A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

How plain is the Scripture, while it tells us that our High Priest “needeth not daily, as those high priests” under the law, “to offer up sacrifice; first, for his own sins, then for the people: for this he did once, when he offered up himself!”—Heb. vii. 27.

The contradiction of the Trent Fathers is here very remarkable. “Christ,” say they, “who, on the altar of the cross, offered himself in a bloody sacrifice, is now this true propitiatory sacrifice in the mass, made by himself. He is one and the same sacrifice; and one and the same offerer of that sacrifice, by the ministry of his priests, who then offered himself on the cross.” So then they say, that Christ offered up that sacrifice then, and this now; St. Paul says he offered up that sacrifice, and no more. St. Paul says our High Priest needs not to offer daily sacrifice; they say these daily sacrifices must be offered by him. St. Paul says, that he offered himself but once for the sins of the people; they say he offers himself daily for the sins of quick and dead. And if the apostle, in the spirit of prophecy, foresaw this error, and would purposely forestall it, he could not speak more directly than when he saith, “We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all. And every high priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies are made his footstool. For, by one offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”—Heb. x. 10–14.

Now let the vain heads of men seek subtle evasions in the different manner of this offering; bloody then, unbloody now. The Holy Ghost speaks punctually of the very substance of the act, and tells us absolutely there is but one sacrifice once offered by him, in any kind; else the opposition that is there made betwixt the legal priesthood and his should not hold, if, as they, so he, had often properly and truly sacrificed.

That we may not say they build herein what they destroy, for an unbloody sacrifice, in this sense, can be no other than figurative and commemorative, is it really propitiatory? “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Heb. ix. 22.) If, therefore, sins be remitted by this sacrifice, it must be in relation to that blood, which was shed in his true personal sacrifice upon the cross: and what relation can be betwixt this and that but of representation and remembrance? in which their moderate Cassander fully resteth.

In reason there must be in every sacrifice, as Cardinal Bellarmine grants, a destruction of the thing offered: and shall we say that they make their Saviour to crucify him again? No; but to eat him: for, “consumptio seu manducatio, quæ fit à sacerdote,” &c.; “The consumption or manducation, which is done of the priest, is an essential part of this sacrifice,” saith the same author; “for, in the whole action of the mass, there is,” saith he, “no other real destruction but this.”

Suppose we, then, the true human flesh, blood, and bone of Christ, God and man, really and corporally made such by this transubstantiation, whether is more horrible, to crucify or to eat it?

By this rule, it is the priest’s teeth, and not his tongue, that makes Christ’s body a sacrifice.

By this rule it shall be hostia, “a host,” when it is not a sacrifice; and a reserved host is no sacrifice, howsoever consecrated. And what if a mouse, or other vermin, should eat the host, (it is a case put by themselves,) who then sacrificeth?

To stop all mouths, laics eat as well as the priest: there is no difference in their manducation: but laics sacrifice not. And, as Salmeron urges, the Scripture distinguisheth betwixt the sacrifice and the participation of it: “Are not they, which eat of the sacrifices, partakers of the altar?” (1 Cor. x. 18.) And, in the very canon of the mass, “Ut quotquot,” &c., the prayer is, “That all we, which, in the participation of the altar, have taken the sacred body and blood of thy Son,” &c. “Wherein it is plain,” saith he, “that there is a distinction betwixt the host and the eating of the host.”

Lastly, sacrificing is an act done to God: if, then, eating be sacrificing, the priest eats his God to his God: “Quorum Deus venter.”