words of a modern advocate of their own communion. First we refer to the canons of the mass.

Canon i. If any man will say that in the mass there is not offered to God a true and proper sacrifice, let him be accursed.

Canon ii. If any man shall say that in these words, Do this in remembrance of me, Christ did not appoint the apostles to be priests, or did not ordain that they and other priests should offer his body and blood, let him be accursed.

Canon iii. If any shall say that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice made upon the cross, and that it is not propitiatory, or that it profits only the receiver, and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for their sins, &c., let him be accursed. And again, if any shall say that by the sacrifice of the mass blasphemy is offered to the most holy sacrifice of Christ, accomplished on the cross, or that it is dishonoured, let him be accursed.

A modern Romanist thus explains the service,"Our Saviour, in leaving to us his body and blood under two distinct species or kinds, instituted not only a sacrament but a sacrifice; a commemorative sacrifice, distinctly showing his passion and his death until he come. For as the sacrifice of the cross was performed by a distinct effusion of his blood, so is that sacrifice commemorated in this of the altar, by a distinction of the symbols.

Jesus, therefore, is there given not only to us, but for us and the church is thereby enriched with a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice, usually termed the MASS: propitiatory, we say, because, representing in a lively manner the passion and death of our Lord, it is peculiarly pleasing to our eternal Father, and thus more effectually applies to us the all-sufficient merits of the sacrifice of the cross.

Without occupying your time by a critical examination of the ambiguous character of these statements, I think I may safely appeal to them as sufficient to justify the following reasons for our rejection of the service they describe.

1. It is evident that the sacrifice of the mass has a directly idolatrous tendency. The consecrated wafer is not only worshipped as a Saviour, but is confidently trusted in by numbers as a legitimate source of salvation. There can surely be no mistake as to the import of the words, when the council of Trent declares, "That it is an undoubted truth, that all Christians ought to give the same worship to the sacrament of the eucharist which they give to God himself, and that if any deny this let him be accursed." Protestants ought not to be accused of uncharitableness and misrepresentation, when they object to Romanism as idolatrous. Is not the host in Catholic coun

* Berrington's Faith of the Catholics, Proposition v. p. 320.

tries carried about from place to place in pompous procession? How frequently have conscientious protestants been exposed to imminent peril because they would not, with the superstitious crowd, kneel down before the consecrated elements, in senseless adoration! Who that has ever witnessed the celebration of high mass, could withhold the impression that profound adoration of the host was intended, by almost every attitude of the worshippers? Or who that beholds his fellow-man offering divine homage to a piece of common flour paste, can fail to observe a resemblance to the idolatry of the heathen, as it is depicted in the keen satire of the prophet, "He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh-the residue thereof he maketh a God, even his graven image; he falleth down unto it and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it and saith, deliver me, for thou art my God."

2nd, As an invasion of the priestly office of Christ. The office of priesthood under the Jewish dispensation, with all that appertained to it, was typical. The ancient types were fulfilled in Christ. To renew the type-is equivalent to a denial of the perfection of the antitype. But a proper sacrifice can only be offered by a priest, and hence with perfect consistency the council of Trent pronounces its anathema upon all who will not admit, that Christ ordained his apostles and their successors to be priests to offer up as a

proper sacrifice his body and his blood. It is much to be regretted that Protestant churches, should retain any of the peculiarities that have arisen from this flagrant error, but who can fail to perceive, the origin of the regulation, by which none but a minister, in "priest's orders," can officiate at the sacrament of the Lord's supper ? Now we accept the anathema and solemnly deny any such sacerdotal appointment in the New Testament church. We read that the exalted Saviour gave to his church apostles, prophets, evangelists pastors, and teachers, but not that he ordained an order of priests. It is true the whole body of Christians are constituted "a royal priesthood," -kings and priests" unto God," to offer up spiritual sacrifices-the sacrifice of praise continually. The figurative import of the phrase is too plain to require a comment. In the evangelical sense of the word, every individual Christian who has received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, is as truly a priest as any who trace their authority to Oxford or Rome, or who have received their ordination under the hand of Roman cardinal, or Anglican prelate. Upon the supposition of the existence of such an order in the New Testament Church "it is inexplicable, that in the minute account given us of ministerial duties under the gospel economy, in the epistles to Timothy and Titus, expressly written on this subject, and in the historical details of the apos

tholic churches, there should not be one direct or individual allusion to the office of sacrificing. It would, one could have thought, have amazingly softened the prejudices of an objecting Jew, to have told him, that sacrifices had "not ceased to be offered," and that a hierarchy, a priesthood, still continued. But we never meet with this argument in favour of Christianity; we never find any reference to the practice; and the deduction is supported by all the principles of just reasoning, that the primitive churches, under the apostolic ministry, were altogether unacquainted with "the sacrifice of the mass.' The High Priesthood of Christ, is exclusive-unchangeable-eternal.

3. It is a virtual denial of the sufficiency of the one oblation of the Son of God. To evade this charge, Roman Catholic divines maintain that the sacrifice of the mass is the very same sacrifice that was offered on the cross, either perpetuated, prolonged, or repeated in the Christian church. In contradiction to this, we affirm it to be impossible to show the least resemblance between the one and the other. The Son of God died on the cross-he rose from the dead-and "dieth no more." In the sacrifice of the mass Christ does not die, for after he had once risen, the Holy Ghost testified, "death hath no more dominion over him." The inconceivable sufferings of Christ on the cross-the sufferings of his soul-were produced by a sense of the divine wrath, and dis

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