"The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life,"[40] said Christ.
The expressions, to eat and drink, signify to believe; to identify oneself with; as also to accept anything with pleasure. "Kill, and eat,"[41] said the Spirit to Peter; in the vision at Joppa, figuring under the unclean animals, the Gentiles. Now, all this Peter well understood, and never imagined he was to eat those animals, much less the Gentiles that he might fall in with; but to convert and receive them into the communion of the Christian faith.
Why, then, should we eat Christ? To believe in Him—to unite ourselves to Him? But this is entirely the work of the Spirit, and has nothing whatever to do with matter; on the contrary, everything material is repugnant to this union of faith. Corporeal substance may be a type, a figure of the spiritual, but nothing more. Baptismal water is the outward and visible sign of the spiritual and purifying grace, because, as the former cleanses the body from impurity, so does the latter wash away the stain of sin from the soul. In the same manner as bread and wine are the common daily food of the body, and as through them we receive nourishment and strength, so the body and blood of Christ, immolated and shed for us, are the continual aliment of our faith, which gives vigour to our souls, and is the substance of our spiritual life and salvation.
The words of Christ are truly divine; full of truth and wisdom. The interpretation of the Romanists is a grovelling human conception; full of error, falsehood, and absurdity. Christ could not better symbolise the effect of his passion and death; and we cannot more grossly abuse it, than by attributing to a sinful priest the virtue and power of the Saviour: with the additional enormity, that what Christ has been pleased to do once, a wretched priest pretends to be able to repeat as often as he chooses. The doctrine of transubstantiation, considered in relation to Christ himself, is a falsity and an absurdity; considered as regards so many thousands of wicked priests, it is an impiety and an abomination.
Thus did I reason with myself, and became fully convinced that such was not the meaning of Christ's words; that such was not the Christian faith; that such was not the belief of our fathers: and that thousands of Christian doctors, in all ages, have refuted this doctrine of transubstantiation, the author of which was Eutichus, a heretic, whose dogma was presented to the Church by Pope Innocent III. who had it confirmed by the Council of Lateran (1215).
In consequence of this reasoning, I already disbelieved in the virtue of the Mass; which can only be a propitiatory sacrifice, so far as it presents a true and living Christ, to be immolated each time it is celebrated. Take away the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the mass, in its grand essential, is nothing but a lie; a solemn imposture; an actual sacrilegious assault against Christ; who being now glorious, according to our faith, is also impassible; and as such, can neither be "broken" nor eaten by us. To eat Christ! the bare mention of such a thing is blasphemy. Far less was the crime of those who crucified the Lord; for they knew not that he was Christ. What should we have said to those, who, associated with Christ, and hearing from his own lips the words which we read in St. John vi. 53, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you," had straightway, from literal acceptation of them, begun actually to eat His body and drink His blood? Which of his disciples would not have exclaimed against such an act of barbarity? And yet they would not have been more guilty than the theologians of the Romish Church.
From this time, in saying mass I was no longer a Christophagus;[42] I had ceased to believe in what I did. What then, in reality, was the act I performed? I know not. I was like Luther, and many others, who no longer believed the mass, who had rejected its doctrine, and learnedly refuted its errors, but still continued to celebrate it. I said it, indeed, as seldom as possible; always with a bad grace, as if under compulsion, and frequently I could not restrain my sighs. I was, moreover, ashamed of saying it in the presence of sensible and intelligent persons; as if afraid of their censure for performing an act, in the efficacy or virtue of which I no longer believed. I contrived, too, to say it at those hours when there were the fewest persons in the church, and at the most secluded altars. I always refused solemn masses. In short, the mass, which for others was a delightful service, had become for me a very painful one. I endeavoured sometimes to regard it as a simple prayer, leaving out the idea of a sacrifice or sacrament; but this was impossible when what is termed the offertory was to take place, and still more so at the time of the consecration and elevation of the host and the chalice. Although I myself was no longer an adorer of the bread and wine, yet at my mass there never failed to be some who adored, believing in their transubstantiation, and therefore I could not help looking upon myself as the agent of that idolatry.
Thus, I consider that the dogma which constitutes the mass, with its double element of transubstantiation and propitiatory sacrifice, is the most fatal of Romish doctrines, the most detestable of all heresies, and the most abominable of all practices. Around this, as their sun, revolves all the rest of the papal system. The power which, according to this doctrine, the priest has of fabricating in a moment, not one, but as many Christs as he pleases, and of offering them to God, as victims of a sacrifice which in itself is enough to atone for the sins of all, and to take out of purgatory by them, as many souls as he pleases;—this pretended power, I say, is the occasion of so much pride in the priests, as to make them think themselves privileged persons, sacred and unapproachable; and to consider their head, the pope, holy, infallible, and having all authority in heaven and in earth.
In disbelieving the doctrine, I denied the power. To me friars, priests, and prelates all savoured of imposture; and the more I advanced in spiritual light, the more I felt myself adverse to such hypocrisy. The pope daily became more abominable in my eyes. In him, or rather in his ambition, I saw a Lucifer, who, after having seduced himself, had power to seduce others; thus causing the fall of myriads of shining stars from heaven to hell.