What was offered, was to Abraham and his company.

But if the offering was to God, it could but constitute an eucharistic sacrifice. Bread and wine might be offered as thank-offerings. But a bloodless propitiatory sacrifice was unknown under the Old Testament. Whatever view we take of the passage, it cannot make for the mass. That which was offered was

only bread and wine. The Catholics do not pretend that they were changed into the body and blood of Christ. Melchizedek lived nearly 2000 years before Christ had a body. How could transubstantiation take place so long before the incarnation? But if simple bread and wine were offered, then the act of Melchizedek, if any thing more than an example of hospitality, was rather the model of the Protestants' Lord's Supper, than the Roman Catholic's mass.And here it may be observed, that Melchizedek does not seem to have denied the cup to the laity, as later priests have done. O no, it was the Council of Constance, in the 15th century, that established that custom.

But Catholics have another argument from Scripture in favor of their mass. It is derived from the perpetuity of Christ's priesthood. If, say they, Christ is a priest forever, and "every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices," there must be a perpetual sacrifice, else he would be a priest without exercising priestly functions. But do they not see that this is to suppose Christ a priest after the order of Aaron, and not after that of Melchizedek? It is true the Aaronic priests offered sacrifice during the whole term of their priesthood. They stood "daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices." But what is said of Christ? He "needeth not daily, as those high

priests, to offer up sacrifice......for this he did once, when he offered up himself." And again: "But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God." Yet the Catholics say he needeth daily to offer up sacrifice, and that he, as well as the Aaronic priests, offers oftentimes the same sacrifices! They make Christ to resemble the Jewish priests in those very particulars in which the apostle says he stands in contrast to them!

As to Christ's being a priest forever, if that means any thing more than is expressed in Heb. 7: 24, where he is said to have "an unchangeable priesthood," that is, a priesthood that passes not from one to another, as did the Aaronic, it is explained in the succeeding verse, where it is said that "he ever liveth to make intercession." He is a priest forever, because he ever liveth to make intercession. It is not at all necessary that he should ever live to offer sacrifice, in order to his being a priest forever. Intercession is as much a part of the priest's office as sacrifice. And here I would ask whether the Jewish high-priest was not as much a priest when he went into the most holy place to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice, and to burn incense, as when, before he entered, he was engaged in offering the sacrifice? Undoubtedly he was. He offered no sacrifice while he was in the holy place. He went in for another purpose altogether. So Christ, the great antitype, has entered "not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." And there he remains. He has never come out. He had no need to come out to

offer another sacrifice, as the Jewish high-priest had. "By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Were another sacrifice necessary, he

would return in person to earth to offer it; nor would it be "under the form of bread and wine," for the apostle argues, in Heb. 9: 25, 26, that he must suffer as often as he offers himself that he cannot be offered without suffering. Yet the Douay Catechism says he "continues daily to offer himself." He is sacrificing, according to them, while he is interceding— sacrificing in the place appropriated to intercession, and offering himself without suffering! The Bible tells us, "Christ was once offered," but that "he ever liveth to make intercession." It makes the perpetuity of his priesthood to consist in his intercession. The Catholic doctrine, on the other hand, teaches us that he is continually offered, and therefore a priest forAnd yet they appeal to the Bible in proof of their doctrine!

ever.

36. The Host.

Here is another of the peculiar terms of the Catholic religion. Protestants commonly use the word to signify an army, or a great multitude. But Catholics mean by it one thing. It is the name they give to the consecrated wafer in the Eucharist. Wafer! What has a wafer to do with the Eucharist? We read that our Saviour took bread and blessed, and break, and gave it to his disciples; but we read nothing about

any wafer. If by wafer the same thing is meant, which we mean by bread, yet why this change of names? Why not call it what Christ called it? Why seek to improve upon things as they were left by him? When the wafer, the thin piece of bread, is consecrated; that is, when a blessing has been invoked, and thanks have been given, for that is all that Christ did, (the same precisely which he did when he fed the multitudes; in which case not even Catholics contend that there was any transubstantiation of the bread into another substance; and if no such effect was produced on that bread by the blessing and thanksgiving, how should the same produce such an effect on the bread of the sacrament?) then it is no longer called a wafer. It is true, St. Paul calls it the same afterwards that he called it before. But not so the Catholics. Now they call it the host, a word derived from the Latin hostia, signifying victim, or sacrifice.

But why change its name? And above all, why give it so different a name? One minute to call a thing a wafer, and the next a victim, a sacrifice! and when nothing but a prayer has intervened. Has it become so different a thing that it deserves so different a name? I know the Catholics say a great change has taken place in its nature, and therefore it ought to have a new name. Well, I am open to conviction. When a great change has taken place in any thing, such a change that the original substance of the thing has totally départed, which is the greatest change any thing can undergo, it commonly appears to the senses different from what it did before. But the wafer and the host look exactly alike, and they smell alike, and taste and feel precisely alike. The form

is the same it was before; and by every test by which the substance can be examined, it is found to be the same. Yet they say the two things are as unlike as bread, and the body, soul and divinity of Christ! And this on pain of perdition must be believed, though the senses all exclaim against it; and reason, that calm faculty, almost getting into a passion with the absurdity of the doctrine, cries out against it; and though all experience be against it. And in favor of it, there is what? Why, Christ said "This is my body," speaking as Paul did when he said "and that rock was Christ;" and as he himself did, when he said "I am the door." Did any one ever contend that Christ was literally a door or a rock? Oh no. Why then is it contended that the bread was literally his body? Is it so said? And are not the other things also so said? It is strange the Catholics should contend for a literal interpretation in the first case, while they will not allow it in the other cases.

But if they contend for a strictly literal interpretation of "this is my body," why do they not abide by such an interpretation? Why do they say, as in the Christian's Guide, page 14, that "in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ?" If Christ says it is his body, he does not say it is his soul and divinity. Where do they get that from? They say it is his body, because he says it is. But why do they say it is his soul and Divinity also, when he does not say so? You see they do not interpret the passage literally, after all.

But what do the Catholics do with this host? Principally two things.