it savours too much of Popery.” By this his Lordship gives countenance to our adversaries in their most unmanly and unchristian revilings, and it is certain that by this means his Lordship has done more injury to his own reputation than to ours in the judgment of all discerning men; for persons of dignity cannot more degrade themselves, than by stooping down so low as to take up a vulgar reproach against any man, or body of men, especially when this reproach must at last fall, not only upon Arch- bishop Laud, and some of the most valuable of our English prelates and divines, but upon the whole race of the Primi- tive Bishops, and ‘the whole Church of the first-born,’ and of the most pure and uncorrupted ages. I cannot but say that his Lordship had much better consulted his own honour, by leaving this dirty work to Dr. Hancock and Dr. Wise. In the sequel of the Charge, he is pleased to say a great many sweet things, to persuade both sides to peace and mutual forbearance ; and having observed‘ that “ some of each party accuse the other as betraying the Church, one side to Popery, the other to Presbytery ;’ he adds, “ Hard censures, and such as will one day be severely accounted for, if they are groundless, as I trust they are in the main on both sides. I do hope there are very few on either that are justly liable to them.” Now certainly the most prevailing argument that my Lord could have used to them who charge some οὗ the Church with a design of betraying us to Presbytery, was to have given an example in his own person of laying aside all suspicions of Popery in the doctrines there mentioned, and which are now asserted by those against whom this part of his Charge is directed, and such a pattern might have been very influential and powerful; and if there were any on that side who charge the other with betraying us to Presbytery, that proceeded to calumniate the Bishop or any of his side for the future, they would have been more inexcusable. As for myself, I solemnly declare that I do not believe any one of our English Bishops disposed to betray us to Presbytery®, much less is it credible that his Lordship should have so ill
© Page 10. 4 Page 21. ¢ This was written by me A.D. 1715. [Author's note, 2nd ed. ]
8 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
an opinion of his own friends, though he knows them much better than I can pretend to do. And I cannot conceive what his Lordship intended by seeming to give it for granted that a few on both sides might be justly liable to these censures, unless it were that he found it convenient for his hypothesis to have it believed that some few of the writers on our side were disposed to betray us to Popery, and then for a proof of his own impartiality, thought it but reasonable to give up a few of the other side, as willing to betray us to Presbytery. And by the few who would betray us to Popery, it is obvious to suppose, that he by a usual figure of rhetoric meant one single man, for it is very hard for a successor to forget his ejected living predecessor.
You, my Lord, are pleased to begin your arguings on this head with the same reflection; for you were truly sensible that there was no proof that could be thought of any force against this doctrine, but what had a spice of the same sort of logic. You do not “ wonder that priests of the Church of Rome, but that presbyters of a Reformed Church should lay claim to a Sacrifice ;” and are pleased to add that “it is pretty new, and somewhat unaccountable’.” Now, my Lord, with submission, the sturdy dissenters from our Church are much fuller of admiration at all who believe that Episcopacy is of Divine or Apostolical institution, or that we can pray spiritually by a form, than your Lordship can be at us for affirming the Eucharist to be a Sacrifice. And it is certain that the Sacrifice of the Primitive Church, explained in the following book, differs as widely from that of the Papists as our Episcopacy and Liturgy does from theirs. As to the newness of it, your Lordship will give me leave to wonder that it should be an objection against the Sacrifice, since it is very evident (not to mention Mr. Perkins the rigid Calvinist’s known opinion in this point) that Mr. Mede publicly declared for the Altar and Sacrifice in Cambridge, A.D. 1635 ; whereas there is a doctrine openly espoused by several leading men of late, that is younger than this by six years, and when it was first started was universally dis- avowed by all the sound clergy and laity of the Church of England, and yet is now the darling notion of some that
£ Page 13.
-—
PREFATORY EPISTLE, 9
boast themselves your Lordship’s friends, against which you have not cautioned your clergy in your Charge; nay, of which your Lordship is believed to be a fautor. And I must add, that whereas the doctrine of the Sacrifice is truly primi- tive and Apostolical, this latter is destitute of all authority from the writings and practice of the first and purest ages, and was always by our Protestant divines of the Church of England represented as an invention of the Hildebrandine Papists, until now of late days. I need not tell you that I mean the doctrine of Resistance.
Your Lordship is willing to have it believed that Arch- bishop Laud was of a different sentiment from us, when he wrote his Conference with the Jesuit; and to prove it, you observe that he calls it ‘The Memory of a Sacrifice ;᾽ and so did the Fathers, my Lord, and so do we, who yet believe it to be a real Sacrifice, as will appear by this book. You are pleased farther to cite that blessed martyr, for asserting “three Sacrifices®, one by the priest, 1. e. the commemorative sacrifice of Christ’s death, represented in bread and wine ; another by the priest and people, i. e. the sacrifice of praise ; the third, by every particular man, i. e. the sacrifice of body and soul.” Upon these words your Lordship is pleased to re- mark, “this enumeration of sacrifices, without putting any distinction between them, is a plain sign he thought none of them proper.” I submit it to your Lordship’s second thoughts, whether the enumeration do not necessarily imply a distinction ; or how it can in common equity be supposed that so excellent a writer should say, first, second, third, and yet mean one and the same. If the first be not a proper sacrifice, I must confess I am wholly mistaken in my reason- ings on this subject. Your Lordship spends two or three pages more on {115 subject, but I hope you will excuse me if I wholly omit the consideration of them, since you are not pleased to mention any authority of the ancient Church, ex- cept only that of St. Chrysostom, on the Epistle to the Hebrews, which I have considered Chap. IT. Sect. 1, nor to offer at any argument from Scripture or reason. And as to what concerns the author of the Vade, I shall briefly speak to it before I conclude this epistle. But when your Lordship
E § 35. p. 199.
10 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
had been pleased in your Charge to intimate that “it was more fit for Romish priests than English presbyters” to plead for the Sacrifice, I cannot but think that you too much lessen your performance in your preface, when you speak of those paragraphs which were intended against the Sacrifice, and call them the “little you have said” on that subject; for, my Lord, I am perfectly of opinion that your Lordship has used the strongest, I may say, the only argument against it, by intimating, though in a more gentle and tender manner than others, that it is a Popish doctrine: for this little is the sum and substance of all that has been said to purpose in the writings of Dr. Hancock, and others. They may outdo your Lordship in multiplicity of words and pages, but not in true and solid argument; and your Lordship has said all that m a line or two, which others have been able to say in their larger writings ; for if I know any thing of the matter, I must profess that I am fully of opimion that nothing great can be said against the Sacrifice.
There is another writer, whose style speaks him a gentle- man of polite learning, and distinguishes him from our ad- versaries of the coarser sort, though he is pleased to conceal his name and character, who in a small book*, which he calls A Defence of the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of England, is “at a loss how Dr. Hickes will distinguish his pro- pitiatory Sacrifice of the Eucharist, from the propitiatory Sa- crifice of the Mass',” though Dr. Hickes expressly calls it “an oblation of bread and wine,” in the words cited by this ingeni- ous author: and one would think this made an essential dif- ference between the Sacrifice of Dr. Hickes and of the Papists: by this you may measure the impartiality of this writer.
And I am of opinion that his politeness, and other good qualities, cannot make amends for his want of faithfulness in representing the opinion of the most excellent Mede ; for this author would persuade us that ‘Mr. Mede, from first to last, resolves all into an oblation of prayer and thanksgiving to God the Father, through Jesus Christ*.” Again, “Mr. Mede owns that here is nothing offered in this Sacrament, but
h T had been falsely informed that [Author's note, 2nd ed. ]
Bishop Fleetwood was the author of i Page 10.
this book, whereas I am since assured k Page 7. that it was Dr. Turner of Greenwich.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. il
prayer and thanksgiving, and these made acceptable to God, by the Sacrifice of Christ on the cross, commemorated and represented by the bread and wine ;” and in the next page, “though he carries this notion of a Sacrifice much higher than any Protestant writer before him; yet while nothing was in reality pretended to be offered, but only prayer and thanks- giving, and those only in commemoration of the real Sacrifice of the death of Christ, and not otherwise; this has been looked upon as ene of the particularities of that learned man,” &c. Now I must observe that this representation confutes itself; for it says that Mr. Mede “carried this notion of a Sacri- fice higher than any Protestant writer had done before;” and yet says, that “nothing,” according to him, “ was to be offered, but prayer and praise:” for sure no Protestant writer ever asserted that prayer and praise are not offered in the Eu- charist; and if Mr. Mede affirmed that nothing more was offered there, how did he carry this notion higher than other Protestants? But let Mr. Mede speak for himself, who in discoursing on Malachi i. 10, 11, says, “Incense here notes the rational part of the Sacrifice, which is prayer, thanksgiving, and commemoration; mincha the material part thereof, which is oddatio farrea, or an oblation of bread and wine’.” Again, “the oblation of bread and wine is implied in St. Paul’s parallel of the Lord’s Supper, and the Sacrifices of Gentiles ; ‘ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s Table, and the table of devils™.’” And alittle after, “the Passover was a Sacrifice, and therefore the viands here, as in all other [holy] feasts, were first offered to God: now the bread and wine which our Saviour took when He blessed and gave thanks, was the mincha, or meat-offermg of the Passover; if then He did, as the Jews used to do, He agnized His Father, and blessed Him, by oblation of these His creatures to Him.” And as I observed in Propitiatory Oblation®, Mr. Mede affirms that whereas in the Clementine Liturgy, prayer is made to God “that He would receive the gift up to His heavenly Altar ; by the gift must be understood the bread and wine® :” but I will only further observe, that he asserts
1 See his Works, 3rd edition, 1672, " Page 90. p. 358. ° Page 374. m Ibid., p. 274.
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“the Eucharist to be a Sacrifice, not in a metaphorical, but proper sense?;” and spends a whole chapter to prove “that the primitive Church, after Christ’s example, first offered bread and wine to God; then received them again in a banquet, as the symbols of the Body and Blood of His Son4.” My Lord, I humbly recommend the consideration of this flat contradic- tion to truth, in the most valuable writer against the Sacri- fice, next to yourself and my Lord Bishop of Oxford, to your impartial examination: and it is the more gross and palpa- ble, because it may be discovered by looking into an English book, open to every vulgar eye.
It is true, Mr. Mede might safely say, in some sense, that we offer nothing but prayer and praise in the Eucharist ; and the same might be said of all the animal sacrifices of thanks- giving under the law: for the very animal itself was called, when so offered, 77)n, αἴνεσις, that is, ‘praise; as an offering for sin was also called ‘sin’ in the abstract ; but this does not at all prove that the Sacrifice itself in either case was. per- fectly immaterial, as I have shewed in the following book, Chap. IT. Sect. 2.
This same writer at another place perstringes the assertors of a sacrifice for “ascribing a strange mystical efficacy to the act of consecration; and for placing he knows not what mysterious powers in the act of consecration, and invocation of the Holy Ghost’ ;” and speaks of those divmes as “perfect- ing our reformation,” who (in Queen Elizabeth’s time) “did not bring in again that form of consecration and invocation of the Holy Ghost :” by all which I cannot understand this writer to mean less than that it is a fault to ascribe any mys- terious efficacy, or power, to the prayer of consecration used in the primitive Church, and that our Liturgy is more per- fect without it than it was with it. In answer to which I will only appeal to another book, entituled, The Reasonable Communicant, where we are informed that “a Divine power and efficacy does accompany the holy Sacrament ;” and for the proof of this, the author uses this argument, namely, that “the Church of Christ did heretofore pray that the Holy Spirit of God coming down on the creatures of bread and wine, might make them the Body and Blood of Christ,” and,
P Page 372. 4 Ibid. * Pages 11, 12.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 13
“that after the consecration such a Divine power and efficacy doth accompany the holy Sacrament, as makes the bread and wine become the spiritual and mystical Body and Blood of Christ*.” Now this is all that either the ancient Church or we ascribe to the prayer of consecration. These two books are equally admired by the adversaries of the Sacrifice ; but I cannot but think The Reasonable Communicant to have been written with a genius and temper much beyond that which appears in the Defence: and therefore from the cen- sures of the latter I appeal to the primitive doctrine con- tained in the former. And I must add that this prayer of invocation for the descent of the Holy Ghost is very far from any just suspicion of Popery: for there is no such prayer in the present Roman Missal, nor has been for eleven hundred years last past ; but in the time of Pope Gelasius the First, at the latter end of the fifth century, there probably was, as will hereafter appear.
2. The next objection of this sort against the writers for the Sacrifice is, that they trump up this doctrine with some indirect design, which they are afraid to own; and that the doctrine itself has an ill aspect on the civil government: and this I only take to be a proof of the jealousy of our adver- saries, or rather a sorry artifice to render us suspected to the court. If they who were the chief ministers of state when Dr. Hickes, and Mr. Nelson, and some others, published their notions on this subject, had believed their own divines, they might have been ready enough to take this opportunity of crushing some men, upon whom they had an ill eye; but I am apt to think that they rather laughed in their sleeves when they observed how forward and officious some clergy- men (unworthy of that name) are, to traduce and delate their brethren and their best friends, in order to signalize their zeal for those that were in a capacity to reward it. If the assertors of the Sacrifice had had any intentions against the state, they would certainly have chosen some more popular theme, they would have started some notions that were new at least, and better contrived to captivate the multitude. This is Popery, if our adversaries may be judges; and can
* See Reasonable Com., p. 12, 13. think, to be Bishop Fleetwood’s. (2nd 8rd ed. [This is allowed by all, 1 ed.)]
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they think that preaching, or writing for Popery, is a proper method to engage people against the government? It is rather an infallible way to provoke both governors and people against ourselves. I am of opinion that it would puzzle the most learned of our adversaries to give one single instance of any doctrine, whether old or new, true or false, that could with less probability be made use of, to seduce people from their allegiance to the Queen, than this which is now in dis- pute. If you consider the genius of the people, they are, or were, either averse to it, or altogether unconcerned for or against it: if you consider the doctrine itself, it has no rela- tion to the civil government. Dr. Taylor, that was after- wards Bishop of Down and Connor, did, in the time of our confusions, while rebellion and fanaticism reigned, directly assert the doctrine of the Sacrifice. He did the same thing which Dr. Hancock, in his preface to his book against Dy. Hickes', charges as a fault on Mr. Nelson; that is, he brought the notion of a Sacrifice into a book of devotion, I mean his Holy Living and Dying". [Nay, he did more than all this, he drew a Communion Office* m the English tongue according to the scheme of the ancient Greek and Apostolical Liturgies: only in one particular he differs from them, that is in placing the Consecration, or the prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Communicants, and on the Sym- bols, before the rehearsal of the words of institution. In all the ancient Liturgies we have first the institution, then the oblation, and last of all the prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost. But Bishop Taylor follows the series of the first Liturgy of Edward VI.] And even Mr. Patrick, who was afterwards D.D. and Bishop of Ely, did, before those confusions were ended, openly declare for an oblation of bread and wine, as I shall presently shew ; yet I am not sen- sible that they were by the enthusiastic and fanatical divines of that age represented as malignants, or disaffected to the government on that account: nor had either of those two
t Page 4. and the ancient Liturgies, &c., by Jer. u Pages 281, 334. Taylor, D.D., Bishop of Down and * See this Communion Office in a Connor. 2nd ed., printed for Luke Collection of Offices, or Forms of Meredith, at the Angel, in Amen Prayer, in cases ordinary and extra- Corner. 1690. ordinary, taken out of the Scripture,
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 18
great men the vanity to think that by this means they pro- moted the restoration of King Charles 11., though it happened within half a year after Mr. Patrick’s book was printed. And I conceive, if either of them had claimed a reward, as instru- ments of that happy turn of affairs, and attempted to prove it by shewing their books for the Sacrifice or oblation, they could not more effectually have exposed themselves. And I leave this to the reflection of those who would represent the publication of this primitive doctrine as a treasonable prac- tice, and a plot against the state, in the reign of our most pious and merciful Queen, which yet passed unpunished and uncensured on this account even by fanatical rebels and usurpers ; who were the most apt of any men living to make use of fictitious and imaginary crimes, and were pushed on by visionary fears, and the ill-bodings of their own con- sciences, to oppress truth and right.
3. It may be said that this doctrine tends to create divi- sions amongst us; and this may be said of any doctrine which is not universally received, when books are published for and against it. But then the question is, whether we ought from hence to conclude that truth is never to be pub- lished for fear of this consequence ; and whether they who assert truth, or they who oppose it, are justly chargeable with those divisions which follow thereupon. And both these par- ticulars I leave to your Lordship’s determination. There is another question, which I humbly lay before your Lordship, and that is, why the publishing a book in behalf of the Sacri- fice by Dr. Hickes, should be looked upon as more culpable and tending to division than by Mr. Mede. For, my Lord, it is notorious that Mr. Mede’s Christian Sacrifice was a book as much celebrated as any other written by him, or by any of our most famous divines ; and to say that he did not write for a material proper Sacrifice, is mere fiction. And what reason could Dr. Hickes have to suppose that his writ- ings on the same subject should meet with more opposition from our Bishops and clergy, than Mr. Mede’s had done? And as I believe Dr. Hickes’s book yet remains unanswered, so I am not sensible that any man has attempted a reply to Mr. Mede. And if our divines had for the five or six years last past been as universally well affected to the Sacrifice, as
16 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
they had been for seventy years before, Dr. Hickes’s book had occasioned no more division than Mr. Mede’s ; for it is oppo- sition that causes division. Dr. Hickes and others have said no more than what Mr. Mede had said before in other words ; and if his saying it cause animosities among us, this must in justice be resolved into a prejudice which some have con- ceived against the writer, rather than the book. Why else must the Christian Priesthood be assaulted, while the Chris- tian Sacrifice remains unattacked, and has so remained for near eighty years together ? It is scarce to be expected that this age should be more free from disputes than any of those that have already passed: for there are in all ages such as love truth, and such as hate it, or however, cannot see it in any opinion or practice maintamed by those to whom they have an aversion upon other accounts, but oppose the truth for the sake of those who are advocates for it, and consider not so much what is said, as who speaks it, and it is therefore no more to be wondered that disputes and oppositions hap- pen now, than that they have done so in all preceding times. And I am fully persuaded that there is no neglected truth that more deserves to be contended for than the doctrine of the Sacrifice ; for I suppose it will appear to all unprejudiced inquirers to be a truth of very great moment and conse- quence. And though when some assert truth, and others contradict it, divisions must of necessity be the effect; yet the assertors in this case cannot but believe that as their cause is right, so the Divine Providence will not permit such divisions to be lasting; for great is the rruTH, and will pre- vail, even against the most powerful opponents. I doubt not, but in the primitive Church, whatever Bishop had opposed, or depraved the Sacrifice, he would immediately have been obliged to give place to an orthodox successor: for I have reason to believe that the ancient Bishops, clergy, and peo- ple, were not more uniform in any point of doctrine or wor- ship, than in their notions and practice concerning the Eucharistical oblation. And if any single Bishop, with the generality of his clergy and laity, had agreed together to maim or deface the Christian Sacrifice, and stood in defiance of their neighbouring Bishops and Synods; yet any parti- cular clergyman or layman, who was dissatisfied with these
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 17
innovations, might, in such a case, have removed into another diocese, where the Sacrifice was retained in its perfect purity and splendour ; but it is evident that nothing of this sort is now practicable in this national Church ; and that therefore such priests and pious discerning laymen, as are convinced of the truth and necessity of the primitive Sacrifice, and do not think that the public provision for it is sufficient, have no proper remedy left, but to labour with prayers to God, and with persuasions and arguments to men, for the perfect restitution of the sacrificial oblatory part of the Christian Liturgy; and in the mean time, to supply such defects as well as they can, by their own private silent devotions. Ina word, the writers for the Sacrifice may be impleaded as the ringleaders of division and faction ; but then this accusation may with as good reason be laid against them, who write for the necessity of Episcopacy in Scotland, or who contend for the Liturgy in the vulgar tongue in Spain or Italy.
4. But this doctrine of the Sacrifice (say some) tends to alienate the minds of dissenters from the clergy and com- munion of the Church, and thereby to put a stop to the union so much expected. But I conceive your Lordship by this time may be convinced, that this union of dissenters with the Church, is a mere airy phantom, and that we are never to expect that the main body of dissenters, as they now stand affected, would unite with the Church upon any reasonable terms ; nor have they ever shewed any signs of, or tendencies to, a peaceable disposition ; and the clergy have no method left of winning them to the Church, but as they can gradu- ally, and man by man, by argument and persuasion, recon- cile them to our communion. And I am fully persuaded, that we may as easily demonstrate the truth and necessity of the doctrine of a Sacrifice in the Eucharist, as any other point now in dispute between us. But if we must publish no doc- trine but what agrees with the palates of dissenters, I am sure our sermons and writings must be very defective; nor can we be true to our Blessed Master, and teach our people ‘to do all things which He hath commanded us.’ And dis- senters themselves will justly loathe us, and our communion, if once they find that we stifle our own real sentiments, and
conceal our true principles in order to catch them. And JOHNSON, Cc
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there is nothing more inconsistent with Christian simplicity, and with that παῤῥησία, that integrity and assurance of mind, in speaking the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as it is in Christ ; than to handle the Word of God deceitfully, either by curtailing what we believe to be the doctrine of the Gospel, or by adulterating it with sophistical mixtures, to make it go down the better with men whose palates are vitiated. I most heartily desire peace with the dissenters ; but I desire it on Christian terms, and upon the primitive plan ; and I am very sure, that no other peace can be either honourable or lasting.
5. It may be said that the public maintaining of this doc- trine, especially if it were espoused by the generality of the Bishops and clergy, might give a handle to the enemies of the Church to persecute and destroy them. And must then the Pastors of Christ’s flock be afraid of discharging their consciences, and executing their Master’s commission, lest they should suffer for it? And shall the fear of men so far prevail over us, as to make us forget our duty to our God and Saviour? Can the Church of this age hope to flourish and enlarge its bounds by any other means than those by which the Apostolical Church did first overcome the world; that is, by boldness in speaking the truth, and by patience in suffer- ing for it? I trust im God, there are now, as well as of old, men that are ready to suffer all things for the sake even of the least of those Commandments, which they have received from their ever blessed Redeemer, much more for so very momentous an institution. I am persuaded, that if God, in His gracious Providence, do ever intend any farther exalta- tion of our Church, and to perfect the glory of it, He will do it in the old method, that is, by the fiery trial of some at least of its most eminent or zealous members. And to say that a doctrine must not be taught for fear of provoking men, is in effect to say, that Christians and Priests must study to please men, lest they should become Martyrs or Confessors. I take it for certain, that God will never truly magnify His Church by human policies, or by the temporizing palliative arts of the wise men of this world; but by the sincere disin- terested zeal, and firm constancy of the clergy and people, or of a number of them, in opposition to the frowns and smiles
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 19
of all its professed enemies or mistaken friends. It is very certain, my Lord, that the greatest and most formidable enemies of the Church are they who believe our very Creeds to be Popery, and our Sacraments priestcraft; who would re- duce our Christian faith to one single article, that Jesus is the Messias, and look upon that too as far from being neces- sary. And, my Lord, the friendship of these men is never to be expected but upon a total renunciation of primitive Christianity. They may caress those who oppose the Sacrifice, and such like doctrines, as more moderate enemies; but if once they can crush them whom they call high-flyers, their next work will be to silence and suppress those that are for retaining the twelve old articles of the Christian faith ; for they have the very same objection against these that the author of the Defence has against the mysterious power of Consecration, viz. that “it amuses the understandings, and confounds the devotion of the common people’.” And though these men of short creeds are now the chief patriots and fautors of the dissenting interest, in opposition to that of the Church, yet if God in His displeasure should permit the dis- senters to be made use of by such men as tools to the de- struction of the established religion, they would soon find, by dear-bought experience, that these pretended patriots are no more friends to their principles than ours, (except it be in relation to civil government,) and that very few, in compari- son, of those who separate from the Church, will find any countenance from those whom they now look upon as their chief supporters. For it is very evident, that they measure their own and other men’s religion by the brevity and plain- ness of their creeds, and are known enemies to every thing that is mysterious and above reason; and will as soon become converts to the Quakers, as to the Presbyterians or Inde- pendents; and as easily be reconciled to the principles of Dr. Hickes or Mr. Dodwell, as of Calvin or Baxter. They can fawn upon fanatics, enthusiasts, or even Bishops, if they can hope by this means to serve a present turn; but Machiavel, Algernon Sidney, and such lke writers, are their oracles in relation to civil government; and Socinus, Toland, or Blunt, as to matters of religion. And I cannot but won- y Page 12. c2
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der to see men, who, I in charity believe, are Christians at the heart, espouse the interest, and put themselves under the protection of such leaders ; and I can look upon it as little less than a judicial infatuation, that men, who have any manner of regard to that faith which was once delivered to the saints, can court, or permit themselves to be courted by, such dema- gogues. These are the chief enemies, from whom at present the Church has reason to apprehend any mischief ; and these are as inveterate against our Catholic forms of faith, and other essentials of Christianity, as agaist the Sacrifice. But give me leave to add, that these men do bear a most especial hatred to those of your Lordship’s venerable order: they may for some private reasons lke the man, but they cannot but abhor the Bishop. And I have reason to believe, that of the two they would choose a Sacrifice without a Bishop, rather than a Bishop without a Sacrifice. For, my Lord, with these men that is the best religion that is the cheapest; and, next to the shortness of the Creed, the second best property in it is the smallness of the cost. It is well known that this is one reason alleged, why so many Protestant States are not capable of receiving Episcopacy ; viz. because they are not able to support the dignity of Bishops, which they therefore represent as extremely burdensome and expensive; and no doubt but these men would at any time of the day exchange Episcopacy for the Eucharistical Sacrifice, and think it a good bargain too; and therefore I cannot believe that the most terrible enemies of our Church can be so much provoked to destroy it, on account of this doctrine of the Sacrifice, if it were as universally received and practised as I could wish it were ; as they already are by the Episcopal form of govern- ment, and the Bishops’ lands.
It may be suspected by some, that our own people may be inflamed against us on this account; but I must profess, I have no reason to apprehend any such consequence. ‘There can be no just cause for them to be averse from the Sacrifice, more than the Eucharist itself. Formerly indeed our people were too ready to hearken to the malicious suggestions of fanatics against the clergy; but I cannot but say, that dis- senters have of late years, in a great measure, forfeited their credit with the people of our communion. It is commonly
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 21
said, I know, that Archbishop Laud’s zeal for the Sacrifice was the principal objection against him, and cost him his life, and was one great occasion of all the public calamities that ensued upon it; and of this the Defence takes notice”. I question not, but it was a comfort to Archbishop Laud that he died a martyr in so good a cause; and yet the odium against Archbishop Laud was raised by the faction of that age, altogether as much upon the score of his zeal for those doctrines which were then called Arminianism, as for that of the Sacrifice ; for the Divines who then prevailed, condemned all those primitive principles as rank Popery, which yet has not deterred the clergy, and even the Bishops themselves, since those days, from openly espousing those doctrines and principles, notwithstanding the hideous declamations of the fierce dissenters against them on this account. And I be- lieve it may be justly said, that the tenets which are falsely called Arminian, do now generally obtain. And this is a plain proof, that a doctrine thrives the better, for having been watered by the blood of the holy Martyr. Et Deus secundet Omen. They who look no further than to the out- side of things, may imagine that this great man was perse- cuted even to death for his opinions and notions ; but they who impartially read the history of those times, and reflect upon the temper of the chief actors in that bloody tragedy, will find it evident, that it was the man, the royal counsellor, and the Christian Primate, they aimed at ; and when he and his order were destined to destruction by the party which then prevailed, some colours must be used, some specious pretext contrived, for so barbarous and inhuman a murder, for so execrable and sacrilegious a devastation of the purest Church in the world. Our people, left to themselves, could never have so far been inflamed against the Archbishop or the Church, as to proceed to such furious excesses. The puritanical preachers, who at that time had gotten possession of, or borrowed pulpits in the city, and in all the populous places of the nation, exasperated the minds of the people against that great man, and his pious endeavours to perfect our constitution; and these preachers were the men, who being set on by the heads of the party in the two Houses, 2 Page 9.
.-
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did, under pretence of zeal against Popery, run down Prelacy, Arminianism, Altars, and Sacrifice, and indeed the Church itself, with one and the same breath. We have no more reason to apprehend any danger to the Altar and Sacrifice from our own people, than my lords the Bishops have to their dignities and authority, or the whole Church to our Liturgy and worship; unless it can be supposed, that some of our own body can act the part which was then left to the puritanical preachers, and make false alarms of Popery, and other ill things, that were never meant, and which can scarce be believed by them who would persuade others to do so. The clamours of dissenters are now, ina great measure, confined within the walls of their conventi- cles; and the infection, God be praised, is not so spreading as it was in those days. Our enemies of that sort can never hurt us, if we be but true to ourselves, and can but contain our tongues and pens from misrepresenting each other.
And further, in answer to all objections of this kind, in which the merits of the cause are not concerned, but only the prudence of the writers and the seasonableness of their enterprise, I desire it may be considered ; first, That Divine truth is always seasonable, except to cunning men and poli- ticians ; and no truth can at any time be seasonable to them if it do not fall in with their own schemes and projections ; nay, nothing is easily admitted for truth with them which is disobligg or unagreeable to those whose friendship they court, or by whose means they hope to advance their own in- terest. I am apt to believe that the very Gospel itself had been yet unknown to the greatest part of Europe, if the first publishers of it had stayed till they were called for by the masters of politics in the several nations where it now prevails. Nay, secondly, I cannot but think that Dr. Hickes’s attempt to establish this doctrine was as well timed as any thing of this nature could be. It was when he saw a violent assault made on the very being of the Church and Priesthood ; when a design was publicly set on foot to dissolve the Catholic Church into numberless clans and clubs, and to degrade Priests into mere tenders, or under-spur-leathers to those clans or clubs; and not to assert the Sacrifice on such a very urgent occasion, would have been interpreted as a tacit re-
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 23
nunciation of it. There had now passed seventy years since the publication of Mr. Mede’s Christian Sacrifice, and though several divines had in this interval followed him in this par- ticular, so far as to let the world know that they did believe the Eucharist to be a proper Sacrifice, yet scarce any had professedly and at large treated upon it. It was, therefore, now high time to renew this claim, when there was the most violent provocation given that ever was, as I verily believe, from the first institution of the Sacrifice and the Priesthood, to this very day. Further, there had at that time, when Dr. Hickes published the Christian Priesthood, been public agitations for altering some particulars in the Liturgy of our Church ; and it is well known, that this had been proposed to the Convocation soon after the Revolution; and it was with good reason supposed, that the governors of the Church waited only for a seasonable opportunity of renewing this proposal. And sure no man will wonder, if a divine of Dr. Hickes’s eminence, who was himself perfectly convinced of the truth and importance of this doctrine, did earnestly desire, that when the Convocation should again sit upon this weighty affair, some alterations might be made in favour of this most primitive doctrme. And whatever reasons of state or human prudence there might then be to the contrary, yet it must be acknowledged that the thing itself was very desir- able, that when so many alterations were meditated in com- pliance with the present age, some regard might be had to Apostolical antiquity. If the Doctor did apprehend that this effort of his was hke to meet with opposition from several persons of great authority in the Church, I cannot think that this was a sufficient consideration to check his honest and pious zeal, upon supposition that he was in his own con- science satisfied of the justice of his cause, which ought in common equity to be presumed. Your Lordship knows very well that the corruptions of the Church of Rome were first discovered by private persons, and that a very great part of this nation was, by the writings of particular men, convinced of the necessity of a reformation long before any countenance had been given to this cause, either by our King or Prelates. And it is notorious that Christianity was introduced into most nations by the care and courage of some one, or of a
.
94. PREFATORY EPISTLE.
few men, in opposition to all human power. If this method prove inconvenient, it is most of all so to such as are the undertakers. And they indeed often have incurred severe penalties, and even death itself, for speaking bold truths when politicians did not think it seasonable. And Dr. Hickes is a man that has given effectual demonstration to the world that he can suffer in a cause which he believes to be good and righteous. When this doctrme was countenanced by the ecclesiastical and civil powers, it pleased God to permit it, together with the Church itself, to be run down by a popu- lar fury, anda most horrid unnatural rebellion. And it is pro- bable, that Divine Providence will choose to restore the pri- mitive Sacrifice by the same method that Divine truth has gained reception in all ages, that is gradually, by the endeavours and patient sufferings of those who engage in the defence of it. You, my Lord, together with my Lord Bishop of Oxford, have consulted your own safety and taken effectual care not to die martyrs, as the most Reverend Archbishop Laud in some measure did, for this holy truth. And I have not heard of more than one of that present venerable bench that has ever been pleased publicly to declare in favour of it. Iam sometimes inclined to think, that the avowed opposition of two of our Bishops against this doctrine, is so far from being an ill symp- tom of the disposition of the clergy and people to embrace the doctrine and practice of the Sacrifice, that 1 do not know but it may in the event be one means of making way for its general reception. Jam not so sanguine as to hope that this whole Church can be convinced of this truth all at once; nor yet am I without hope, that by God’s blessing on the labours of them who do now, or may hereafter contend for the perfect establishment of it, the prejudices of men may by degrees be conquered, and the Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar recover its pristine lustre and esteem, not by the force and imposition of human authority, but by its own intrinsic excellence and rea- sonableness, and by the irresistible evidence of Scripture and antiquity ; for this is the way by which Divine truth delights to diffuse itself. And though I cannot in reason expect to live to that blessed day, yet I am full of hopes that it will not be long before the primitive Sacrifice gains an establish- ment in our public councils, with a nemine contradicente,
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 25
with the concurrent desires and suffrages of the clergy and people.
And now, my Lord, I must have liberty to say, that I have answered all the objections I know of, both against the Sacri- fice itself, and the defenders of it; the former in the book itself, the latter in this Prefatory Epistle, without concealing the force or strength of any one of them. Dr. Hancock, I remember, tells Dr. Hickes*, “that he could help him to better proofs of the Sacrifice than those which he had pro- duced.” If there were any truth in this, Dr. Hancock by saying it only proved the weakness of his own performance ; for all writers, that would do justice to their own cause, ought to assail the strongest arguments that they know against it ; and he that does it not, leaves a just suspicion in his reader’s mind, that the reason why he conceals them is, that he has no sufficient answer to make; and therefore the most charitable construction that can be put upon this say- ing of Dr. Hancock’s is, that it was a mere gasconade.
Your Lordship might perhaps expect, that I should under- take to answer all the allegations produced from our modern divines against the sacrifice of the Mass; but I think I should undervalue the judgments of those great men by sup- posing that they would have argued against the Sacrifice as represented by Mr. Mede and Dr. Hickes, in the same man- ner that they have done against the Sacrifice of Transubstan- tiation in the Church of Rome. And I do seriously profess to your Lordship, that the two Charges published by yourself and my Lord of Oxford, are as full of authority against the Sacrifice as any of those citations which have so plentifully been produced from modern Bishops and Doctors ; nay, your own opinion, in relation to the Sacrifice, would weigh as much with me as that of Bishop Overall, or any of your pre- decessors in the See of Norwich, upon supposition that your Lordship’s opinion were supported with as good authorities from true antiquity as theirs; and without such support, I am confident your Lordship will not expect that your judg- ment should be thought decisive. I would as soon resign myself to the determination of my Lord Bishop of Oxford that now is, as to that of his most learned and generous pre-
a Answer, p. 207.
26 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
decessor, Bishop Fell, if his Lordship’s sentiment were as agreeable to that of the primitive Church, as I believe Bishop Fell’s to have been. If my most reverend patron, diocesan, and primate, should think fit to declare against the Sacrifice, I must own his personal authority to be as great and weighty in itself considered, as that of Archbishop Laud, or any of his Grace’s predecessors, since the time of Augustine to this very day ; but since our divines of late ages have very much differed in their judgments on this head of religion, therefore I know no other more proper course to bring this dispute to a just issue, than by appealing to genuine uncorrupted antiquity. The Reverend Dr. Hickes has produced a great number of citations from our Protestant Bishops and divines, many of which are very full and express for the Sacrifice ; and I de- sire that these may be laid in the scale against those allega- tions, which, though aimed against the Popish Mass, yet may seem to bear hard upon the primitive Sacrifice itself. Since there is not so perfect a harmony and agreement on this sub- ject amongst our English divines, as there is in other matters, it remains, that either these disputes continue still undecided, or that they be brought to a conclusion by an impartial in- quiry into the judgment of the primitive Apostolical Church.
As for that trite objection which neither your Lordship, nor any of those who have opposed the Christian Sacrifice have omitted, I mean Mr. Mede’s acknowledgment that “what the ancient Church understood by the Sacrifice is beyond belief obscure and intricate; I hope the whole treatise annexed to this epistle is an effectual answer to it, though after all it was an objection that would have been thought of no weight in any other case, because, as I have elsewhere observed, Mr. Mede does not attribute the ob- scurity to the thing itself, but to the disputes raised about it. And if the obscurity of any doctrine be a sufficient proof against the truth of it, I am afraid there are very few doctrines in the Christian creed, or even in natural religion, nay in philosophy or metaphysics, that are not as much affected by this objection as the doctrine of the Sacrifice. I believe few of our Church do now doubt of the freedom of human actions because it is very hard to explain this doctrine so as to render it clearly consistent with the Divine pre-
PREFATORY EPISTLE. ΟἹ δα
science ; and what orthodox Christian renounces the doctrine of the Trinity because it is confessedly difficult to reconcile the unity of the Deity with the co-existence of three really Divine persons? and to disbelieve the Sacrifice because one cannot satisfy himself in the modalities of it, is just as rational as for a philosopher to deny the magnetic power because he is not convinced that any one has yet given a full and satisfactory solution of all the phenomena relating to that great secret of nature. And this is but one instance of many, which might be produced to shew that those objections are thought to be of force against the Sacrifice, which would not be thought to deserve an answer, if they were made against any other doctrine.
It was the chief design of those who have formerly set themselves to defend the Eucharistical Sacrifice, to prove the thing itself, viz. that our Saviour instituted, and the Apostles and primitive Church believed and practised this Sacrifice ; and I crave leave to say, that there was no necessity for me, or any man else, to take any further pains in this matter, for that our Saviour intended the Eucharist to be a Sacrifice, and that the most primitive Church did so esteem and use it, was as clear as anything need be. But because some men urged Mr. Mede’s confession of its obscurity as an argument against the very existence of the thing itself, I have endeavoured in the following sheets to present my reader with a draught of the Christian Sacrifice, both as to the material substances there offered, and as to the ends for which, and the Altar on which, and the officers by whom it is offered, and as to the manner of its consumption; and I conceive it will appear to any unprejudiced examiner, that the main difficulty in the whole scheme is to explain what that material thing or sub- stance is which is offered, or how or in what manner the bread and cup in the Sacrament are the Body and Blood of Christ, and by what means they became so; and I conceive that this difficulty does affect the Eucharist considered as a Sacrament rather than considered as a Sacrifice. That the nature of the Sacrament is very mysterious and obscure, is very evident from the multitude of those voluminous books that have been written upon that subject, and it is believed to be so to this day by all, except those who follow Gcolam-
28 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
padius, Arminius, or Socinus, who have generally been looked upon by all others to be erroneous in this point. If divines were once unanimously agreed what that material substance is which is given and received in the Eucharist, and by what means it becomes what it is, the main difficulty of the doc- trine of the Sacrifice would presently vanish ; and because the several bodies of divines of the Romish, Lutheran, and Calvinistical persuasion, do so widely differ in this matter ; and the Church of England is, I think, allowed by all to have made no precise determination in this point, but to have satisfied herself by saying in general terms, that “the Body and Blood of Christ is verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper ;” therefore I have been obliged to consider the doctrine of the primitive Church as to this pomt ; for without this it had been impossible to say what that was which was offered in the primitive Church. But it is evident that this difficulty does immediately concern the Sacrament rather than the Sacrifice ; and that therefore they who would prove there was no Sacrifice in the Church, because the nature of it is very obscure, might with much more reason haye asserted that there was no Sacrament among the ancients; for he that can solve the notions of the ancients in relation to the reality of the sacramental Body and Blood, has overcome the grand difficulty of the primitive Sacrifice ; and I humbly submit what. is offered upon this subject in the Appendix to Chap. IT. Sect. 1. to the judg- ment of your Lordship and the learned world.
Further, my Lord, though I have shewed that Mr. Mede did assert a material Sacrifice, yet it must be confessed, that he not living to see any book written in answer to his learned works on this subject, was not so fully aware of the neces- sity of proving at large that the primitive Sacrifice was ma- terial, by a particular induction of authorities to this purpose. He thought it sufficient to prove a Sacrifice of bread and wine, an Unbloody Sacrifice; not suspecting that any men could be so very exceptious as either to deny that a Sacrifice of bread and wine was the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, or that such a Sacrifice would be deemed by Protest- ants to be the Sacrifice of the Mass; or that an Unbloody Sacrifice would be construed to be an oblation of mere
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 99
prayer and praise. Farther, I found that many who did believe the Eucharist to be a proper Sacrifice, yet were not sufficiently apprized of the great importance of this doctrine, and of the great stress that the ancients with good reason laid upon it; nay, I found that some who could see no reason to doubt but that the Sacrifice was believed and practised by the primitive Church, were not sufficiently satis- fied how this doctrine was reconcileable to the perfect satis- faction made by the personal oblation of Christ Himself. These considerations convinced me of the necessity of having those points cleared, and these obstacles to the reception of the Eucharistical Sacrifice removed.
It had been happy for the learned world if any one had published these objections and scruples while Mr. Mede was living and capable of writing an answer to them; for no man ever was more happy in understanding the Scripture and ancients than himself; but he was gone to his blessed rest before any now engaged in this controversy were born, as I have reason to believe. Archbishop Laud, his patron, a few years after fell a sacrifice to this doctrine among others ; the most primitively learned Bishop Bull was some years ago “ gathered to his fathers,’ whose doctrme he had so nobly followed and defended. Dr. Grabe soon followed him. Dr. Hickes, though yet alive, is worn out in the service of primitive Christianity and the study of antiquities, incapable of turning over books, and of the fatigue of writing or dic- tating anything that requires long application, and every day expecting his dissolution. Mr. Nelson was engaged in writ- ing the Life of Bishop Bull, and publishing his works, and wholly employed since in works whereby he will merit of the present, and of future generations. And since I could hear of no person that was willing to undertake an affair of this nature, I at last came to a resolution of doing it myself; for though I was sensible how inferior I am in all respects to the least of those eminent servants of God whom I have now mentioned, yet I could discern no objections against this doctrine which were not capable of being answered by one of my mediocrity; and I hoped that it would be an additional evidence to the insufficience and feebleness of the arguments against the Sacrifice, if they could be refelled
30 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
by one that was so indifferently versed in antiquity, and engaged in the sole service of so very large a cure of souls, as 1 am.
It was my resolution from the beginning, to take my measures and information from antiquity only, and therefore
not to look into any of those books that had been written
either by those of the Church of Rome for their corrupted Sacrifice, or by the Protestants against it; and I can truly say, I have most firmly and religiously observed this rule, which I at first proposed to myself. The Defence» censures Dr. Heylin for using the very texts, and “ the Expositions of them, which the Papists had done in defence of the Mass, in his Antidotum Lincolniense.” Now I declare, I have not touched a book written by the modern Papists on their Saeri- fice, nor did I ever see Dr. Heylin’s Antidotum, or make any inquiry after it. But if it be a crime to cite the same texts that Papists do, it is impossible to avoid it; for, beside the history of institution, there is but one context which our adversaries will allow to be meant of the Eucharist, I mean 1 Cor. x. The history of institution is in substance and effect but one, though four times repeated; and I cannot myself believe that beside the history of imstitution there are above four or five texts that do directly speak of the Eu- charist. Now Scripture-proof is what our opponents do almost wholly insist upon; and when we produce proofs from Scripture we are told, these are the very texts which the Papists use ; for what is here said of Dr. Heylin as to this point, must undoubtedly be true of all that ever did or | shall write upon this subject. Now I appeal to all the rational world, whether it be possible to imagine how such adversaries as these can think their cavils worthy of our con- sideration. Let them inform us of any one text in Scripture — that they will allow to relate to the Eucharist, which the Papists have not cited, (for a man that never read their books may easily presume that if there are so very few contexts in the New Testament touching this matter, they will use them all,) and I am pretty confident that no men of middling sense could bear to read any writer that should so egre- giously trifle upon any other subject ; and the very same > Page 8.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. oL
argument, mutatis mutandis, might with as good a face be made use of by Socinians against the very best of our writers
_ upon the doctrine of the Trinity, which we hold in common
with the Papists, and prove from the same texts of Scripture, and with the same expositions, that they do.
In order to pursue my resolutions, I drew up a collection of such authorities for the Sacrifice as might not only prove the Sacrifice itself, but give the best light I could expect into the nature and modus of it, according to the sentiments of the earliest writers ; and because I look upon the Fathers of the fourth century to be the best expositors of the doctrine of the three former ages, therefore I proceeded to take as much information from them, and from the councils held in the same age, as I thought necessary for my purpose. I am far from pretending to have drawn up the whole force of all antiquity ; nay, I have omitted very many testimonies of the fourth century, which I did know, and probably more and as good as those I have produced, because I was ignorant of them. I have taken some citations from Theodcret, and Cyril of Alexandria, as two of the most eminent and early writers of the fifth century, and who had their education in the fourth. I have avoided all citations from writers whom I could discover to be spurious, excepting only the constitutions called Apostolical, because they are allowed to be of very considerable antiquity, and drawn, save only some gross later interpolations, by very learned hands. It is very observable, that there is not any doctrine concerning the Eucharist, and particularly the Sacrifice, generally taught by the writers of the fourth cen- tury, according to the best of my observation, but what had been taught in the third, and second at least, and which I think I have proved to be the doctrine of our Saviour Him- self. The reader cannot expect such numerous and large proofs from the few remaining writers of the second and third century, and especially the first, as from those of the fourth ; but I cannot call to mind any particular of moment com- monly asserted in the fourth century, which was not likewise asserted in the former ages, though more briefly and con- cisely. And though I cannot so much depend on the writers of the fourth century when they were destitute of the autho- rity of the former ages; yet, when they fall in with them, it
32 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
seems a great proof that the Church of the former ages looked upon the doctrine or practice wherein there is so visi- ble an agreement, to be a matter of the greatest moment, and therefore did inculcate it upon their rising posterity with the greater earnestness and assiduity ; and that therefore their consent with their ancestors in such particulars proceeded from the unanimous judgment and faithful care of foregomg ages, to transmit such doctrines and practices clearly and fully to future generations. And what I have said of the fourth age, I might, I believe, apply to three or four succeed- ing centuries, so far as concerns the matter now in dispute ; for though there were, during this time, some additions made to the Eucharistic Liturgies, which might well have been spared, yet I am not apprehensive of any very gross corrup- tions introduced ; and I have given my reader a specimen of the judgment of the Church in the eighth century, from the Council of Constantinople that met to condemn image- worship ; from which it will appear, that even thus late the doctrine of the Eucharist and Sacrifice was preserved free from any gross adulteration, and especially from that which was afterwards called Transubstantiation ; and that there- fore, if Gregory Nyssen, so early as the fourth century, did teach a substantial change, as the most excellent Dr. Grabe suspects, this was peculiar to that Father, or, at the most, can be charged upon him and Cyril of Jerusalem only, (which last I must confess is in my opinion innocent as to this point,) and ought not to be looked upon as the current doc- trine of the Church, in that, or even the following ages.
I likewise made extracts from the most ancient Liturgies now extant ; and though none of them, except the Clemen- tine, be truly primitive, yet in such particulars as they agree with the Clementine, they do very much illustrate it, and shew the consent of Churches even in later ages, to many of the doctrines asserted in the following sheets. And it is very evident, that some notions could never have begun so early, as to be extant in the Clementine Liturgy, and yet be so far diffused as to appear in all the Liturgies here cited, if they had not had one common original, and that in the first times of Christianity ; for though none but the Clementine is truly ancient, yet the same series of the consecratory and more
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 33
solemn oblatory part of the service, their agreement in invo- cating the Holy Ghost, and in the end for which it is in- voked, and in their intercessions or propitiations for others, is a demonstration, that as to these particulars, they were all formed by one rule and with one and the same view, and by hands directed as it were by the very same mind and soul ; for as to these matters, they scarce differ in thought, but in words only. There are indeed many gross additions and in- terpolations in all the Liturgies except that of St. Clement, and yet among such heaps of rubbish the reader may observe the true remains of antiquity sparkling in his eyes here and there in every one of them.
When I had made such collections from antiquity as I thought sufficient, I set myself to draw a scheme of the Eu- charistical Sacrifice, according to the doctrine and judgment of the ancients, without regard to what others, or I myself, had formerly said on this subject. And I soon discovered an excellent harmony of the ancients among themselves as to this matter. I had an especial eye and regard to the Cle- mentine Liturgy, and found that some things which at first seemed very odd, yet by consulting that were made plain and very intelligible. This I look upon as the only certain plan upon which we can form a judgment concerning every part of the primitive Eucharist and Sacrifice, and of the series and connection of every part with the whole.
I must confess too, that in some particulars I discovered that the assertors of the Sacrifice did not exactly agree with the ancients. The most observable particular is this, that in the primitive Church there was but one direct, solemn, vocal, sacerdotal oblation of the bread and wine, and that imme- diately after the words of institution; whereas we have gene- rally affirmed an ante-oblation of them. But since I cannot find any certain evidence of any other oblation of them, otherwise than as the representatives of Christ’s Body and Blood ; therefore I have thought fit to declare, that I see no grounds or reason to insist any longer on more than one ob- lation strictly so called. It may be said, that the bread and wine were offered by being placed on the Altar by the cele- brator, and this I do not deny; but I suppose this could not be called the oblation of bread and wine, or the oblation of the
JOHNSON. D
34 PREFATORY EPISTLE,
Eucharist, because other things beside the bread and wine were sometimes so offered. This could not be that new oblation of the New Testament spoken of by Irenzeus, for that holy Father tells us that Christ taught us that oblation when He said, “This is My Body,” &c., whereas the accepting the bread and wine from the hand of the lay-offerer and placing them on the Altar, was an action performed before, and in order to this more solemn sacerdotal oblation. And since the ancients speak but of one oblation in the Eucharist, and the Clementine Liturgy contains but one form of making this oblation, therefore I conceive that when in former books we made mention of two several oblations, we followed the scent which we took from later Liturgies, rather than the doctrine and practice of the truly primitive Church.
And let no man think that this frank confession of mine is any real prejudice to the cause, in the defence of which I am engaged, till he can shew that in any other cause, whether phi- losophical, juridical, or theological, where any number of advo- cates have written or spoken on the same side, there has not been some small dissonance in their pleas or arguings, or im the modifying or circumstantiating of them. And if the Sacrifice must be exploded on this account, I know no doc- trine in the whole Bible so sacred, no truth im other sciences so evident, but that it is liable to the same objection ; and if therefore this doctrine shall be thought worthy to be dis- carded on this account, I know not what doctrine can be safe.
And if two several acts of oblation, properly so called, be allowed, I apprehend no manner of danger to the Sacrifice itself on this account. When the lay-votary presented any animal to be sacrificed at the Jewish altar, this presentation of it might be called an oblation, and is so very often in the Scripture ; so was the sprinkling the blood, the laying the animal on the altar, and the burning it in part or whole; and yet all this process was but one sacrificial celebrity, though it consisted of several sacrificial actions. So it is very evident that the presenting the bread and wine, or placing them on the Altar, may well enough be called an oblation ; and if this action be attended with oblatory words, as it is in the later Liturgies,
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 35
I see no reason to blame this practice, especially since it is of very considerable antiquity, though not perfectly primitive. And the chief end which I promise to myself by this observa- tion, is to render the Sacrifice, as spoken of by the most an- cient writers, more clear and intelligible, and my proofs upon this head the more unexceptionable ; for though the primitive writers do often call the layman’s part in bringing his material offerings by the name of an oblation, as the law of Moses like- wise did; and though the celebrator’s placing them on the Lord’s Table, be now commonly and properly enough said to be anoblationof them; yet the most proper Eucharistical sacer- dotal oblation was always spoken of as one only in the most primitive writers. And that there was but one such oblation in the Clementine Liturgy, and that therefore the making but one oblation, and that by way of commemoration, is the most ancient method, that Liturgy itself is an irrefragable demonstration ; and it is not worth while to dispute whether the presentation of them on the Altar was looked upon as a part of this one solemn oblation, or only as an action neces- sary in order to the other. It is sufficient for my purpose to observe, that they are never mentioned as two several obla- tions in the most early monuments of antiquity.
And by this, my Lord, I am insensibly brought to say something in relation to the censure your Lordship was pleased to pass, in your Charge, upon the author of the Clergy- man’s Vade Mecum. I can sincerely declare, that my only intention in affirming, as I did in the note on the second Apostolical Canon, “that bread and wine are actually to be offered to God, by the direction of the Church of England by virtue of the Rubric, immediately before the prayer ‘For the whole state of Christ’s Church,’ and in and by that prayer,” was to do justice to our constitution, and to represent our Church and Liturgy as conformable to the ancient model as in truth I could, according to the best of my knowledge. Your Lordship is pleased to resent this as an affront and in- jury done to the Church of England; lest therefore I should again incur your Lordship’s displeasure upon this account, I have wholly forborne, in the following treatise, any intimation of the Church of England’s agreeing, or not agreeing, with the primitive Church, in the doctrine or practice of the
D2
36 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
Sacrifice; and have entirely left it to my reader to reflect under every head, how far our Church symbolizes with the primitive, or comes short of her. Nay, I have in the second edition of the second part of the Vade Mecum, omitted that paragraph which your Lordship has censured ; not that I am not fully persuaded that the Church does, by the clause in- serted into the prayer for the Church Militant, intend an oblation of the bread and wine, but because, upon maturer. thoughts, I am perfectly convinced that the oblation meant in that canon is the commemorative oblation of the bread and wine, following after the words of institution in the an- cient Liturgies, and not any previous oblation of the bread. and wine, apart from the other lay-offerings.
But, my Lord, I cannot but express the sense I have of your severity toward me, in passing by other authors who have said the same thing in effect that I there do, and singling out so indifferent a writer as myself to bear the marks of your displeasure. Your Lordship has acquitted me from being any of the “chief promoters of this opinion;” for of these you are pleased to say, “ that they are of the late sepa- ration‘,” meaning, I suppose, the non-jurors, of which num- ber I never was ; and the most incomparably learned Bishop Bull was alive when your Charge was delivered to the clergy, though he died about the time of the publication of it. Now whether your Lordship acted a generous part in choosing to condemn my book, who was the least capable of making a defence, I submit to your own consideration. And, my Lord, that in giving sentence against me, you condemned one of those English Bishops for whose memory you have the greatest honour, I am very sure you must yourself confess ; I do not mean Bishop Bull, but Bishop Patrick ; for though I can truly say that I did not learn this notion of the bread and wine being to be offered according to our Liturgy from that very learned Prelate, yet he that reads what I am now going to cite from him, and compares it with my note on the second Apostolical Canon in the first edition, would be apt to suspect me of a plagium. “The spiritual sacrifice of our- selves, and the corporal sacrifice of our goods to God, may teach the Papists that we are sacrificers as well-as they, and
ς Page 5.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 37
are made kings and priests unto God; yea, they may know, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is an offering out of the stock of the whole congregation to this service, accord- ing as it was in the times of the primitive Church.” And, my Lord, this book was published by Mr. Patrick while he was “minister of God’s Word,” as he styles himself, at Bat- tersea in Surrey; and the Epistle Dedicatory bears date January, 1659; so that it was no crime in that age, and in so moderate a divine as Mr. Patrick, to say that bread and wine were offered according as it was in the primitive ’ Church*. Nor did he alter his opinion as to this particular, after he became an eminent divine in the Church of Eng- land; nay, I think, he justifies all that your Lordship is pleased to censure in my book, in the followimg words: “ It is not common bread and wine which the ancients prayed might become the Body and Blood of Christ to them, but bread and wine first sanctified by being offered to Him with thanksgiving.—This is to be understood when you see bread and wine set on God’s Table by him that ministers in this Divine Service; then it is offered to God, for whatsoever is solemnly placed there becomes by that means a thing dedi- cated and appropriated to Him.—And if you observe the time when this bread is ordered to be placed there, which is immediately after the alms of the people have been received for the poor, you will see it is intended by our Church to be a thankful oblation to God of the fruits of the earth.—Desir- ing God to accept of these gifts as a small token of their grateful sense that they hold all they have of Him, as the great Lord of the world. And so we are taught to do in that prayer which immediately follows im our Liturgy, wherein we humbly beseech Him to accept, not only our alms but also our oblations; these are things distinct. And the former, ‘alms,’ signifying that which is given for the relief of the poor ; the latter, ‘oblations,’ can signify nothing else, accord- ing to the language of the ancient Church, but this bread and wine.” And now, my Lord, I crave leave to say, that there was much greater reason for your Lordship to censure Bishop Patrick’s Christian Sacrifice, in the 77th page of which book, (the ninth edition,) these words are to be found, than the poor
4 See Mensa Mystica, first edition, p. 44.
38 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
Clergyman’s Vade Mecum ; not only on account of the learn- ing, dignity, and authority of the person who wrote it, but be- cause it is certain that the Christian Sacrifice had come into more hands when your Lordship was pleased to pass this censure, than it was credible that the Vade Mecum ever can ; for the only reason hinted by your Lordship for making this reflection on the book last mentioned is, that “it was de- signed to come into every clergyman’s hands.” This learned Bishop does not only agree with the Vade Mecum in the main, that bread and wine are or ought to be offered, but that by being placed on the table they become dedicated and appropriated to God ; and this he says to prove that the bread and wine are offered to Him: so that this great man supposes, as I did when I wrote that note, that the bread and wine is offered, or presented to God, by being placed there by the hands of the Priest ; which is what your Lord- ship charges on me, “as a misrepresentation of the Rubric, and an assertion contrary to the Rubric.” I own that in the Rubric itself the word ‘ place’ only refers to the bread and wine, ‘present’ to the alms. But though the bread and wine are not directed to be presented in the Rubric, yet they are actually presented in the following Prayer, except it can be made appear that in any oblatory prayer the word obla- tions be so used as to exclude the bread and wine. I must confess that if I had expected so severe a Censor as your Lordship, I ought to have expressed myself with greater cau- tion. And yet I will hereby oblige myself, whenever your Lordship is pleased to call for it, to present you with several citations from the most accomplished human writers, in which there is the same, or greater, liberty of expression used, as there is by me in this passage, not excepting your Lordship’s own works. I was once thinking to imsert some instances of this sort; but I shall at present spare your Lordship’s patience, for 1 delight not in such reprisals, nor is it my business to justify my own writings or reputation, so much as the cause and doctrine the defence whereof I have undertaken. I shall say no more on this head, but that I am perfectly astonished to observe that Mr. Patrick could, in the times of confusion, so far emancipate himself from vulgar prejudices as to see and publicly declare for a material obla-
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 39
tion of bread and wine; and that after the review of our Liturgy, he should understand the words of the Rubric and the oblations in the following Prayer, as they were un- doubtedly meant, of the Eucharistical elements; nay, that Richard Baxter himself could say, that “in the consecration the Church doth offer the creatures of bread and wine to be accepted by God to this sacred use;” and that “ministers are the agents of the people to God in offering or dedicating the creatures®;” and yet that a Priest of the Church of Eng- land, at a time when the Church was voted out of danger, should, in the most public manner, incur the censure of a Bishop of that Church only for saying the same thing which they had done. I readily acknowledge, my Lord, that this oblation of the bread and wine does not constitute the Eu- charist a proper Sacrifice in the sense of the primitive Church, nor come up to that notion which I have asserted in the following sheets; and therefore I do not claim either Bishop Patrick or Mr. Baxter as witnesses to the Eucharistic Sacrifice, properly so called; I only produce them as declar- ing for me in that particular for which I stand condemned in your Lordship’s Charge.
Bishop Patrick was a man well read in all parts of divinity, and I cannot but observe to your Lordship, that in the above-written citation from his Christian Sacrifice, he argues for the signification of the word ‘oblations,’ from the “universal language of the ancient Church.” And I cannot but take an occasion here to express my wishes that this were better un- derstood ; for it is certain that the greatest obstacle to the doctrine of the Sacrifice is, that the men of this age cannot easily, by a spiritual, rational, unbloody, intellectual sacri- fice, understand an oblation of bread and wine, considered as the representative Body and Blood of Christ. By a Sacri- fice of thanksgiving, of praise, of commemoration, they can conceive nothing to be meant but what is verbal and mental. It is one main design of these papers to apply a remedy to this disease, and if I am successful in this particular, I have no reason to doubt of carrying my cause, and obtaining the verdict of all equal judges. Our adversaries cannot but be sensible that they have a great advantage of us in this parti-
ε See Append. to Christian Priesthood, p. 320.
40 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
cular, for there is a strange unaccountable magic in the sound of words, and they who have the vulgar signification of them on their own side, may enchant and charm the gene- rality of people into their own opinions, whatever they are. Your Lordship’s own Order was in the last age run down by this sort of fascination. Prelacy was the fatal word which drove my Lords the Bishops first out of the House of Peers, and then out of their churches. It is certain that the im- parity of orders, which Christ instituted in His Chureh, can- not be better expressed than by the word Prelacy, and the Greek word ἡγούμενοι, which denotes Bishops, Heb. xiii. 17, cannot be more aptly rendered by any English noun than by Prelates ; but they who-then had the people at their disposal, first clapped an ill signification upon the word, as importing the Popish hierarchy, or something very like it, and then applied it to the governors of the Church of England, and by virtue of that wrong application subverted the government and the Church at once. This may serve for one instance to prove of what dangerous consequence it is to permit people to run away with the mistaken sense of a word; and they that in- dulge themselves in such errors, which at first sight seem very small, may by this means be led into very mischievous conclusions.
I must further add, my Lord, that it is of great use to all divines to understand the language not only of the truly ancient Church, but even of that of the middle and darker ages. If I had been better acquainted with the liturgies of those times, I might when I wrote the postscript to ‘The Propitiatory Oblation,’ have laid before your Lordship clear evidence, that when you take the word offertory to signify the act of oblation or the things offered, you give such a sense to that word as those Liturgies from whence our Re- formers took it, never do. I have indeed in that postscript given sufficient proof even from our own reformed Liturgies, that offertory denotes the sentences sung or said while the alms and devotions of the people are collected. And now, my Lord, give me leave to add, that I have further authority for this signification of that word. In Pope Gregory’s Sacra- mentary, printed at Paris, 1642, are these words; Postmo- dum legitur Evangelium, deinde offertorium ; “afterwards the
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 41
Gospel is read, then the Offertory :Ὁ on which words Menar- dus, the editor, has this note; Offertorium antiphona est, que dum caneretur, populus sua dona in altari offerebat juxta anti- quum morem': “The offertory is an antiphone, and while that was sung the people made their oblations at the Altar, according to the ancient custom.” In the old Liturgy pub- lished by Father Mabillon, are these words; Tum antiphona post Evangelium. Mabillon explains the word antiphona thus ; Nos, scilicet in ordine Romano, offertorium vocamus, “We, in the Roman order, call this the offertorys.”” And Du Fresne in his Glossary says, “ Offerenda and offertorium are the same, and signify what is sung inter offerendum*, while the people make their oblations.” Cardinal Bona, in his 66th page of his first book Rerum Liturgicarum, in giving an account of St. Am- brose’s Liturgy, calls that Antiphona post Evangelium, (for the Creed was not rehearsed after the Gospel in that age,) which Mabillon calls offertorium. Other examples might be produced (if these were not sufficient) from Amalarius and Micrologus.
If Dr. Hancock had consulted these Liturgies he would never have been so far transported as to say that by “ then” in the Rubric, which orders the Priest to place the bread and wine on the Lord’s Table, we are to understand, “when there is a Communion.” For by a diligent perusal of them he would have found that the stated time for doing this was immediately after the offertory. The first book of Ed- ward VI. directed the Priest to place the bread on the cor- poras, or paten, and to put the wine in the chalice, or other vessel, as soon as these sentences had been sung or said. The present Rubric enforces the ancient practice of the Priest’s placing the Eucharistical elements on the Holy Table precisely at this same time. And those incumbents, or curates, who leave this office to be performed by some lay- man, are guilty of non-conformity not only to the Church of England, but to the whole Catholic Church of Christ in the purest ages. For even in Justin Martyr’s time, the ele- ments were offered to the president or celebrator, who taking
f Page 582. Ὁ Offertorium, idea quod offerenda. & Vid. Mabillon de Liturgia Galli- Cantus qui inter offerendum cantatur. cana, at Paris, 1685, p. 8.
42 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
them from the hands of the deacon or other idoneous person, presented them on the Altar, and then proceeded in the Eu- charistical Service’. I might enlarge here, but the learned Dr. Nicols hath saved me that trouble, to whose note on this Rubric I refer my reader; but I the rather took notice of this because your Lordship’s Clergy being assured by your Charge that Dr. Hancock’s book is written “with good learn- ing and judgment,” may from thence conclude that it is left to their discretion how or when to place the bread and wine on the Lord’s Table.
In another particular I cannot but think Dr. Nicols much mistaken ; that is, in saying in his notes on the Prayer of Consecration, that the Church has not determined whether the Priest shall say that prayer standing or kneeling. Nay, he is not content with this, but goes so far as to say that “since it is a prayer, the posture of kneeling is most proper.” That kneeling is the most proper posture for the people in prayer may be allowed, but if it be so for the Priest too, our Church is much to blame. For even in the matrimonial office, when the bridegroom and bride are come to the Com- munion Table, the Priest is expressly ordered to “ stand,” they to “ kneel,” while the prayers there are rehearsed. And in the Rubric before the prayer which immediately follows after the contract, the bridegroom and bride are directed to “kneel,” but not the Priest ; and indeed it is very improper for him to kneel, because that prayer is a benediction. And as to the main of the Communion Service, there is no ques- tion but that standing is the most proper posture for the Priest. At the beginning of the Service the Rubric expressly commands him “ to stand at the north side of the Table, and to say the Lord’s Prayer and the Collect following, the people kneeling ;” and he is likewise directed to say the two Collects between the Commandments and the Epistle, “ standing as before.” The absolution, the following sentences, the sursum corda, and trisagium, are, I suppose, without all question to be pronounced standing; and yet this absolution itself is precatory. The question is not what is the most proper pos- ture for prayer in general, but what is the most proper
* See Appendix A.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 43
posture for a Priest in offerimg or blessing the sacramental bread and wine. And here I conceive it ought to be con- sidered :
I. That it is contrary to the practice of all Churches, both ancient and modern, East and West, Popish and Reformed, for the Priest to kneel in making the oblation, or performing the consecration. If there be one single precedent for it, it is more than I am aware of.
II. It is inconsistent with the solemn action which he is now performing. For I apprehend that the common notions of mankind do all agree in this, that a sacred officer in mak- ing an oblation or conferring a benediction, is to use this posture of standing. So that if he be not allowed to be offer- ing a sacrifice, yet except it be denied that he is blessing the bread and wine, he ought not to kneel.
III. I cannot but believe that the Priest is by our Rubric required to stand while he performs this most solemn part of his office. For, lst. That he is to stand while he is ordering the bread and wine, is self-evident ; and when he has ordered the bread and wine, he is presently directed to say the Prayer of Consecration. Now since he was before in a standing pos- ture, he is not to alter this posture till he is directed so to do; and since the Rubric gives no intimation of making any such change of posture, I humbly conceive that he is to continue standing. 2ndly. The Rubric, till the Restoration, was, “ the Priest standing shall say ;” and there is no appearance or probability that the Convocation intended any alteration in this particular ; and it is irrational to suppose that the governors of the Church intended to leave it to the Priest’s discretion, whether he would use that posture which had hitherto been used upon this occasion in our own Church as well as all others, or whether he would choose a new one. And, 3rdly, I apprehend that the very words of the Rubric are a direct order to the Priest to stand in performing the consecration. They are these; “ When the Priest standing before the Table, hath so ordered the bread and wine, that he may with the more readiness and decency break the bread before the peo- ple, and take the cup into his hands, he shall say the prayer of consecration as follows.” For that the incidental proposition, “standing before the Table,” relates to the Priest only while
44. PREFATORY EPISTLE.
he is ordering the bread and wine, and not while he says the prayer, I cannot conceive. The natural construction of the words seems to me to be this, that “ the Priest standing be- before the Table shall order,” &c., and he, the same Priest, “ standing before the Table shall say.” For I can see no doubt, but that the Priest is to stand before the Table, while he consecrates. What those words, “before the Table,” may import, I dare not say; but shall submit that and every thing else to your Lordship’s judgment. And though this be not clear, yet the word “standing” is ; and I think Dr. Nicols to have used too much liberty in attempting to expound away the plain meaning of it.
I beg your Lordship’s pardon for using this freeness to a person of your character, who by the laws of the Church Catholic and of the Church of England, are one of those who have the sole authority, under the Primate, to determine the sense of all doubtful Rubrics. But I must confess I do not apprehend that these Rubrics are at all doubtful in themselves ; but there is nothing so plain but that disputatious men may endeavour to puzzle and obscure them. And 1 am so far from any design of entrenching upon the prerogative of my Lords the Bishops on this account, that if my Diocesan and Primate, upon an application regularly made to him, should think fit to determine, that every Priest may place the bread and wine on the Holy Table at any time of the Communion Service that pleases him best, or that he may either stand or kneel while he says the Consecration Prayer, then it must be owned that the Clergy within this province are under no obligation to place the bread and wine on the Table at the end of the offertory, and that the Priest is not tied to stand at the consecration; and yet I should, notwithstanding this, humbly be of opinion that the words imply no such latitude in either case. But if any lawful judge do explain a law contrary to the meaning and intendment of it, that explanation is, I sup- pose, authoritative until it be overruled or superseded by some superior power. But all that appear as advocates in any cause, have liberty to allege their reasons against such interpretations, especially before such interpretations have been publicly pronounced e Cathedré. At least, I conceive, I have as just a right to plead for the true meaning of these
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 45
Rubrics, as Dr. Hancock and Dr. Nicols for that which I am persuaded is a wrong one.
And now, my Lord, I shall detain you no longer, but only to beg your pardon if any thing said by me in this epistle or elsewhere, seem to be expressed with more warmth or resent- ment than becomes me. I am one that never studied the arts of address, nor was ever solicitous to please any man by any other method but that of saying what I believed to be the truth, whether in season or out of season. I question not but I may have been guilty of several oversights in lesser matters, and that in my style and choice of words I very much need a corrector ; but if any man shall take me to task upon these accounts, I shall not think myself obliged to answer him.
The argumentative part of my discourse, on which the main cause depends, is that for which alone I am greatly concerned ; and if any man attack that part of my book, and do it im such a manner as becomes a scholar and one that understands the subject on which he writes, an answer will not be wanting if God grant me life and health. Andif I die, yet I trust in God this noble truth will always find a succession of defenders; and if I should mistake in this presage, yet I shall think it much more honourable in the sight of God and my ever-blessed Redeemer, and of all truly judicious Christians, to be considered as the last Priest of this Church that ever wrote in defence of the primitive Sacri- fice, than to have been the first Bishop that ever wrote against it. However, I dare say of all those who have of late years declared for the Sacrifice, as Origen did of himself and the Christians of his age, in words borrowed in part from St. Paul, Heb. x. 23, “ We hold fast the optation as long as we live.” With this resolution I take leave to subscribe myself, Your Lordship’s
as in duty bound,
J.J. May 18, 1713.
46 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
PO's US Cire:
When your Lordship published the first edition of your Charge, ‘The Propitiatory Oblation’ was in the press, and well near finished; ‘The Unbloody Sacrifice’ was in the printer’s hands, and this epistle ready for the press a considerable time before your second edition appeared, by which means I have been obliged to consider both the editions of your Charge in a postscript.
Your Lordship’s only argument, which seemed to me of any force to prove that the word ‘ oblation’ in the Prayer for the Church Militant, did not signify bread and wine, was this, that “there might be an offertory without a Communion.” This I readily acknowledged, but shewed at the same time that your Lordship’s supposition that offertory signified the materials to be offered, was without any good grounds; for I alleged a Rubric of the first Common Prayer-Book of Edward VI. which directs the offertory to be sung by the clerks, and it is certain that money or any other material thing cannot be sung. And further I observed, that in our present Rubric after the Communion Service, there is mention of money given at the offertory, from which I inferred that the money or other material thing given by way of devotion could not be the offertory itself. Your Lordship in your second edition has added some paragraphs, in which you are pleased to confess, that “the offertory is in strict speaking the name or title of the service that relates to the offerings or things given*.” And yet even in this second edition you continue to assert as in the first, that “the matter of the offertory is money!.” My Lord, I crave leave to say, and I have fully proved, that the matter of the offertory is nothing but the words or sentences to be said or sung. Your Lordship ac- knowledges, as above cited, that it is “the service relating to the offerings,” therefore not the offerimgs themselves. You are pleased to say, that “where you use it for the things themselves, you take care not to be misunderstood,” by which I suppose your Lordship means that you have ex- plained it in the second edition, by saying that it signifies
k Page 22. 1 Page 20.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 47
the service. I hope your Lordship does not mean that it comprises both the money and the service, and yet nothing else can reconcile these two propositions: and if they cannot otherwise be reconciled, I must leave the difficulty to your Lordship; for it is beyond my ability to prove that money put into a basin can be sung or said.
However, your Lordship can by no means allow that this name belongs to the sentences only, as this author (meaning the writer of ‘The Propitiatory Oblation’) restrains it; now I crave leave to say, that I have not at all restrained the use of this word, but take it as I find it in the Liturgy of Edward VL., and that which is now used in our Church. Nor did the compilers of these Liturgies restrain it ; for it is evident from the citations in the foregoing epistle, that the word offerto- rium, as there used, signified nothing more nor less than the sentences of Scripture sung or said on this occasion, many hundred years before the reign of Edward VI. It seems to me that your Lordship is pleased to enlarge the signification of it, because I have nowhere found it to import what you assert it to do.
But I will consider your Lordship’s reason for extending the signification of this word, and that is as follows: “ For the very act of offering is doubtless a part of the offertory service, as it gives the name to the whole; the presenting what is offered upon the Table is another; and I believe it will be thought that the beseeching God to accept it is not the least considerable in this matter.” Now, my Lord, this takes that for granted which is the point in dispute, viz. that the offertory is not the sentences; for if the offertory and sentences are the same, then there is an offertory when these sentences are read or sung, though nothing be given, pre- sented, or recommended to the Divine acceptance, and this is indeed the truth of the matter. And to give full demonstration of this over and above what has been already said, I will lay before your Lordship another Rubric of Edward the Sixth’s Liturgy, which stands just before these sentences; viz. “Then shall follow for the Offertory one or moe of these sentences of H. Scripture, to be song whiles the people dooe offer, or else one of theim to be saied by the Minister immediately afore the offeryng.” By this it appears that the offertory
48 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
might be either during the offering, viz. if the offertory were sung, and so there were time for the people to make their offerings while the clerks were singing it, or it might be be- fore the offering, viz. if the minister only read one sentence, which in this case was the offertory, or for the offertory. In both cases the offertory and the act of offermg were two dis- tinct things; and by this Liturgy the alms were not to be presented on the Table, nor was there any prayer for their acceptance ; so that offertory is here used exclusively of all the three actions here specified by your Lordship. Let me further observe, that “offertory service” is a word new coined by your Lordship, and though I own your authority to be sufficient to coin a word, and to stamp what signification you please upon it, yet, my Lord, you need not be told that our Liturgy has no such word, nor any other Liturgy that I have seen, and so your reasonings upon it affect no Rubrics of the Church. I take leave further to observe, that though the offertory, according to this Liturgy of Edward VI. and all other Liturgies, was nothing but the sentences, yet the value of the bread and wine is said to be offered in these words, viz. “The parishioners of every parishe shall offre every Sunday the just valour and pryce of the holy lofe at the time of the offertory ; where still the offertory and the offering are made things clearly distinct from each other.
If by “offertory service” you mean no more than what the Church does by the offertory, it is evident that nothing can be meant but the sentences sung or said; for the Church always supposes an offertory when the Communion Service is read, but cannot in reason suppose that every Sunday or Holiday something shall be offered in every church. And to give further proof of this, it is observable, that as these sentences are most commonly called the offertory, so some- times the vessel in which the bread was put passed by the same name, of which see Mabillon de Liturg. Gall. p. 185.™ And your Lordship might argue upon this vessel just as you do upon the sentences, viz. the very act of offering is doubt-
™ Ad oblatas excipiendas inserviebat offertorium: colum verd seu colato- rium ad Vinum expurgandum. Offer- toria vasa erant a Patinis distincta, in que populus Panem oblatum ad Altare
deponebat; quz primo solida erant, deinde linea, seu sericea, aut ex quali- bet simili materia: Unum aureum, alia argentea memorat vetus Chronicon Frontanellense in cap. 16.
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 49
less a part of the offertory, the presenting what is offered another, and the beseeching God to accept it a third; and you might as truly say, that the act of offering gives name to the vessel, of old called offertorium, as that it now gives name to what you are pleased to call the “ offertory-service.” Yet I fancy few would by this be convinced that the vessel itself implied or contained the act of offering, or the present- ing the oblations, or the prayer for the Divine acceptance. Nay, all would easily perceive that the vessel, as well as the sentences, were the offertory, though not one mite or crumb of bread were put into the one, or one farthing given at the rehearsal of the other. And this may be sufficient also to shew that to argue from names or etymologies, as your Lord- ship here does, can do very little service to any cause.
If your Lordship still persist that the offertory takes in the Prayer for the Church Militant, I take leave to add that it must take in also the placing the Bread and Wine on the Holy Table, except you will suppose that the offertory-service breaks off at the end of these sentences, and then begins de novo with the Prayer for the Church Militant, and so in effect make two offertories in order to avoid the oblation of bread and wine. And if the placing the Bread and Wine on the Lord’s Table be part of the offertory, then, according to your Lordship’s own argument, it is to be offered, and presented, and recommended to the Divine acceptance; and using the word “ place” instead of “ offer” or “ present,” is no sufficient objection against this sense; for I conceive there is no occasion for me to point out those particular places, where the very ac- tion of offering the blood, which was the most essential action of offering the Jewish sacrifice, is by the English rendered ‘put- ting the blood,’ by the Latin ponere sanguinem, by the Greek ἐπιτιθέναι αἷμα, the Hebrew Nathan admitting of this rendi- tion, because it signifies either, ‘to give, present, put, or place.’
And, my Lord, the truth is, I know not whether you do after all persist in making the inserted clause of God’s “ accepting our alms and oblations” a part of the offertory, or not; for in the first paragraph of your addition”, you seem to promise that you will “give me satisfaction,’ that the clause inserted in the Prayer for the Church Militant “is the
» Page 22.
JOHNSON. E
0 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
or
offertory,” and what follows looks the same way, if I under- stand it; in the third paragraph of this page you say ex- pressly, that “this prayer immediately attends upon the offertory,” and therefore I should think were a thing distinct from it; for if the thing attending be the same with the thing attended, and if your Lordship upon recollection will justify it, then all arguing is at an end.
Your Lordship justly suspects that what you had before laid down would “be thought too much to be granted,” and you yourself I believe are by this time of the same mind; for it is evident you demand that to be granted that subverts your own hypothesis, viz. that the Prayer for the Church Militant “attends the offertory ;’? and, my Lord, that the Prayer for the Church Miltant, or the inserted clause, is either the offertory or a part of the offertory, is too much to grant except there were some appearance of proof.
You insist “that the most obvious and reasonable interpre- tation of these words, ‘ Accept our alms and oblations,’ is to be had from considering what offerings there is any mention made of in the office immediately preceding, and those are confessed to relate only to the Minister and poor, which in the Scotch Liturgy are expressly called oblations.” Here your Lordship, by “the office immediately preceding,” must mean the offertory sentences, for of them only it is confessed that they relate only to the Minister and poor. You cannot mean the placing the bread and wine on the Holy Table, though that mdeed “immediately precedes” the prayer, for these I am sure you would not have called offerings; and if these sentences be an “ office,” what other name can you give it but the “offertory office?” and if the sentences be the offer- tory office, then the Prayer for the Church Militant is no part of it.
In the next paragraph your Lordship proceeds thus; “ He who considers that the Scotch Liturgy was made upon ours by several alterations and additions under Archbishop Laud’s own hand, and that great regard was had to these in the review of the Liturgy, 1661, will I believe agree with me, that the prayer to God to accept our alms and oblations respects those offerings only which the foregoing sentences exhort us to make.” We own, my Lord, that during the offertory
PREFATORY EPISTLE. 51
nothing is to be given but money, or other materials for charitable or pious uses; after the offertory the Bread and Wine are placed on the table, and, as we believe, in order to be solemnly offered by the Priest. But I cannot but express my surprise to observe that your Lordship would enforce what you here say, by observing that “at the review of our Liturgy, 1661,” when the clause in dispute was inserted, “ sreat regard was had to the alterations and additions made with Archbishop Laud’s own hand,” and which he had made in order to insert them into the Scotch Liturgy; for, my Lord, the greater regard was had to the alterations and addi- tions made with Archbishop Laud’s own hand, the more sure we are that bread and wine were designed to be offered, for this was one particular on which Archbishop Laud and his friends did always insist. It is evident they did not shew their regard to Archbishop Laud’s alterations by ordering the elements to be “offered up” before the Prayer for the Church Militant, as the Scotch Liturgy did, nor by calling the alms ‘oblations’ (for that remains yet to be proved, my Lord) ; it remains, therefore, that they paid this regard by ordering both alms and bread and wine to be offered together in the inserted clause. It was a poor regard indeed, if it only consisted in calling the alms ‘oblations;? the most proper regard was paid by causing the elements to be offered to God, which was the principal thing the good Archbishop in- tended in the alterations to be made in this part of the Com- munion office. I cannot persuade myself that your Lordship can look on these arguings in the second edition, especially when compared with those in the first, as sufficient finally to determine your judgment.
It must be owned, that the Rubric next after the blessing in the Post-communion service, calls the following prayers Collects to be said after the Offertory, when there is no Communion; and from hence your Lordship would con- clude, that the Prayer for the Whole Estate, &c. is part of the offertory, because these collects are universally read after that prayer; but
1. The reader will take notice, that this title was first given to these collects by the first book of Edward VI., and then it properly belonged to them; for,
E 2
52 PREFATORY EPISTLE.
2. By this first book of King Edward, the Prayer for the Whole Estate was not to be read when there was no com- munion ; and therefore these collects were at such times im- mediately to follow the sentences or offertory.
3. If the Prayer for the Whole Estate had been to be read at such times by that book of King Edward, yet it could not have been part of the offertory ; not only because this prayer then stood at a greater distance from the sentences, viz. between the Trisagium and the Prayer of Consecration, but because there were then no oblatory words in that prayer; “accept our alms” was added, when this prayer was removed irom its former place to that where it now stands; “and oblations” was added at the Restoration.
4, We now read the Prayer for the Whole Estate, when there is no communion, not by virtue of the Rubric next after the blessing and before the collects, but by virtue of the Rubric next after the collects, which runs thus ; “ Upon the Sundays and other holidays, if there be no communion, shall be said all that is appointed at the Communion, until the end of the General Prayer for the good Estate of Christ’s Church, together with one or more of these collects last be- fore rehearsed ;” and this Rubric was not in the first book of Edward the Sixth.
The consequence is very clear, viz. that the title given to these prayers was very proper according to the first book of Edward the Sixth; for by that these collects were to be said immediately after the offertory, when there was no Com- munion; the title now belongs to them but very improperly ; they are still indeed to be said after the offertory, but not immediately next after it, as formerly, for the Prayer for the Whole Estate comes between. Your Lordship’s argument is grounded upon a misnomer, and therefore I dare presume that you will no longer insist upon it.
Cranbrook, Oct? 17: 1718.
A NECESSARY
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER.
Tue authorities made use of in this treatise are rarely printed in the original Greek or Latin, either in the text, or in the margin of the book itself; excepting only such as re- late to some collateral point, and not to the main controversy, or some citations ex abundanti, and which I met with after I had finished my first design, and which I have occasion to mention but once; but lest my reader should suspect my fidelity, he is to observe,
I. That he has all the authorities from the Fathers, Coun- cils, and Liturgies, on which the stress of my argument lies, printed in the Appendix in the original Greek or Latin; and whenever I cite any of these, I do not only give my reader the translation of the words in English, but refer him to the page of my Appendix where the original Greek or Latin is to be found, and not only to the page, but the letter by which that citation is marked or distinguished in that page, to which the reference is made; and if the words to which I refer stand above three or four lines from the beginning of that citation, then I further refer my reader to the line of that citation where the words that I mean stand, or at least begin; thus, when I allege the first citation from St. Cle- ment of Rome, after I have mentioned the name of that Father, I add, (A. p. 1. Ap.) that is, at the letter A, in the first page of my Appendix; but if I cite those words, “ Let every one of you brethren celebrate the Eucharist in his own rank,” I not only put the letter B. the page 1. Ap. but I likewise add, 1. 13, and in the 13th line of that citation the reader will find the Greek words to which I here refer him. If I allege those words of Justin, “‘The Deacons distribute it to every one of those who are present,” I direct him to the Greek by prefixing (A. p. 2,3. Ap. 1. 9.) that is at the letter A. in the second and third page of my Appendix, in the ninth
~
54. ADVERTISEMENT.
line, and there my reader will accordingly meet with the Greek words, for I never refer to the line of the page but of the citation. The reader may think it would have been more for his ease and satisfaction to have had the original citation produced in the text, or margin of the page, where it is alleged, but I thought the course I have taken more eligible.
1. Because very many of my shortest as well as longest citations prove several of the doctrines which are here ad- vanced, and by consequence are often repeated; and I thought it would too much swell the volume to transcribe the citation in the origimal, as often as I had occasion to make use of it, especially if it were somewhat large; the lesser original citations might mdeed have been once for all set down in the margin, and a reference made to that mar- gin, whenever the citation was repeated ; but then my reader must have had the same pains of turning to that margin, which he must now take in turning to the Appendix; and this method would have required my attendance on the press, which my circumstances would not admit of.
2. Several of my citations are very long, and such as I could have no occasion to allege all at once, as that of St. Cyprian’s Epistle to Ceecilius, the first from Gregory Nyssen, several from Irenzeus, that from the Synod of Con- stantinople; but I thought it proper that such large autho- rities, which I produce by piecemeals, should be once for all entirely represented to my reader’s view, that so by the coherence and connection, the learned reader might be more capable of making a judgment of the pertinence of my alle- gations: and indeed these and some other citations seemed somewhat too large to be crowded into a margin.
3. It was especially necessary, that my citations from the Liturgies should at once be proposed to my reader’s view; because some of my arguings depend on the series and con- nection of the several parts of those Liturgies; and I knew no method so proper for the attaining those ends which 1 proposed as that which I have therefore taken.
11. Some citations are here given in English only, as
1. Those which are taken from modern Latin writers; for I thought it would be an unnecessary piece of punctilious- ness to produce the original words of authors whose language
ADVERTISEMENT. 55
is very plain and easy, and their books not so rare to be found as those of the ancients.
2. Some counter-citations taken from the adversaries of the doctrmes which I here defend, are represented in the translation of them, by whom they are alleged ; for the reader will not suspect that our adversaries are partial against themselves.
3. In the proof that John vi. is meant of the Eucharist, there are several citations from Origen’s Homilies produced in English only ; this is done for no other reason, but because these citations are somewhat long, and in which the main cause (that of the Sacrifice) is not directly concerned; and therefore I thought it best in this case to spare my reader’s cost, and not to swell the volume by inserting the Latin.
If there are any other citations in English only, they are so few, or so trite and obvious, that I need make no apology for them.
PREFACE
THE SECOND EDITION.
Iris some comfort to me that I live to see a second edi- tion of a book, of which it is hard to say, whether it cost me more pains in composing, or more patience in bearing the severe censures that have been passed against me for it.
It is now more than ten years since the first publication?. During all this time nothing that deserves the name of an answer hath appeared against it; but only two or three im- potent pamphlets ; a fardel or two of calumny and buffoonery : and now and then a gird in a printed sermon or other dis- course.
The generality of my adversaries have contented them- selves with saying some wild rude things against the doc- trine, or myself, and charging me in general with absurdities or contradictions, which yet they have not been able to point out, however, not to prove.
The most modish and compendious way of confuting my books on this subject, is by saying that the practice of some Churches is no necessary rule for all. Yet no one hath been able to shew us one single Church of two hundred years’ standing, which did not own the Eucharist to be a Sacrifice, and practise it as such. The Gothic Missals may at first sight seem defective as to this particular; but when fully examined and understood, they too give evidence that the most rude and ignorant, as well as the most knowing and best informed Churches of old, did celebrate the Eucharist as a Sacrifice.
The silence of our most able divines against the doctrine of the Sacrifice, or the little notice they have taken of it, may seem a tacit approbation of it. However, if any of them are really adversaries to it, 1 should be glad if they would give the world a specimen of the strongest, or most specious argu-
" (The first Edition came out in 1714; the second (of which the present is a reprint) in 1724. ]
58 PREFACE
ments that can be found against this doctrine. And Tam
persuaded this had been done, if such as are the best judges had any thing to offer on this head, which they thought would bear the test.
I was in hopes I had my wish, when some months since 1 was told by my correspondent at London, that the Reverend Mr. Rymer, in a book of his just then published”, had strongly opposed this doctrine. And it must be confessed that this brother of ours hath acquired a great reputation in this diocese for his learning and good sense. And on this account I honour him, though personally unknown to me. Therefore what he hath said on this head claims a right to be considered by me, with a just regard to his character. I meddle not with any part of his book, excepting that which is supposed to have been particularly aimed against the doc- trine which I assert. He speaks* of Sacraments in general. But I shall consider his words as if they had been meant of the Eucharist only. For what he says of both Sacraments cannot hold, unless it may be applied to the Eucharist as well as to Baptism. |
His fundamental assertion as to this point is in the follow- ing words, viz.
“ A Sacrament is not supposed (in its most essential part) an application made by men to God, but one made to men by God. It is not, in its essential and primary design, a ser- vice whereby men propitiate God. It is a gracious con- descension of God’s by which He converses with men, and exhibits to them spiritual blessings.” Soon after he adds, “God’s part is indeed the whole that is strictly and properly sacramental 4,”
Now, in direct opposition to this, I affirm, that not God (ab- stractedly) but God-Man, or Jesus Christ, is principal in this Sacrament ; that He, as Mediator and partaker of the human nature as well as of the Divine, is the Author of this Sacra- ment; that He therein exhibits His Body and Blood in mystery ; He exhibits them (by the hands of His ministers) as Mediator of the new, everlasting Covenant, and therefore
® A General Representation of Re- © In the first citation.
mae Religion. Printed for Walthoe, * Page 286.
TO THE SECOND EDITION. 59
first to God and then to men, to the whole Christian Church.
Our Saviour hath so expressly declared the Eucharist to be a covenant, that I conceive no judicious Christian can doubt of it. And to enter into covenant, or to renew a cove- nant without a mutual application of the parties concerned, is inconsistent with the nature of the thing. In truth, this Sacrament is a communion between God and man, as abun- dantly appears from the following book, but especially from the second part.
What I have hitherto cited from this author contains only the premisses of his argument. Let us next consider his conclusion, which is comprised in these words of his:
“Tf a Sacrament® exhibits to us some spiritual favour given to us, and is an application made by God to man, then changing the elements in the Lord’s Supper into a material sacrifice of our own, and making them an application of men to God, exhibiting to Him what He is to be understood to exhibit to us, urging this continual remembra=ce on God, not on our own hearts; this is offering up strange fire, it is ex- cluding the Sacrament by the Sacrifice.”
Now here it is to be observed, that the conclusion contains more than the premisses, when both are fairly stated. And I appeal to himself, whether the sum of his premisses as con- tained in his book be not this, that “a Sacrament is principally an application made by God to men,” and whether he did not intend the sum of his conclusion to be this, viz. “ there- fore the Lord’s Supper is not an application made by men to God.” If he did not intend this to be his conclusion, he could not mean any thing at all against the Sacrifice of the Eucharist. And if he did intend this for his conclusion, he meant more than can be found in the premisses. For the premisses only assert that “a Sacrament is principally an application of God to men,” now this does by no means imply that “a Sacrament may not also be an application of men to God : and yet this is the only conclusion that can be of any use to this writer. And that the Eucharist is an application of God to man, and of man to God, is the doctrine at large asserted by me in the following work, and is indeed suffi-
© Pages 297, 298.
60 PREFACE
ciently proved from its being a covenant, as I just before observed.
When our writer asserts that a Sacrament is principally an application of God to man, sure he would not be thought to deny that it is also an application of men to God. Nay, he himself does by implication own that it is so. His words are, “ Herein consists man’s part (of a Sacrament), a most hearty reverence and gratitude, a most affectionate love and devo- tion’.” For how can these be paid without an application of men to God? But Iam sorry that among the good qualities — on man’s part, he should omit the principal, which is faith, and without which the Sacrament cannot be discerned, or perceived to be what it is.
And if application is to be made by men to God in the © Eucharist, then what more proper and solemn manner of doing it can be assigned than that of sacrifice? This is the way by which the patriarchs and all holy men of old were by God instructed to make their most important addresses to — Him. This is the manner by which the primitive Church — offered their devotions to Him. And thus they were taught to do by our blessed Saviour Himself.
Christ, as our Mediator, must first have offered the Sacri- fice of His mysterious Body and Blood to God, before He could exhibit them to His Apostles to be eat and drunk, as pledges, symbols, and seals of the Divine- promises. The blessings must first have been procured from God by sacri- fice, before they could be exhibited to men, as tokens of the Divine favour. As the natural Body and Blood of Christ are the foundation of the Gospel covenant, so the sacramental Body and Blood are substituted instead of the natural; and are therefore first to be presented to the most worthy party in this covenant, the Infinite Granter of all the mercies be- — longing to it ; and then in the next place to the least worthy persons, or the grantees, the whole body of Christian people. Therefore no man need stick to say in opposition to this writer, that the principal or primary part in the Sacrament of the Eucharist is the application of men to God, through the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.
Our author would have it thought that by asserting the
! Page 387.
TO THE SECOND EDITION. 61
oblation in the Eucharist, we change the elements into a Sacrifice of our own. And when he hath proved that we have not the authority of Christ for making the oblation, we are willing to he under the imputation of counterfeiting Divine institutions.
He aggravates our pretended crime by saying, that “we exclude the Sacrament by the Sacrifice.” These words only shew that he is very angry with us, and, as I humbly con- ceive, without a cause. No man, to my remembrance, hath ever charged us with this crime before this writer; nor will he be able to point out the particular, in which we do impair or mutilate the Eucharist, considered as a Sacrament.
His next article of impeachment against us is, that “ we urge the continual remembrance on God, not on our own hearts.” I suppose he means the remembrance of Christ’s death. I cannot suppose that he argues against us as guilty of a fault in frequently urging on God the remembrance of Christ’s death, because the Church does this three times every week in the Litany. And I suppose all good Chris- tians often do this in their private prayers, when they enforce them through the death, merits, or satisfaction of Christ Jesus. Therefore the fault he means must consist in not urging the remembrance of Christ’s death “on our own hearts.” If he knew the man that is wanting in this point, let him declare his name, and set a mark upon him. I amas ready as he can be to condemn this defect in him. But still the fault is personal, and may as well be fixed on them that deny the doctrine of the Sacrifice, as on them that defend it. This in either case cannot be the fault of the doctrine, but of the man.
But as if he had not yet sufficiently expressed his indigna- tion against us, he proceeds to enhance our crime, and that he may.do it in the most sanctified manner, he clothes his causeless wrath in Scripture language; he tells us, we “ offer up strange fire.” He might even as justly have accused us of offering human flesh, as the heathen did the primitive Christians. We offer, or desire to offer, the Sacrifice which Christ hath taught us, a Sacrifice “strange” to none that are Christians, except such as confine their views to modern ages and notions. The “fire” we offer is that of sincere prayers and
62 PREFACE
praise, “ strange” to none but infidels and atheists. We offer the same “fire,” that this author and his friends do. The difference is this; they choose to offer their fire in the Eucharist without any proper Sacrifice, and by this means render it a fire, strange, unknown to all Christians of the preceding ages. We desire and endeavour to preserve the pristine union betwixt the fire and the Sacrifice.
His professed design was to abolish and nullify the Sacri- fice ordained by Christ: therefore I leave it to my reader to judge, who it is that is guilty of sacrilege under the appear- ance of devotion. When he can shew that we do exclude, or in any point derogate from the Eucharist as a Sacrament, we may justly be charged with sacrilege. But he attempts not to prove this, though he hath affirmed it. His allegations against us are of a very high and heinous nature. What his evidence and arguments are, I submit to the judgment of others; declaring at the same time, that I shall always be among the foremost in extollmg and even magnifying his great abilities. There are several other particulars, in which this worthy person seems to me mistaken in the account he gives us of a Sacrament. But this shall suffice at present.
Before I conclude, I think it necessary to renew a former request to my reader, viz. That he would take my sentiments not from the representation of others, but from my own books only. And I must add, that even the citations made from those books are not always to be depended upon. I have fresh occasion given for this in a stitched book, entitled ‘The Doctrine of the Eucharist stated? The anonymous author cites me for saying”, “It must be confessed, that it does not appear, from any of these writers, that the officiating priest did offer the Sacrifice by prayer.” By these words, as there posted, he would insinuate my opinion to be, that Sacrifice is not to be offered by prayer: though in the be- ginning of that very paragraph‘, and in the following pages, I make it my business to prove, that prayer was always the medium, by which the Sacrifice was offered. Again, he ob- serves that in the words of institution, instead of “He gave thanks,” I have translated the text, “He eucharistized” the
& Printed 1720, for Bickerton. i See Unbloody Sacrifice, Part 11. h Page 4]. pp. 82, 83.
TO THE SECOND EDITION. 63
bread and wine: upon which he cries out/, “ Eucharisted them! that is, thanked them, this is wonderful.” Thus he leaves it to the reader to suppose, that I do really by eucha- ristizing mean giving of thanks, without giving the least hint that I have upon several occasions proved at large that the Greek* εὐχαριστεῖν is there used transitively, and hath the same signification with εὐλογεῖν, and that the blessing ter- minated on the bread and wine.
When this second edition was almost out of the press, I was informed that the famous Dr. Clarke of St. James’s, in the twelfth of his seventeen sermons lately published, had undertaken to confute that sense of the context in John vi. which I have asserted.
Upon a perusal of the Doctor’s discourse, I cannot but think that the substance of what the Doctor hath there ad- vanced is sufficiently answered in my PRoor annexed to this volume, and in the Letter to my very learned friend. But because there are some peculiarities in this Doctor’s way of managing the argument, therefore I will not esteem what he hath said wholly unworthy of my notice.
He spends two thirds of his sermon in proving what is granted by all, viz. that ‘meat, bread, wine, and water,” do often signify “good instruction,” and that to “eat and drink” denote the receiving such instruction. And upon this ob- servation he undertakes to explain all that is said in this con- text. Page 272, he proceeds to the pinch of the argument in these words, “ There remains only one phrase more in this chapter, wherein the same figure of speech is carried yet fur- ther. Our Lord, in the 51st, 53rd, and following verses, setting forth the same thing under the still higher figure of ‘eating His flesh, and drinking His blood,’ which in the text (ver. 35.) and in several other verses of this chapter, He had before expressed by styling Himself ‘the Bread of life. But this, when that which hath already been said, be well considered, will have no great difficulty in it.” In the fore- going page he thus expresseth his sense of Christ’s being “ the
J See pp. 62, 63, of that book. 198, 246, 282, of this second edit. ; and
* See Unbloody Sacrifice, Part I. Part II. p. 244. pp- 189, 194, 242, 278, edit. first; and
64 PREFACE
Bread of life,” viz. “That the belief, and consequent practice of the doctrine of the Gospel, is the support and preserver οὔ the soul unto eternal life’? Now the Doctor in what he says above supposes he hath explained what is meant by eating — Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood, by explainmg those
words, “I am the Bread” (or rather the meat) “of hfe.” On — ἢ
the contrary, Christ explains bread or meat by flesh. For thus He speaks, “And the meat which I will give is My — flesh.” His flesh therefore was what He had promised His — disciples in the former part of the chapter under the name of meat. And that we may be the more sure that He meant His flesh, not His doctrine, He gives this further description of it, “My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Τ am confident that neither the Doctor nor any judicious divine will dispute, whether this character do best agree with His flesh or with His Gospel. I conclude therefore that by bread or meat, in the foregoing part of the chapter, we are to understand Christ’s flesh, according to our Saviour’s own exposition. And I must further add, that by flesh Christ meant His sacramental flesh; which flesh He gave to God for us; as He clearly declares in the institution of the Eucha- rist. And this is His flesh, not in gross substance, but by that quickening spirit and life with which it is animated, not by a mere dry metaphor or cold figure of speech, as Dr. Clarke would have it, but by real power and energy.
Some lines here follow, which I cannot think worthy of a repetition. Then he goes on, page 273, “After our Lord’s styling Himself the Bread of life, in the same sense as Wisdom, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus (chap. xxiv. vers. 21.), saying of herself, ‘they that eat me,’ ἕο. there cannot without great perverseness be put a wrong sense upon what He adds, vers. 56, ‘He that eateth My fiesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.” Now in answer to this, 1 must profess I see no justness of comparison between a fic- titious personated Wisdom introduced in Ecclesiasticus, and resembling herself to various trees or plants, and speaking magnificently of the fruits which she produced, and the honey and honey-comb inclosed in her stock, and calling on men to entertain themselves with these provisions (which she expresses by saying, ‘They that eat me,’ &c.), and on the
TO THE SECOND EDITION. 65
ther side a real human person, such as our Saviour was, leclaring that He would give His flesh to be eat, and espe- sially His blood to be drunk. It ought to have been proved hat some great master of religion, or philosophy, had used hese phrases, and meant nothing by them but receiving his loctrine, or imbibing his precepts, before a sentence of per- verseness had been passed against those that are not convinced by such defective proof. I have said what was sufficient on shis head in the first edition of this book, p. 395, which may be found p. 401 of this edition. But though no other master of religion did ever use these phrases, yet our Lord Himself hath upon another occasion used them, and used them there in a certain, and universally agreed sense, I mean, when He instituted the Eucharist. Then He commanded His disciples to “eat His Body,” and “drink His Blood.” These are the same phrases with those used here by St. John (for body and flesh are certainly the same); I cannot therefore but think it most enormously un- reasonable to take Christ Jesus as meaning one thing in one place, another in the other, by the same phrases, and especi- ally when He never used these phrases but twice in the whole course of His ministry. Dr. Clarke here unhappily forgot his own rule “ of finding the sense of Scripture in the Scrip- ture itself,’ p. 262 of this Sermon. I have spoken largely concerning this point of taking these same phrases in different senses in p. 407 of the first edition of this book, p. 412 of his edition. But the Doctor proceeds in his argument, p. 273, in these ords, “ Why should not what our Lord calls ‘eating His lesh” and ‘drinking His Blood,’ be as easily understood of ur imbibing, and digesting His doctrine, as St. Paul is by all en understood to speak in a figurative sense, when he says f all good Christians, ‘that they are members of Christ’s lesh, of His Body, and of His Bones.’” Now the answer ere is very obvious, that we are clearly determined to under- tand St. Paul as speaking of Christ’s union with, and af- ection to His Church, by another text of Scripture, viz. en. ii. 23, where this phrase is used in a sense very like his, if not the very same. When the Doctor can produce a
ext, where flesh and blood signifies doctrine, then his ques- JOHNSON. Ε
i 66 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. ΄
tion will be to the purpose. In the mean time let me have leave to ask him, why flesh and blood must in John vi. signify doctrine, when in the history of the institution of the Sacra- ment they certainly signify the consecrated elements ?
After all, I know not whether, p. 261, and 278, the Doctor have not said some things that imply that this context is to be understood of the Eucharist. But I am not at leisure to make disquisitions concerning the sense and meaning of his expressions. And there are several particulars omitted by me, which are very extraordinary, and full of bold novelties, which yet I shall dismiss at present, especially because they are most of them, if not all, obviated in the following volume.
In truth this Sermon seems the most hasty performance that ever came from Dr. Clarke’s pen. I would have no man take a measure of the Doctor’s acumen, or of his clear- ness of thought, or diction, from this little piece, which seems scarce worthy of his great name.
A DISCOURSE
ON THE
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, AND ALTAR.
INTRODUCTION.
CONTAINING SEVERAL DEFINITIONS OF SACRIFICE, AND THE AUTHOR’S OPINION OF THEM, AND HIS OWN DESCRIPTION OF IT.
Havine undertaken, with the Divine assistance, to prove that the Christian Eucharist is a Sacrifice properly so called, I suppose the first step I am to take is to shew, not only what I myself mean by the word Sacrifice, but that I take it in the same sense that the most learned men of all parties have understood it, and in such a sense as is most agreeable to the thing denoted by it. Now to satisfy my reader that my definition of a sacrifice is no invention of my own, made to serve a present turn, I shall first present him with those definitions, or descriptions of a sacrifice, which have been given by men of the greatest name, both among the Pro- testants and the Papists.
Melancthon’s definition of it is, a ceremony, or work, which we render “to God, in order to do honour to Him?.”
Mr. Calvin says, “ Sacrifice in its general acceptation sig- nifies whatever we offer to God; but we divide it,” as he goes on, “into two parts, the one we call λατρευτικὸν, or σεβαστι- xov, Which consists in honouring and worshipping God ; or, if you will, you may call it Εὐχαριστικὸν, as being offered by
a [**Sacrificium est opus a Deo esse Deum, quem sic colimus, et nos Mmandatum, faciendum, ut Deo tribua- __velle Ei subjectos esse.’? Melanchthon. tur honos, id est, ut ea obedientia Explicatio in Malachiam, ed. Witeberg. ostendamus nos affirmare Hune solum_ 160]. tom. ii. p. 545.]
F2
68 INTRODUCTION.
none, but such as are laden with immense blessings, and — make to God a return of themselves, their whole selves, and " all that they can do: the other we call propitiatory, or ex-— piatory, the design of which is to pacify the wrath of God, to © satisfy His justice, and by this means to wash, or wipe away — sin.” It ought not to be omitted, that he expressly declares, that he “calls that Sacrifice, which the Greeks sometimes call θυσία, sometimes προσφορὰ, according to the perpetual use of Scripture? :” so that this great man saw no difference — between a proper oblation and a sacrifice®. 7
The famous Dr. Spencer, who is as exact a writer on this — subject, as any that has yet appeared, gives us this account — of sacrifices, viz., Formally considered, they are gifts offered — to God, and solemnly consumed in honour to Him’. Mate- rially considered, they are animate things, as oxen, sheep, goats; or inanimate things, bread, wine, salt, and other things fit for food. Finally considered, they were called expiatory, when men brought gifts to the altar in order to appease God: they are called whole burnt offerings, when — intended for the rendering honour to God, and acknowledg-— ing His dominion; peace offerings, when they expressed a mind well and devoutly affected toward God; Eucharistic, or sacrifices of thanksgiving, or vows, when to signify grati- tude toward God; euctic, when for the obtaining of any
e 9)
blessing®.
>| * Quod generaliter acceptum, com- plectitur quicquvid omnino Deo offertur. —Proinde et nos in duo genera distri- buamus, ac alterum, docendi causa, vocemus λατρευτικὸν et σεβαστικὸν: quoniam veneratione cultuque Dei con- stat, quem 1111 fideles et debent et red- dunt: vel si mavis εὐχαριστικὸν : quan- doquidem a nullis Deo exhibetur nisi qui immensis Ejus beneficiis onusti, se totos cum actionibus suis omnibus Ili rependunt. Alterum propitiatorium, sive expiationis. Est autem expiationis sacri- ficium, cui propositum est iram Dei placare, Ipsius judicio satisfacere, eoque peccata abluere et abstergere.— Nos perpetuo Scripture usu sacrifi- cium appellari scimus, quod Greci nune θυσὶαν, nune προσφορὰν, nunc τελετὴν dicunt.”’? Calvin. Institutt., lib. iv. cap. xviii, sect. 13. ed. Lugdun. 1654. |
© See Institutions.
ἃ De Legib. Hebr., p. 640.
e [‘* Formaliter, quatenus munera fuerunt oblata Deo, et in Illius hono- rem solenniter consumpta.” p. 640. “Cum autem sacrificiorum materia duplex esset, nempe res animate (bo- ves, oves, et capre); res etiam inani- mate (panis, vinum, sal, aliaque men- sis adhiberi solita).” p. 656. ‘Cum enim Altari dona ferebant, ad placan- dum Deum, Expiatoria dicebantur ; cum ad honorem exhibendum, Deique dominium agnoscendum, Holocausta vel sacra honoraria: cum ad amicum et benevolum animum erga Deum sig- nificandum, Pacifica: cum ad indican- dam gratitudinem. Votiva vel Bucha- ristica: cum ad obtinendum benefi- cium, Ev«rina.’’? De Legibus Hebreo- rum, lib. iii. cap. 3. p. 664. ed. Cantab. 1685. |
INTRODUCTION. 69
Thomas Aquinas’s definition of a sacrifice is in these words, viz., “ Any thing done as an honour due to God alone, in order to procure His favourf.”
Bellarmine says, “ Sacrifice is an external oblation made to God Alone, by which some sensible and permanent thing is consecrated, and changed by a lawful Minister, and by mys- tic rites, for an acknowledgment of our weakness, and the Divine greatness.”
[Dr. Outram’s definition of a sacrifice is, “ an oblation duly consumed.” But to explain this he adds, “A sacrifice among the Jews was a holy thing offered to God, and with proper rites completed and consumed. And holy things were duly consumed, when they were killed, burnt, poured out, or made use of, for a sacred feast in a manner ordained by God'.” And in the very next section he says, “ Of those things, which were both offered and consumed in a proper manner, some had life, some had not.” Now though this learned man’s notion of a sacrifice be commonly esteemed contrary to the doctrine which I am now defend- ing, and he expressly undertakes the definition of a Jewish sacrifice only; yet I see no occasion to make any exception against his definition of a sacrifice, as here explained by him- self. The grand defect of his book seems to me to be this, that he makes the due consumption of the sacrifice to be the most necessary point of all, and yet never once offers to shew that the grand sacrifice of Christ was consumed either in whole or in part’. |
If I should produce as many more descriptions, or defini- tions of sacrifice from authors of equal reputation with these, if any such there be, who have treated on this subject, there would, I conceive, be nothing considerable contained in them but what is to be found in these, which I have already
£ [“ Sacrificium proprie dicitur ali- tur.” De Missa, lib. i. cap. 2. ed.
quid factum in honorem proprie Deo debitum, ad Eum placandum.”’ Thome Aquin. Summe Theologice, Pars 11]. Quest. xlviii. Art. 3. Conclusio. p. 101. ed. Duac. 1614.]
= [‘*Sacrificium est oblatio externa facta soli Deo, qua ad agnitionem humane infirmitatis et professionem Divine Majestatis, a legitimo minis- tro res aliqua sensibilis et permanens ritu mystico consecratur et transmuta-
1601. }
Ὁ [** Sacrificium, ad eorum (Judzo- rum) sententiam, ita definiri potest, ut sit προσφορὰ rite consumpta. Seu, ut paulo explicatius dicam, sacrificium, apud populum Hebreum, ejusmodi sacrum erat, tum rite confectum et consumptum.” De Sacrificiis, lib. 1 cap. viii. p. 82. ed. 1677. ]
i (This paragraph is added in 2nd ed. }
70 INTRODUCTION.
laid before the reader: and I have not much to object against any thing said by these very learned men: but yet 1 ought to mention the exceptions, how few or small soever which I have against them; or however to let my reader know in what sense I take some particular expressions, and in what sense I cannot admit of them. And
First, when Mr. Calvin supposes that a sacrifice must be a satisfaction to Divine justice, if it be intended for the expia- tion of sin, I must observe that the words, if strictly taken, can be applied to no sacrifice but that which was offered by Christ in person. I shall not therefore think myself obliged to prove that the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, as distinguished and abstracted from the grand Sacrifice, is a satisfaction for sin; nor can I believe that Mr. Calvin himself thought that any other sacrifice, in itself considered, could by its own intrinsic value expiate sin; and whoever asserts this doctrine does not only annul the sacrifice of the Eucharist, but all those sacrifices which were enjoined in the Levitical law; for
none of them were in themselves a satisfaction to Divine ~
justice.
Secondly, When Dr. Spencer asserts that a sacrifice is to be consumed, as well as offered, in honour to Almighty God, this is confessed to be true, if meant of the Levitical sacri- fices, of which the Doctor was treating; and it is true of all sacrifices, that they are to be consumed in the manner ap- pointed by God; but if the Doctor intended that it is essen- tial to all sacrifice to be consumed in the very act of oblation or by fire, then I must crave leave to dissent from him. The Passover was a perfect and solemn sacrifice, and owned as such by Dr. Spencer, as will hereafter appear: and yet we are assured, that it was neither in whole, nor in part, to be burnt upon an altar, nor consumed in being offered; and Dr. Spencer’s words do not imply this way of consumption to be in itself necessary: no, nor yet Dr. Outram’s, as he hath himself explained them.
Thirdly, When Bellarmine says a sacrifice must be conse- crated, it is acknowledged to be true: nay, the very act of oblation is a consecration of it: but when he speaks of its being changed, I must solemnly protest against the change by him intended, I mean, transubstantiation. A change is
es
INTRODUCTION. 71
confessed, that is, that the bread and wine from being common become holy, and the spiritual Body and Blood of Christ ; but that the substance of bread and wine is changed into the substance of Christ’s personal Body and Blood, I absolutely deny, and believe it to be as monstrous a doc- trine as ever was believed by any that call themselves Christians.
Therefore allowing all these definitions or descriptions of sacrifice, excepting as before excepted, I shall add one particular not mentioned by any of them, I mean a proper altar. I cannot indeed say, that this was ever esteemed so essential to a sacrifice, as that an oblation was esteemed null without it (excepting the case of most of the Levitical sacri- fices) ; but rather than make many words about it, I readily give it for granted, that an altar is necessary, though not to the essence, yet to the more commodious and solemn oblation of a sacrifice: and therefore I am now prepared to lay before my reader, what I think a full description of sacri- fice: viz.
Sacrifice is, 1. some material thing, either animate, or n- animate, offered to God, 2. for the acknowledging the do- minion, and other attributes of God, or for procuring Divine blessings, especially remission of sin, 3. upon a proper altar, (which yet is rather necessary for the external decorum than the internal perfection of the Sacrifice,) 4. by a proper officer, and with agreeable rites, 5. and consumed or otherwise dis- posed of in such a manner, as the Author of the Sacrifice has appointed. I shall speak to all these five particulars, by shewing,
I. In the first chapter, in what sense and degree every one of these five properties are necessary to a Sacrifice.
II. In the second, I shall shew that all these properties concur in the Eucharist, and that it is therefore a proper Sacrifice.
CHAP. Ne
Chis.
IN WHICH IS SHEWED IN WHAT SENSE AND DEGREE EVERY ONE OF THESE FIVE PROPERTIES ARE NECESSARY TO A SACRIFICE.
SECT. I.
Sacrifice is some material thing, either animate or inanimate, offered to God.
1. Tuar nothing can properly be called a sacrifice, but some material thing offered to God, is given for granted, though neither Melanchthon, nor Mr. Calvin, nor Aquinas, do expressly mention this particular; nay, the first and last of the three suppose it is sufficient that it be some ceremony, work, or action; but I shall not enlarge in a case where I think all parties are now agreed.
2. That the matter of the sacrifice must be some animate thing, some creature that has or had life, is a condition not mentioned by any of the great men above mentioned ; nay, Mr. Calvin allows, that a sacrifice and oblation are the same, according to the perpetual use of Scripture. And Dr. Spencer affirms, that a sacrifice materially considered is not only some animal, but bread and wine, or any thing fit for food; and therefore I cannot but think, that they who will allow nothing to be a sacrifice but what has life and blood, and is capable of mactation, have neither good authority nor reason for what they say.
[One of the most notable and constant sacrifices of the Jews, was a cake* made of wheat-flour and oil, and wholly burnt on the altar by the high priest, the one half in the morning, the other in the evening, every day in the year. This was called by the old Greek interpreters “a continual,
a Lev. vi. 20—22. The most judi- when he is anointed,’ say, ‘from the day cious moderns instead of, ‘in the day on which he is anointed.’
»:
A DISCOURSE ON THE UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, &e. 73
a perpetual sacrifice ;’ and by our English, “an offering per- SECT. 1.
petual, a statute for ever unto the Lord :” by both it is said
to be offered “for a sweet savour unto the Lord ;” and by
that priest of Aaron’s sons, “ who was to be anointed in his stead.” From this it appears, that the most noble, daily, pontifical sacrifice among the Jews was a cake of flour;
and this was a most lively type of our High Priest’s offering
His Sacramental Body. Josephus mentions this as still prac- : tised in his time; and he calls this daily action of the high
priest by the name of sacrificing’. Of these unbloody sacri-
fices I speak more largely in the second part of this work °. }
: They who have asserted that nothing is a sacrifice but
what is slain, have done it on supposition that θύω does That θύω properly and originally signify to kill, and that therefore oueinats θυσία, which denotes a sacrifice, must necessarily imply signify to
’ : ὕ slay, proved something that is slain. But I need not tell my learned from Aris-
reader, that no arguments are more fallacious than those ane which are built upon etymologies. At this rate of arguing, a man may deny that what I now write on is true paper, be- cause it is not made of an Egyptian shrub, or flag called _ mamrupos ; nay, it may safely be denied upon this hypothesis, that there is any such thing as a book to be sold in St. Paul’s church-yard ; because what we now call books do not consist of the rind of that tree which our ancestors called deoce, and from whence the present word book is commonly derived ; for just thus do they argue that deny any thing to be a sacrifice but what is slain, because θυσία has θύω for its theme. Of what force this way of arguing may be thought in this dis- pute 1 cannot say; but I am sure it would be thought mere chicanery in any cause but this. Yet, so far as I am capable of discerning, this is the only pretence that some men have for denying any thing that is unbloody to be a proper sacri- fice; and this pretence is so thin, that our adversaries have scarce the face to express it in words at length, but com- monly content themselves with saying, that bread and wine cannot strictly be a sacrifice. And if we enquire into the bottom of their argument, it is only this, that θύω does origi- nally signify to slay, according to their lexicons, or rather
® See Joseph., lib. iii. cap. 10. ὃ 7. Hudson’s edition. “ [Not in the Ist ed.]
CHAP. I.
74 A DISCOURSE ON THE
their own surmises; for if we look into the ancientest Greek writers, we shall certainly find that θύω did not at first sig- nify to slay, but to offer any thing to the gods, by burning it in the fire, or by any other prevailing rite. Now that this may be made very evident, I will first produce the words of Aristophanes in Plutus?:
ὅτι ovd ἂν εἷς θύσειεν ἀνθρώπων ἔτι,
οὐ βοῦν ἂν, οὐχὶ Ψαιστὸν, οὐκ ἀλλ᾽ οὔδεεν,
μὴ βουλομένου σοῦ.
Chremylus tells Plutus the blind god of riches, that “no man would sacrifice a bullock, nor any dry crumbled thing, nor any thing at all, without his consent,” that is, unless he gave them money to purchase what was to be offered. No- body, I suppose, ever suspected these ψαιστὰ were animals, or any part of animals; and yet Aristophanes supposes they may be sacrificed, as well as a bullock. We have clear proof of this signification of the word in Homer, who tells us, that Eumeeus having killed his best swine in honour to the nymphs, Mercury, and the other gods, by burning the several portions of those gods in the fire, and reserved the chine for Ulysses, who was come to him in disguise; after he had in- vited Ulysses to fall on, the poet adds,
> Lm) a a ΄ "» , * H pa, καὶ ἄργματα θῦσε θεοῖς εἰειγενέτησιν Σπείσας δ᾽ αἴθοπα οἶνον, ᾿Οδυσσῆϊ πτολιπόρθῳ
Ἔν χείρεσσιν €Onxey, ——-_————_—_®
All that was done in relation to the sacrifice, before they came to the feasting part, is expressed by fepevew, σφάττειν, and evew; but when they are going to eat, “ Eummus,” says Homer, “ sacrificed the nice bits, or first cut, to the eternal gods ;” where θύειν cannot signify to kill; for the swine was not only slain, but all, except the chine, burnt before; there- fore by ἄργματα θῦσε he can mean nothing but his offering some principal part of the viands, either by casting them into the fire, or by some other religious rite. And Eustathius, from this and other passages in Homer, concludes‘, that in this most ancient writer Qvew has the same sense with θυμιᾶν,
¢ Act I. scen. ii. [l. 137. ed. Din- f [σφάξαι μὲν, τὸ ἱερουργῆσαι ζῶον" dorf. | θῦσαι δὲ, τὸ θυμιάσαι. Vid. Eust. in loco. “Οδυσσ. Ἐ. 1. 446. ed, Rom. 1551.]
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, &c. 75
that to sacrifice is only to burn, or make a perfume to the gods, and therefore not to slay. Athenzus says®, that θύειν is never used by Homer for offering the victim; (for in this sense he made use of ῥέζειν, and δρᾶν) but only of the | avaiora, the broken fruits and such like, the only sacrifices of the ancient Greeks". This would incline one to believe, that the ἄργματα now mentioned was none of the swine’s flesh, but either some choice fruits or cakes; and what follows favours this, viz. “ he made a libation of wine.” We have another great authority for this from Theophrastus, Aristotle’s scholar, cited by Porphyry, and from him by Eusebius’, and produced lately by Mr. Dodwell in his learned book “Concerning the use of Incense’.” The words which make most for the present purpose are as follows. Speaking of the inhabitants of the Egyptian Delta, To ye πάντων λογιώτατον γένος ἤρξωτο πρῶτον ad’ ἑστίας τοῖς οὐρανίοις θεοῖς θύειν" οὐ σμύρνης, οὐδὲ κασίας, καὶ λιβανω- τοῦ κρόκῳ μιχθέντων ἀπαρχὰς, --- ἀλλὰ χλόης, οἱονεί τινα τῆς γονίμου φύσεως χνοῦν ταῖς χερσὶν ἀράμενοι --- ἐκ δε τῆς θυμι- ἄσεως τῶν ἀπὸ γῆς θυμιατήριά τε ἐκάλουν, καὶ τὸ θύειν, καὶ θυσίας, ἅ δὴ ἡμεῖς οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἐξακούομεν, τὴν διὰ τῶν ζώων δοκοῦσαν θεραπείαν καλοῦντες θυσίαν... πολλοὶ καὶ νῦν ἔτι θύουσι συγκεκομμένα τῶν εὐωδῶν ξύλων τινα. “This most rational people began first to sacrifice to the heavenly gods from the household fires, to sacrifice not the first-fruits of myrrh, cassia, and frankincense mixed with saffron; but of grass which they cropped with their hands, being as it were a certain down of teeming nature. ... It was from this burn- ing the products of the earth, by way of incense, that they gave the name of thumiateria to the censers, and of thuein to the action of burning them, and of ¢husia to the thing sacrificed, which we now do not rightly understand, when we give the name of sacrifice to the pretended worship by ani- mals. Many do to this day sacrifice some chips of the sweet- scented trees.” In which words Theophrastus declares that the word θύσια, sacrifice, is improperly applied to offering of
& [‘Ounpds τε τὸ ῥεζειν, ἐπι τοῦ θύειν 1 De Prep. Evangel., lib. i. cap. 9. τάσσει, τὸ δὲ θύειν ἐπι τοῦ ψαιστὰ μετα- [p. 28. ed. Par. 1628. } δόρπια θυμιᾶν. καὶ οἱ παλαιοὶ τὸ θύειν J ῬΉ 0. δρᾷν ὠνόμαζον. Lib. xiv. ] * [ Mr. Dodwell’s reading is followed
᾿ς ἃ See Dr. Potter’s Antiq.Gr. [B. II. here. ] mec. ly. |
SECT. E
CHAP. 1.
Heb. xi. 4.
Gen.iy. 3~5.
76 A DISCOURSE ON THE
animals, and that originally it did not signify an oblation
slain in honour to God, and that inanimate things are most _
properly sacrifices, if we regard either the thing itself, or the words used to denote it. And Plato, who was certainly one that very well understood both the notions and the language
of the old Greeks, gives this account of it, θύειν δωρεῖσθαί ἐστε
τοῖς θεοῖς". “To sacrifice is to give to the gods.” It is clear
indeed by what Theophrastus says, that even in his time, who _ lived many hundred years after Homer, and about the time |
that the LXX made a translation of the Jewish law from the Hebrew into the Greek tongue, the word sacrifice was most commonly applied to the offermg of animals; but he com-
plains of it as an innovation, and as an instance of degene- —
racy, both as to the practice itself, and the language by which
it was expressed ; and the LXX translators were so sensible of —
this, that they use the word sacrifice for all altar oblations, inanimate as well as animate; and this is a thing so well known, that my reader will excuse me if I do not spend time
in the proof of it. He that doubts of it, I will be bold to say, —
may be convinced by one single chapter, viz. Numb. vi., where he will find the Hebrew nnz, which in strictness signifies no more than an offering of bread or meal, turned by the LXX θυσία thirteen times, if I number right, viz., ver. 13, 19, 25,
31, 37, 48, 49, 55, 61, 67, 73, 79, 87; and it is known that ;
the writers of the New Testament do for the most part use the idioms of the LXX. St. Paul follows them in this par- ticular ; for he calls the fruits of the earth offered by Cain, θυσία, ‘a sacrifice,” as well as the cattle offered by Abel, as the LXX had done before. And it is very evident that, in this particular, the idiom of the LXX was agreeable to the no- tions of the ancient Greeks, and to the critique of Theo- phrastus, Athenzeus, and Eustathius, who seem rather to appropriate the word sacrifice to manimate, than animate sacrifice, and to the definition of Plato, who says, “to sacri- fice is to give to the gods.” It is true, as Theophrastus intimates, that the Greeks of his age, and I may add of all ages after him, did commonly take the word θυσία to be derived from the verb θύω, as signifying “to slay ; but it is evident too, that this was but a vulgar prejudice, and that ' See Dr. Spencer, de Legib. Hebr., p. 665.
ee EN
cum
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, ἕο. a6
θύω was never thought to bear any such signification, until sEcT. bloody sacrifices came in vogue, and by usually applying E this verb to the offering these bloody sacrifices, the men of after ages began to think that it denoted mactation. It were easy to give instances of words in all known languages, that have thus in several ages varied their significations upon occasions; but the thing is so well known, that I may well spare my pains. Our adversaries seem to value their own notions and opinions more than those of the ancients, chiefly on this account, that they live in an age, in which the original languages are better understood, than they were by the primitive fathers; but if these languages are now better understood, it is evident, that they who value themselves on this account, are none of those who know Greek better than the Fathers did. Even the Latin Fathers knew well enough that an inanimate thing may be a sacrifice: the vulgar Italic Bible would teach them this, where nn3y, and θυσία, is often rendered by sacrificium ; and it will appear by several cita- tions hereafter to be produced, that they did actually so under- stand it. And though some of the Greek Fathers seem to think that θύω did originally signify to slay, (for what man is so wise, as not to be carried down the stream of vulgar mistakes, as to some particulars?) yet they never argued as our adversaries do, that therefore nothing can be a proper sacrifice, but what can be slain: they did not build their faith upon so airy a foundation as an etymology. As to the manner of consuming the sacrifice, viz., by burning, which some of the ancient Greeks seem to think is implied in the verb θύω, 1 shall have another occasion to speak of it ere long. In the mean time let our adversaries consider, that they cannot deny an inanimate thing to be capable of being made a sacrifice, but that they must suppose themselves better acquainted with the Greek tongue than Homer, Aris- tophanes, or Plato; and that they are better critics than Athenzus, or Theophrastus, or Eustathius; not to mention the authority of the LXX, the Apostle, and the most primi- tive Church, which are certainly sacred with all good Chris- We dispute
Ε canes 5 not for tian divines. And lest our adversaries or others should words, ours think that we contend for words, let them assure themselves, })04y «x-
that if it be once granted, that an inanimate oblation may crifice.
CHAP. I.
78 A DISCOURSE ON THE
serve all the ends of a real sacrifice, this is all that we demand. | For though we cannot see any reason to drop the use of a | word that has been applied to the Eucharist for above | fifteen hundred years together, without any observable con- — tradiction, yet we at the same time declare with all anti- — quity, that ours is an unbloody Sacrifice. And because — the Church of Rome has misapplied this title to their mis-— satic Sacrifice, we therefore further declare, that we believe - not the very substantial or personal Blood of Christ to be — there offered, as the Papists do, and therefore cannot, in any tolerable sense, call that an unbloody Sacrifice. But lest my a reader should surmise that I labour only to prove an oblation — of mere material bread and wine, and that such an oblation - seems not worthy of our zeal and concern, I shall only re- — mind him, that a sacrifice, or oblation of bread and wine, — though in itself considered it be of no great worth, yet may be of inestimable value on other considerations. And I can- | not but admire to see one of our adversaries cite Greek upon us to prove that an ox or sheep is in itself better than a loaf of bread, as if he knew no other standard of the value of a sacrifice than the market price of it, or the external qualities inherent in it. They who estimate sacrifices by this rule, are just such appraisers of the representative sacrifice as Judas and the high priests were of the original, when they set It at thirty pieces of silver.
SECT. II.
That Sacrifice, properly so called, is offered for the acknow- ledging the dominion and other attributes of God, and for procuring Divine blessings, especially remission of sin.
Tus is a truth implied, if not expressed, in all the descrip- tions of a sacrifice above produced. It were very easy to. make a great show of reading on this occasion; but since there is an unanimous consent on all sides as to this head, I shall no longer dwell upon it.
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, Xe. 79
SECT. ) SECT: fii: _ as
That a proper Sacrifice is to be offered on a proper Altar (though the altar be rather necessary to the external deco- rum than the internal perfection of the sacrifice).
I svupposE any convenient utensil, table, or eminence, whether natural or artificial, of whatsoever materials it be framed, on which a material sacrifice is offered, may be ealled an altar. If it be solely, or chiefly set apart, or dedi- eated to this use, it is a proper altar; and if it be erected for offering sacrifice by fire, it must be furnished with a fire- hearth, or be capable of being used as such; such was the altar of burnt-offering at Jerusalem : if it be only used once, or rarely, it is an occasional or vicarious altar. In this sense the rock on which Manoah made an oblation is called an Judges xiii. altar; and yet if the fabric be built on purpose for the mak- = ing one single oblation, I see no reason why in this case it may not be deemed a proper altar; as that, for instance, which Abraham built, on which he intended to offer his son Gen. xxii.9. Isaac, which was an oblation never to be repeated. There is this difference between a fixed, proper, appropriated altar, and an occasional or vicarious one; that an altar of the first sort sanctifies the gifts laid on it, as our Saviour says of the altar of burnt-offering at Jerusalem; and the same may be Matt. xxiii. said, I apprehend, of all altars that are raised by due autho- "Ὁ rity, and designed and publicly known to be for no other use but for receptacles of such things as are to be devoted to the service of God; for in this case, the solemn placing of any thing on it is an effectual declaration that the thing so placed on it is God’s peculiar right and property; but this I think cannot be said of any other occasional tumultuary elevation made for the offering sacrifice once and away. I should in this case rather say, that the gift sanctifies the altar, than the altar the gift; for I cannot conceive how such an altar ean have any sort of sanctity but what it receives from the oblation made upon it, except it have been by some previous act and deed consecrated to the worship of God. But this is only my conjecture, and the present dispute does no way depend upon it.
Cov PB: I.
Ex. xii. 22.
See 2 Chr. ROCK he
80 A DISCOURSE ON THE
What is more pertinent, and more clear, is, that a proper fixed altar is not absolutely necessary to the internal perfec- tion of a sacrifice ; the reasons of which opinion are, that it does not appear, that Abel or Cain made use of any, in offer- ing the first sacrifices that are recorded in Holy Writ; and it seems utterly improbable, that every family of the Israelites should, in their several houses, have had a proper fixed altar for the first Paschal sacrifice offered in the land of Egypt; and if they had had such altars, it is not credible that they should have been commanded to sprinkle the blood of the lamb “on the lintel, and the two side-posts of their doors,” but as was done after they had a tabernacle, and other conve- niences of worship, on the altar itself, and yet that the pass- over was a sacrifice properly so called, I shall presently have occasion to shew. By the words of Theophrastus, just now cited, it appears that the ancient Grecians sacrificed m their domestic fires, and therefore, if they had altars, did not think
them essential to a sacrifice™. I have not advanced this essential to a sacrifice, as if I
m [Here follows in the first edition, “The old Persians had neither tem- ples, nor altars, and yet offered animal sacrifice. [ Herod. Clio, ce, 132.] See Propitiatory Oblation, p. 121, 122. The cross, on which the mactation of the grand sacrifice was performed, may be justly said to be an occasional altar, not indeed in the intention of those who erected it, but by the Divine de- cree and purpose. Nay, though no other sacrifice was ever designed to be made on it, yet it has this peculiar to itself, that by the all-wise will and pleasure of God, ‘The Lamb that was to be slain was decreed to bear our sins in His own body on the tree;’ (1 Pet. 11. 24.): and so that tree may in some sense be said to be a proper altar, not withstanding its shape and figure ; and its being to be used but once, does no more prove this to be an improper altar, than it proves that which was built for the offering Isaac to be such. And I apprehend, that it is upon these considerations that the cross is called an altar by Origen, and by St. Am- brose.” “Ubi vero tempus advyenit erucis suz, et accessurus erat ad altare ubi immolaret hostiam carnis sue, ac-
opinion, that an altar is not had any apprehension that the
cipiens, inquit, calicem, benedixit, et dedit discipulis suis: Accipite, et bibite ex hoc. Vos, inquit, bibite, qui modo accessuri non estis ad altare. Ipse autem tanquam accessurus ad altare, dicit de se: Amen dico vobis, quia non bibam de generatione vitis hujus, usquequo bibam illud vobiseum novum in regno Patris Mei.” Origenis in Leviticum, Homilia vii. tom. ii. p. 220. ed. Paris. 1733. ‘An non tibi vi- detur effudisse sanguinem suum, de cujus latere supra ipsum passionis al- tare aqua cucurrit et sanguis?’’ S. Am- brosii Epistolarum Classis ii. Ep. Ixy. tom, ii. p. 1054. ed. Paris. 1686. ‘ Mi- rabile illud altare, in quo Unius Agni sacrificium tulit peceata mundi.” S. Amb. in Ps. exviii. Expositio, tom. i. p- 1002. Cf. Vitringa, Observationes Sacre, 1. ii. c. 13. p. 228. ed. Frane- quer. 1689. “dra in quantum porta- Vit sacrificium, idque in altum tulit, sig- num fuit crucis, in quam Christus fol- leretur, in quam elevaretur, et in qua Se Ipsum ut sacrificium Patri suo sisteret, quzeque Christum portaret.”’ See Gothof. Voigti Thysiasteriologia, sive De Altaribus Veterum Christianorum, cap. xix. pp. 31, 2.ed. Hamburg. 1709. ]
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, &c. 81
Eucharist is destitute of a proper Altar, for I shall hereafter 5 ΟΎ. prove a proper Altar in the Christian Church. And though Βα I am not convinced that a proper Altar is absolutely neces-
sary for a proper Sacrifice, yet I am fully persuaded that whatever is offered by a Priest on a proper Altar, may strictly ;
be called a Sacrifice.
SECT. IV.
That a proper Sacrifice is to be offered by proper officers, and with agreeable rites.
Tus indeed is mentioned by Bellarmine only, in the de- Priests ne- scriptions of Sacrifice above produced, but it seems to have ea been the sense of all mankind; and, therefore, when great “@Hice- numbers of clans and families, whose several heads had before been their kings and priests, were embodied together by con- quest or voluntary submission, or were by other means ex- eeedingly enlarged and multiplied, and occupied many exten- sive countries, and had many cities and districts, governed by subordinate magistrates in civil matters, they all unani- mously provided distinct officers for the inspection and cele- bration of divine offices. Such were the several fraternities of priests instituted in the infancy of the Roman empire by Numa, as Plutarch informs us in the history of his life". Such were the several ranks of priests among the Grecians, for which I refer my reader to Dr. Potter’s Antiquities®, and others who have written on this subject. Such were the Magi among the Persians, as Herodotus informs us?. Egypt, as it was one of those countries that were first of all Well stocked with people, who were invited thither by the fertility of the soil, so we are assured that there was in this country a settled priesthood, with an unalienable maintenance in lands, before Jacob’s descent into Egypt, and before the date of any history now in being, excepting that of Moses. And Hero- dotus, the most ancient of the Greek historians, takes notice of these priests in his Euterpe, and says, they received their office by succession or inheritance’. And when God by His Gen. xvii. especial providence had multiplied Abraham’s posterity into i
" [p. 68. ed. Francofurt. 1599. ] P [Clio, c. 132.]
° [B. ii. c. 3.] : 4 fe. 37.]
JOHNSON. G
CH ACR: if
Ritesneces- sary are only those actions by which the oblation is made.
82 A DISCOURSE ON THE
a nation, and resolved to form them, not only into a body” politic, but a religious society, He Himself separated one of | the twelve tribes of which their nation consisted, for the more immediate attendance on His Divine Majesty in reli- gious worship. And it was declared to be present death for: any man to intrude into the sacred office, or with unsanctified hands to touch any thing which God had committed to their care and direction. And though Sacrifice was not the only employment of these religious officers, yet this was always thought the most honorary and valuable function of the priesthood ; and therefore only the elder house of that tribe, — whom God was pleased to make choice of for the sacred ministry, were intrusted with the privilege of offering sacrifice. And even in the heathen nations, none were permitted to perform this office in public, but only such as had been solemnly dedicated to this function.
And as all momentous actions are to be performed with a due decorum, and with just solemnity, so it is especially ne- cessary that this most weighty negotiation betwixt God and man be executed with agreeable rites, and with circumstances" befitting such holy institutions. But if we enquire into those: rites which were peculiar to Sacrifice, we shall find them to be no other but the very actions of offermg them. I will not pretend to say that there never were any ceremonies esteemed necessary by some particular people, for some par- ticular sacrifices, but what I affirm is, that no rite is essen= tial to Sacrifice in general, but only the very act or acts of oblation. For if it were otherwise, the Levitical sacrifices were in reality null; for no rites were necessary in offering them but sprinkling the blood, and burning the whole, or part of the sacrifice. And I suppose it needs no proof, that these, with the prayers, were the very rites by which the sacerdotal
whole sacrifice was consecrated to God, and the atoneme at made; and by burning the part or the whole on the Altar God had what He required actually yielded to Him’. This
τ (“So that these ritual actions were that performed the office. Nor can J indeed no other but what were used as upon the best enquiry I am able 6 vocal signs, with which the sacrifice make, find any ceremony generall} was presented toGod. The priest used thought necessary for offering a sacri- no words; but the actions were signifi- fice, but only the actions, whereby the cant, and spake the thoughts of him _ sacrifice was presented.’’ First Ed.]_
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, &c. 83
argument is more largely and clearly pursued, part 11. ch. 1. SECT. : IV. sect. Vl. eee
SECT. V.
A sacrifice must be consumed in such a manner as the author of it, or God to whom it is offered, hath appointed.
Dr. Spencer [and Dr. Outram] affirm this in express words, and Bellarmine means the same; for the change, I suppose, in his sense, is the consumption of the sacrifice. And though we can allow of no such change, yet we must confess, that God has so peculiar a right in things so solemnly offered and appropriated to Him, that it would be profane and sacrilegious to dispose of them otherwise, than He Him- self has directed. If God indeed had expressly declared, that the material sacrifice was to be bestowed or destroyed, according to the discretion of those who offered it; then, I suppose, no human authority could restrain this liberty granted by God; but it is not rational to suppose, that God should make no distinction between sacred and profane, be- tween what had been offered to Him, and what had not; and yet it appears from Herodotus, that the old Persians were persuaded, that they might make what use of their sacrifices they themselves pleased’. Our adversaries would have it, Consump- that it is essential to sacrifice to be consumed by fire; but a eg upon what grounds they assert this, they inform us not. ae On the other side we are assured, that none of the Levitical sacrifices, but burnt-offerings, and offerings for the sins of the priest and congregation, were wholly consumed in this manner. The greatest, much the greatest part of the usual sin and trespass-offering was consumed by manducation. Nothing but the fat, and the caul, and the kidneys, were to be burnt on Lev. iv. the Altar, and the rump, if it were a trespass-offering ; and the uaa 3. same may be said of the peace-offerings. So that the only way {°v ™® of consuming the Levitical sacrifices was not by fire; nay, the greatest part of them were consumed in another way ; the main of the sacrifices were to be eaten either by priest, or
S [ἀποφέρεται 6 θύσας τὰ κρέα, καὶ χρᾶται ὅ τι μιν λόγος aipéet.—Clio, c. 132. ]
a2
CHEAP: it
Passover a proper Sa- crifice, yet not con- sumed by fire.
Ex. xii. 9.
84 A DISCOURSE ON THE
people, or both. [Dr. Outram, as cited in the Introduction, allows that what was made use of for a sacred feast was con- sumed as a sacrifice.]t And I presume no one can doubt, but that the carcase was as rightly consumed by manducation, as the fat, caul, kidneys, and rump were by fire. And by conse- quence, if the whole had been directed to be eaten by the law, then the whole had been by this means rightly consumed ; for there is no reason but the will of the legislator, why the whole, as well as the greatest part of these sacrifices, might not be consumed by manducation. And to make this more evident, it is to be considered that the Passover was entirely to be consumed by being eaten, even “ the head, and the legs, and the purtenance thereof,” as well as the body of the lamb. So that this is an unexceptionable instance of a sacrifice, wholly consumed, without fire, and by manducation. That the Passover was a Sacrifice, properly so called, we are assured in the narrative of its institution, Exod. xu. 27. “It is the Sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover,” or rather, ‘it is the Sacri- fice of Passover to the Lord,” as the LXX do justly, and even literally render the words". Bochart* has proved by arguments drawn from Scripture and the writings of the Rabbies, that the Paschal lamb only is meant in that text, Exod. xxiii. 18, that this was that Sacrifice, of which God there says, “Thou shalt not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the fat of My sacrifice remain until the morning.” And indeed it is so explained Exod. xxxiv. 25. “Thou shalt not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of Passover be left unto the morning.” “God,” says Dr. Spencer’ on these words, “calls it, by way of excellence, My Sacrifice ;” and he tells us, God made this law that none of the Paschal lamb should be left until the morning, that men might have no excuse if they should put a slight upon this singular Sacrifice?. It is true, this was none of the Levitical sacrifices, strictly so
[ Not in first edition. ]
ἃ Θυσία τὸ πάσχα τοῦτο Κυρίῳ, but the author is right according to the Hebrew nim sin ΠΙΘΕ ΤΙΣ]
* De Animalib. Sacris, Pars I. lib. il. col. 573.
Y De Leg. Hebr., p. 150.
2 [Deus hane ‘legem ferens, men- tionem Paschatis facit honorificam.
Nam Pascha, non agnum, sed "Π2Ὶ
sacrificium meum ;—Quid autem Deus, hoe in loco, tam honorifice de Paschate loqueretur, nisi ut tacite mdicaret, Se legem hance ideo tulisse, ut contemptus alicujus ansa et species omnis a sa- crificis tam insigni tolleretur?’’—De Legg. Hebr., p. 150.] =
UNBLOODY SACRIFICE, &e. 85
called ; for it was instituted a considerable time before there SEC τὴς was any the least hint given to Moses concerning the taber- Ξ nacle, or the service there to be performed. But Christians cannot esteem it the less on this account, no more than the sacrifices of Abel, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, for neither were they Levitical. It is sufficient that it had all the essentials of a Sacrifice, and God was pleased peculiarly to call it His own. Nay, Christians in reality ought to have a special regard to the Passover, as being in a more peculiar manner the prefiguration of the grand Sacrifice.
I therefore readily acknowledge, nay, I earnestly insist on it, that all Sacrifice must be consumed according to the direc- tions of its Divine Author: it would be a great profanation, to dispose of what belongs to God, contrary to His own will and pleasure made known to us. There was not more pre- cise care taken of any one thing im the old law, than how every part of every sacrifice and oblation should be con- sumed ; what portion should be burnt; what might be eaten by the priests, or their families and dependants ; and what by the people; in what place, within what time, and with what circumstances it should be eaten; with several penalties laid upon all that transgressed these directions. And though Lev. vi. 14 these provisions were part of the ceremonial law, done away = ee by Christ, yet the reason upon which they are grounded is of *!*:°—*. eternal force, viz. that nothing offered to God shall be other- wise consumed or disposed of, than God has Himself pre- scribed. But that nothing but fire has a right to consume sacrifice, is a mere precarious notion, and contrary even to the Levitical law itself. For by that law the greatest part of the sacrifices were consumed by manducation ; which therefore is at least as proper a method of consuming the whole, as any other, nay the most proper, when God is pleased to direct men to this method of consumption. Thus His own sacrifice the Passover was consumed, and this He intended as a type of a more perfect Sacrifice of His own foundation.
Thus have I described the nature of a proper Sacrifice, according to the best light I could receive from other men, or my own reflection. I proceed to shew that the Eucharist has all these properties now rehearsed, and is therefore a Sacrifice properly so called.
CHAP. Il.
CHAE. Ἢ
IN WHICH IS PROVED, THAT THE EUCHARIST HAS ALL THE FIVE PROPERTIES OF A SACRIFICE BEFORE MENTIONED.
SECT. I.
That material Bread and Wine, as the Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ, were by a solemn act of oblation in the Eucharist, offered to Almighty God in the primitive Church, and that they were so offered by Christ Himself in the institution.
In order to prove the Eucharist a proper Sacrifice, I am (according to the method proposed in the former chapter), first to shew, that material things were actually offered to God in the Eucharist by the primitive Church, and by Christ Jesus Himself. But before I undertake this, I shall first, by way of prevention, dispute one pass with our adversaries ; and it is the main evasion they have, when they feel them- selves closely pressed with our arguments; I mean, that the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is frequently called by the ancients an unbloody, rational, spiritual Sacrifice: and when they find any of these epithets given to the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, they from thence conclude that it was by the ancients meant to be a mere meutal figurative Sacrifice. Now once for all to silence this pretence, and that I may not have occasion to make digressions on this account, when I am in pursuit of my main argument, I shall beforehand shew that the ancients were so far from thinking it was inconsistent with a true material sacrifice, to be unbloody, rational, or spiritual, that they do often in the same sentence express, or imply, the Sacrifice of the Eucharist to be material, and yet un- bloody, rational, or spiritual. What they meant when they called a material sacrifice rational, or spiritual, I shall here- after have occasion to shew : it will be sufficient at present to
THE EUCHARIST A MATERIAL SACRIFICE. 87
prove, that they did so understand these words, as that it srecT. was no contrariety in their language, to give these epithets __' to the material Sacrifices of Christians. 1. As to the word ‘unbloody,’ it generally denotes some material thing, according to the best of my judgment and information. However, that