Hebrews x. 12.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God.
There was never a more tremendous judgment than that uttered by the voice of Malachi, [52] “I will curse your blessings.” There can be no scourge more heavy than a blessing cursed. The more choice the gift, the more fatal is the misuse of it; the richer the blessing, the deadlier its corruption. So it was with Christ himself. He was the most precious gift that could be found even in the treasuries of heaven—the well beloved Son of God; but to those who rejected him he became a stone of stumbling and rock of offence. So it has been with that sacred feast, which he left as a parting legacy to his church. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is one of the richest blessings in the church’s birthright. It is a sacred opportunity of feeding in faith upon the body and blood of the Lamb, a perpetual remembrance of his boundless grace, a bond of holy fellowship with our brethren in the faith, a sacred pledge of our union and communion with the Lord. Yet even this has been corrupted. As with the Jews of old, so with professing Christians “their table has become a snare before them, and that which should have been for their welfare has become a trap.” [53a] We allude, of course, to the doctrine of transubstantiation, of which the Council of Trent decrees as follows:
“By the consecration of the bread and wine there is effected a change in the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.” [53b] Here we have the bread and wine transformed into the actual substance of the person of our blessed Lord: so transformed that according to the Catechism [53c] there are “bones and nerves in it.” Nay, more! so changed that there is actually his whole person, not excepting his soul and his divinity, for the Council declares [53d] “If any man shall say that the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, together with his soul and divinity, and, in short, that a whole Christ, is not contained truly, really, and substantially in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist, but shall say that he is in it only in sign, or figure, or power, let him be anathema.”
There is no misunderstanding such words as these. And if there were, the 6th canon shows how Rome herself interprets them, for she not only acknowledges the fact, but follows it consistently to its conclusion, and declares plainly that we are to worship it with the worship due to God. [54]
“If any shall say that in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, and that outwardly with the worship of Latria (the worship paid to God), and that he ought not to be . . . carried solemnly about in processions, or that he ought not to be set before the people that he may be worshipped, and that the worshippers of him are idolaters, let him be anathema.”
But even this is not all: for not merely do they claim the power of thus making the bread into the very person of the only begotten of the Father, they add yet this also, that they can put that Saviour to death, and by that sacrifice make a propitiation for the sins of the dead and living. The Council of Trent declares [55a] “In the sacrifice of the mass, that same Christ is sacrificed without blood who once with blood offered himself upon the cross.” And in Canon iii. [55b] it adds that “If any man shall say that the sacrifice is not propitiatory and profits the receiver only, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfaction, and other necessities, let him be anathema.”
Such is the doctrine of transubstantiation as taught by the Church of Rome. According to it by a few words of consecration a wafer of unleavened bread is transformed into the very person of the Son of God: a man may be worshipping with divine honour in the afternoon a morsel of that same wheaten flour on which he made his breakfast in the morning: the one half he may bake for the sustenance of his children, the other he may be bound to adore when the priest has transubstantiated it into God. On reading such a doctrine it is impossible altogether to forget God’s cutting language against the sin of Israel.
“He burneth part of it in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire: and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, deliver me for thou art my god.” [56]
Surely, then, it is reasonable to ask that the truth of such a principle should be tried by the word of God alone. It is opposed to the evidence of our senses, it is opposed to reason, and it is no less opposed to the general tenor of the sacred scriptures. It is a case, therefore, in which no human evidence can avail any thing; the best, the wisest, the holiest of men, are wholly insufficient witnesses to prove, that what is apparently a piece of bread, lifeless, motionless, and powerless, is the very person of Christ himself, the only begotten of the Father, reigning triumphantly at the right hand of the throne of God. Such a fact, if it be a fact, must be taught by God himself.
At the same time, if God has said it we are bound cheerfully to believe it. It is condemned by every faculty which God has given us; it is opposed to experience, and to every pre-existent principle of religion, yet so complete should be our submission to the Bible, so absolute and unquestioning our conviction of its certain truth, that if we clearly find even transubstantiation there, we must believe without a murmur, we must abandon all human thoughts in submission to his all perfect wisdom. Yea though our revered church declares it plainly both “a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit;” [57] though the martyred fathers of the Reformation chose rather to die in agony than admit its truth; yet if God says it we will joyfully believe it, “for God is in heaven and we upon earth, therefore must our words be few.”