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116 Charge of Priestcraft respecting the Lord's Supper;

PREFAT. attending some sort of sacrifices among the Jews, but not SECT. III. all. And as according to this definition, the author of it

DISCOURSE,

SECT. IV.

of priestcraft an

swered.

hath proved the Eucharist to be a real sacrifice, so the ministers of it must be real priests. It is also to be observed, that his distinction between an oblation and a sacrifice is in effect the same with theirs, who, according to the Hebrew word Corban, making sacrifice and oblation equivalent terms, then divide sacrifice, as a genus, into its species, of which a sacrifice offered by a priest to God upon a table or altar, with certain rites and ceremonies, is one, and one of the most solemn sort.

And now I hope, by these additional authorities, and those Imputation cited in my book, and in the Appendix to it, I shall convince the late writer I have spoken of in the beginning of my first letter, that the Eucharist is a proper sacrifice, and that we who offer it are proper priests, and that there can be no danger in this doctrine, which was taught and practised by all the ancient Catholic Church. I hope also what I have said here, and in that letter, will sufficiently refute and expose the incomparable presumption of the author of the Rights, who represents the whole notion of the Lord's Supper, as I have shewed it was taught in the primitive times, for priestcraft, saying, that "they [the clergy] made it a mystery in the heathenish sense of that word, and for heathenish reasons, that they might have the same power as the priests of idols had, to exclude whom they were pleased to term unworthy." He ridicules the notion of consecration, as invented by the fathers, to produce the real presence, and make the Eucharist a real sacrifice, and the ministers real priests, and the communion table an altar:' and saith', that "among Christians, one no more than another, can be reckoned a priest from Scripture," and that "there is no more reason to affirm, that the minister offers up the people's prayers, than they his; except it can be supposed that God hears him only, who talks the loudest, in that he is the

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Supper' sacrificial terms. 117

'The Lord's Table' and servant of the congregation." And, "the clerk has as good a title to the priesthood as the parson; since the people join with him in offering up their sacrifices of spiritual songs, hymns, and thanksgivings."

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CHARGE
CRAFT.

OF PRIEST

This is a heavy charge of heathenish knavery and priestcraft upon all the ancient fathers, as well those who lived with the Apostles, as those who lived not long after them, who, as it were, with one voice taught the holy Eucharist to be a sacrifice, as I have shewed in the first letter. They are all included in this impudent charge of heathenish priestcraft,' and perhaps, if he durst, he would have laid it upon the Apostle, as well as by consequence upon his fellow labourer St. Clement; for he spoke of the holy Eucharist after the same 'heathenish manner' as he will have it, in sacrificial terms; for such are not only 'altark,' both in [Heb. 13. Io.] the literal and figurative sense for an altar-offering,' but the 'Lord's table,' and the 'Lord's Supper;' for antiquaries [1 Cor. 10. 21; 11. 20.] know, that it was the custom among the Greeks after sacrifice was ended, to make a feast, and that for that purpose there were tables set up in the temples. Hence "the words', [Epulari, comedere, and the like,] which express 'eating,' and drinking,' and 'feasting,' are often used [sometimes put] for sacrificing, as in Virgil's Æneid, lib. iv. [206.]

Jupiter omnipotens, cui nunc Maurusia pictis
Gens epulata toris, lenæum libat honoremm.

Hence the gods are said to feast with men, Odyss. n." and Jupiter, and the rest of the gods are said to go to feast in Ethiopia." And in the Old Testament, these heathenish sacrificial words and phrases, are often used by the holy penmen, as in the prophet Ezekiel, where the just man is ch. 18. 6. said to be one "who had not eaten upon the mountains, nor

lift up his eyes to the idols." And in Exodus, "to go into the ch. 3. 18;

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5. 1.

118

Connexion of a Feast with a Sacrifice.

DISCOURSE,

SECT. IV. Exod. 32.

5, 6.

14, 15.

PREFAT. wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord," and "to hold a feast to Him there," signify the same thing. And the sacrifice to the golden calf is described after this manner: "When Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and made proclamation, saying, to-morrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings, and the people sat down to eat and to drink, (upon the peace-offerings) and rose up to play." Eating of the sacrifices, or sacrificial entertainments, were common to all religions, Patriarchal, Jewish, and Gentile; and therefore, when God commanded the Israelites to destroy the Exod. 34. altars of the inhabitants of the land, He said, "Thou shalt worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and [they] go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice to them, and one call thee, and thou eat of their sacrifice." I have shewed, that it was in a parallel between the sacrificial eating of pagans in the temples of their gods, and that of the Christians in their churches, [1 Cor. 10. that the Apostle said, "Ye cannot drink of the cup of the 21.1 Lord, and the cup of devils, ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and the table of devils." Here the holy Apostle is involved in his indictment of priestcraft,' and making the Eucharist a mystery in the heathenish sense of the word, as well as in calling it the Lord's Supper;' for the word supper, or feast, or any other word for eating and drinking that relates to any god, or temple, is a sacrificial term. So in Julius Pollux, the heathenish banquets, in honour of their gods, are called iepà deiπva, "holy suppers," and the sacrificial feasts, in honour of Hecate, are called her dópπоɩ, or suppers. And in sober truth, were every thing to be branded for heathenish, that was common to the religions of the Heathens, Jews, and Christians; not only the names of 'mystery,' 'sacrifice,' 'priest,' and 'altar,' which these monsters of Christians represent to the world, as all borrowed from heathenism

P See sect. ix. of the first Letter. [Christian Priesthood, chap. ii. sect. ix. 1.]

4 [ὅστις χρῆσθαι βούλοιτο τῷ ὀνόματι κυρίως ῥηθέντι ἐπὶ τῆς μάκτρας, ἢ ἐπὶ τῆς τὰ ἱερὰ δεῖηνα, ἢ τὰ πρὸς

θυσίαν φερούσης, ὡς παρά Σοφοκλεί εἴρηται, Εκαταίας μαγίδας δόρπων. Julii Pollucis Onomasticon, lib. x. § 81. vol. ii. pp. 228, 229. ed. G. Dindorf. Lips. 1824.]

Things common to Heathens not therefore heathenish. 119

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OF PRIEST-
CRAFT.

by crafty Christian priests; but the names of 'God,' and CHARGE 'heaven,' and 'religion,' and 'worship,' and 'temple,' must be reproached for heathenish too. Nay, the notion of future rewards and punishments, and of the immortality of the soul, and whatsoever else the Christian apologists" observe, to have been, in any kind or degree, common to the Greeks and Christians, must be blemished, as heathenish inventions of Christian priests; as baptism for the mystical washing away of sin; the mediatory office of our blessed Lord, and the eternal generation of the Xoyos, must also be branded for a Christian travesty of the fable of Pallas, the heathen goddess of wisdom, who was said to be begotten, and conceived in, and born of, Jupiter's brain. The Lord's Supper of the bread and the cup, may, at this impudent and blaspheming way of reasoning, be ridiculed as an heathenish invention, borrowed from the priests of Mithra3; and so, according to these blasphemers, our blessed Lord and Redeemer, "the Catholic Priest of the Fathert, through whom we offer up our Eucharistical sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," must also come in, with all His ministerial priests, from the Apostles to our times, for His share of 'priestcraft.'

I cannot but observe how the Rights, in the place before cited, calls the Eucharist the Lord's Supper,' and not 'the Sacrament,' or 'Sacrament of the Lord's Supper;' because, as I suppose, he knew that Sacrament, which was the term of the Latin Church for it, signifies mystery, and answers to the Greek word voτýpiov, and that, as the Greek Church always called it the Holy Mystery, so the Latins called it the Holy Sacrament, of the body and blood of Christ. And as a religious mystery is so called, in a sense common to heathens

r [See notes, p. 123.]

$ See Justin Martyr's first Apology, published by Dr. Grabe at Oxford, in 8vo. § lxxxvi. p. 130, with his notes on ἐν τοῖς τοῦ Μίθρα μυστηρίοις. [See his Spicilegium SS. Patrum, &c., tom. i. sect. 11. notæ pp. 239, sqq. The passage in S. Justin M. is, ὅπερ καὶ ἐν τοῖς τοῦ Μίθρα μυστηρίοις παρέδωκαν γίνεσθαι μιμησάμενοι οἱ πονηροὶ δαίμονες· ὅτι γὰρ ἄρτος καὶ ποτήριον ὕδατος τίθεται ἐν ταῖς τοῦ μυουμένου τελεταῖς μετ' ἐπιλόγων τινῶν, ἢ ἐπίστασθε, ἢ μαθεῖν dúvaσle.-c. 66. p. 83, C. Op., ed. Ben. 1742.]

[Offerre debere munus Deo apud templum, orationem scilicet et actionem gratiarum apud ecclesiam, per Christum Jesum catholicum Patris sacerdotem. -Tert. Adv. Marcion., lib. iv. c. 9. Op., p. 420, A.]

[Agere autem Deo gratias, hoc est sacrificium laudis offerre: et ideo addit, Per Jesum Christum velut per Pontificem magnum. Oportet enim scire eum qui vult offerre sacrificium Deo, quod per manus pontificis debet offerre. Origen in Ep. ad Rom., lib. i. § 9. Op., tom. iv. p. 468, C.]

SECT. IV.

120 The Sacraments mysteries; Tindal's argument may PREFAT. and Christians, because it exhibits one thing to the outward DISCOURSE, senses and another to the understanding; so, in most eminent manner, the Church always called Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, mysteries, because they were outward, visible, holy signs of a secret religious signification, which none but Christians, or Christian catechumens, understood, and therefore, if one of these mysteries is a creature of priestcraft, a heathenish sense, and for heathenish reasons," the other is so too.

"in

I cannot but observe how craftily this accuser of the clergy, without any distinction of times or persons, lays the charge of priestcraft equally on all Christian priests of all ages, as if there were no difference between the more primitive and pure, and the latter and corrupt, ages of the Church, or between reformed Churches, and those which remain unreformed. 66 Nothing," saith he", "would expose priestcraft more, than an historical account how, and upon what motives, the clergy varied in their notions and practices concerning the Lord's Supper. As first, how they made it a mystery, in the heathenish sense of that word, and for heathenish reasons." Here is no difference made between the Apostles, and the apostolical Churches and clergy, and those which varied from the apostolical doctrines and practice; no distinction of heretical or schismatical churches and clergy, from the truly catholic, or of the ages of pure light and truth, from those of darkness, error, and ignorance; but, for once to use a vulgar proverb, he shakes the clergy of all centuries in a bag together, and that priest which is first taken out, though he were an Apostle, or apostolic priest, though he were never so holy a martyr, or confessor, be he who he will, or of what Church or age soever, he must be no better than an idolpriest, a mere priestcraft villain and knave, who of making the Eucharist a mystery and sacrifice, and himself a sacrificer, afterwards presumed to make it a God. This is a fallacy runs almost through the whole book of the Rights, and, at this impudent way of arguing, he may turn all the doctrines of Christianity into priestcraft. "Nothing,” may a man say,

u

[Rights of the Christian Church, chap. iii. p. 101.]

X ["And then nothing less would

satisfy them than making the great God, who made all things."-Ïbid., chap. iii. p. 103.]

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