CHAPTER TWELVE: The Significance of the Lord's Supper (part 2 of 3)
Now, if anyone wishes to bind the Lord’s body and blood to the bread and wine, it will be necessary for the one to be separated from the other.
For just as the bread is given separately from the cup, so the body, being united to the bread, must be divided from the blood enclosed within the cup. Since they affirm that the body is in the bread and the blood in the cup, while the bread and wine are separated from one another, no evasion can enable them to escape the conclusion that the blood is thereby divided from the body. Their customary claim that the blood is in the body and the body likewise in the blood is altogether frivolous, since the signs in which they say these are contained were distinguished from one another by the Lord.
But if we lift our sight and thoughts to heaven and are transported there to seek Christ in the glory of his kingdom, then under the sign of bread we shall be distinctly fed with his flesh, and under the sign of wine nourished with his blood, so that we may enjoy him entirely. For although he has removed his flesh from us and ascended bodily into heaven, he nevertheless sits at the right hand of the Father—that is, he reigns in the Father’s power, majesty, and glory.
This kingdom is neither confined within any bounds of place nor restricted by any dimensions that would prevent Jesus Christ from displaying his power wherever he pleases, in heaven and on earth; from declaring himself present by his power and might; from continually assisting his own, living within them, sustaining and strengthening them, giving them vigor, and serving them no less than if he were bodily present; and, in sum, from nourishing them with his own body, participation in which he causes to flow into them by the power of his Spirit.
This is the presence of the body required by the sacrament. We say that it is manifested there with such power and efficacy that it not only brings our souls an unwavering confidence of eternal life, but also makes us certain and assured of the immortality of our flesh. For even now our flesh begins to be given life by the immortal flesh of Jesus Christ and in some measure shares in his immortality.
Those who go beyond this with their confused expressions do nothing but obscure the simple and complete truth. If anyone is still not satisfied, let him consider with me that we are now speaking of a sacrament, everything in which must be directed toward faith. Now, by the participation in Christ’s body that we have described, we nourish faith no less than those who imagine themselves to bring Jesus Christ down from heaven.
Observe also that the rule of faith, according to which Saint Paul commands every interpretation of Scripture to be measured, undoubtedly accords perfectly with our doctrine here. On the contrary, let those who oppose so manifest a truth consider what rule or measure of faith they intend to follow. For:
“Whoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.”
Such people, whatever pretense they may make, strip him of the reality of his flesh.
This understanding will also easily turn us away from the carnal adoration that some, through perverse presumption, have introduced into the sacrament.
For they reasoned among themselves in this way: If the body is there, then the soul and divinity are also there together with the body, since they can no longer be separated or divided from it. Therefore, Jesus Christ must be worshiped there.
Behold the excellent fruits of our understanding once we have permitted ourselves to turn aside and wander from the word of God into the dreams and fantasies of our own minds! But if the inventors of such arguments had, with the humility required of them, kept all the thoughts of their minds subject to the word of God, they would certainly have listened to what he says:
“Take, eat, and drink.”
They would have obeyed this commandment, by which he commands that the sacrament be received, not worshiped. Therefore, those who receive it without worshiping it, as the Lord commanded, may be assured that they do not depart from God’s commandment. This assurance is the greatest consolation we can have whenever we undertake and begin anything.
They have the example of the Apostles, whom we do not read as having worshiped the sacrament upon their knees, but as having received and eaten it while seated. They have the practice of the Apostolic Church, which Saint Luke recounts as having communed not in the adoration but in the breaking of bread. They have the Apostolic doctrine by which Saint Paul instructed the Corinthian church after declaring that he had received from the Lord what he taught them.
But those who worship the sacrament rest upon their own conjectures and upon arguments of their own invention, and they cannot produce a single syllable from the word of God. For whatever they may attempt to force from the words “body” and “blood,” what person of sound and sober understanding will persuade himself that the body of Christ is Christ himself?
They certainly imagine that they have proved it by their syllogisms. But if their consciences should be assailed by some severe temptation, they will easily be dismayed, bewildered, and confounded, together with all their syllogisms, when they see themselves deprived of any sure word of God. For by that word alone our souls stand firm when they are called to give an account and defense, and without it they stumble and are ruined at every moment. They will then see that the doctrine and examples of the Apostles oppose them and that they alone have been the authors of their fantasies.
Along with such assaults, many other stings and reproaches of conscience will arise. What? Was it a matter of no consequence to worship God in this form when he had commanded us nothing concerning it? When the worship and glory of God were at stake, ought they with such rashness to have done something for which they had never received any word?
Moreover, Scripture has carefully explained to us the ascension of Jesus Christ, by which he withdrew the presence of his body from our sight and company in order to remove every carnal thought of him from us. And whenever Scripture mentions Jesus Christ, it exhorts us to raise our minds above and seek him in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father.
“Seek the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”
They ought therefore to have worshiped him spiritually in the glory of heaven, rather than inventing this exceedingly dangerous form of adoration, which fills us with gross and carnal notions of God and Jesus Christ.
Those who invented the adoration of the sacrament devised it from their own imaginations, beyond Scripture, in which not one word of it can be found. Such a teaching would not have been omitted if it had been pleasing to God. Therefore, they have despised God, who no less forbids anything to be added to his Scripture than anything to be taken away from it.
“You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take anything away from it.”
By fashioning a god according to their own pleasure and will, they have forsaken the living God, because they have worshiped the gifts instead of the Giver himself. In this they have sinned doubly: first, because honor has been taken from God and transferred to the creature; and second, because God himself has been dishonored by the pollution and profanation of his gift and benefit, when his holy sacrament was made into an abominable idol.
We, on the contrary, lest we fall into the same pit, must fasten our ears, eyes, hearts, thoughts, and tongues entirely upon the most holy doctrine of God. For it is the school of the Holy Spirit, our most excellent Teacher, in which one advances so fully that nothing needs to be added from elsewhere, and in which we should willingly remain ignorant of everything that is not taught there.
Thus far we have considered how this sacrament serves our faith before God. Now, since in it our Lord calls to our remembrance so great a bounty of his goodness as we have explained above, and admonishes us to acknowledge it, he likewise warns us not to be ungrateful for such manifest kindness, but rather to magnify it with fitting praises and commemorate it with thanksgiving.
Therefore, when he delivered the institution of this sacrament to his Apostles, he commanded them:
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
—Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–25
Saint Paul interprets this as proclaiming the Lord’s death. This means publicly and collectively, as though with one voice, plainly confessing that our entire confidence of life and salvation rests in the Lord’s death, so that by our confession we may glorify him and by our example exhort others to give him the same glory.
Here we see once again the end toward which the sacrament is directed: to exercise us in the remembrance of the death of Jesus Christ. For when we are commanded:
“Proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes,”
this means nothing other than that we should declare with our mouths what our faith has recognized in the sacrament: namely, that the death of Jesus Christ is our life. This is the second use of the sacrament, which pertains to outward confession.
Third, our Lord intended it to serve as an exhortation to us, one more powerful than any other in stirring and inflaming us to love, peace, and unity. For there our Lord communicates his body to us in such a way that he is made entirely one with us, and we with him. Since he has only one body, of which he makes us all participants, it necessarily follows that through this participation we are all together made one body.
This unity is represented to us by the bread offered as the sacrament. For just as it is made from many grains of wheat so mingled and blended together that one cannot be distinguished or separated from another, so we must likewise be joined and united with one another in such harmony of will that no strife or division remains among us.
I prefer to explain this in Saint Paul’s own words:
“The cup of blessing that we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ, and the bread of blessing that we break is the participation in the body of Christ. Therefore, all of us who partake of one bread are one body.”
We shall have profited greatly from the sacrament if this knowledge is engraved and imprinted upon our hearts: that none of our brothers can be wounded, defamed, mocked, despised, or in any way offended by us without our also wounding, defaming, mocking, despising, and offending Jesus Christ in him; that we cannot be at discord or divided from our brothers without being at discord and divided from Jesus Christ; that we cannot love Jesus Christ without loving him in our brothers; that we must exercise the same care and concern for our brothers, who are members of our body, as we do for our own bodies; and that, just as no part of our body can suffer any pain without the sensation spreading to all the other parts, so we must not allow our brother to be afflicted by any evil without likewise bearing our share of it through compassion.
Saint Augustine therefore had good reason so often to call this sacrament the bond of love. For what sharper or more piercing spur could incite us to mutual love than Jesus Christ, who, in giving himself to us, not only invites us and shows us by his example that we should give and devote ourselves to one another, but also, by making himself common to us all, truly makes us all one in him?
But just as we see that the sacred bread of our Lord’s Supper is sweet and delightful spiritual food to those whom it teaches to recognize Jesus Christ as their life, whom it moves to thanksgiving, and whom it exhorts to mutual love, so, on the contrary, it is turned into deadly poison for those whom it does not instruct in faith and does not incite to a confession of praise and to love.
For just as bodily food, when it encounters a stomach filled with corrupt humors, becomes corrupted and, once corrupted, does more harm than good, so this spiritual food, if it enters a soul polluted by malice and perversity, plunges it into still greater ruin. This is not through any fault in the food itself, but because nothing is pure to those who are defiled by unbelief, however sanctified it may be by the blessing of God. For, as Saint Paul says:
“Whoever eats and drinks unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord and eats and drinks his own judgment and condemnation, not discerning the Lord’s body.”
—1 Corinthians 11:27, 29
Here we must observe that not discerning the Lord’s body and blood and receiving them unworthily are the same thing. For such people, without the least spark of faith or any affection of love, thrust themselves forward like swine to receive the Lord’s Supper, not discerning the Lord’s body. Because they do not believe that this body is their life, they dishonor it as much as they are able, stripping it of all its dignity, and profane and pollute it by receiving it in this manner.
Moreover, because they are at discord with and alienated from their brothers, yet dare to mingle the sacred sign of the body of Jesus Christ with their disputes and divisions, they do all that lies within them to divide and tear the body of Jesus Christ limb from limb.
Therefore, they are rightly guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, which by their dreadful impiety they so shamefully pollute. Thus, by this unworthy eating, they receive their own condemnation.
For although they have no faith placed in Jesus Christ, nevertheless, by receiving the sacrament they publicly declare that they have no salvation anywhere but in Jesus Christ and renounce every other confidence. Thus they accuse themselves, bear witness against themselves, and seal their own condemnation.
Moreover, since they are divided and separated from their brothers—that is, from the members of Jesus Christ—by hatred and ill will, they have no part in Jesus Christ. Yet they testify that the only salvation consists in partaking of Jesus Christ and being united to him.
We should note in passing that this passage is cited in vain so often to prove a local presence of the body in the sacrament. I readily confess that Saint Paul speaks here of the true body of Jesus Christ, but the sense in which he does so is plainly evident. There is therefore no need to spend further time answering such an objection.
For the reason stated above, Saint Paul commands:
“Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of this bread and drink of this cup.”
As I understand it, he intended each person to look within himself and consider whether, with heartfelt trust, he acknowledges Jesus Christ as his Savior and openly confesses him with his mouth; whether, following the example of Jesus Christ, he is prepared to give himself to his brothers and share himself with those to whom he sees Christ communicated; whether, just as he acknowledges Jesus Christ, he likewise regards all his brothers as members of Christ’s body; and whether he desires and is prepared to relieve, preserve, and assist them as he would the members of his own body.
This does not mean that these duties of faith and love can now be perfect in us. Rather, we must strive and earnestly desire that the faith already begun in us should daily be increased and strengthened more and more, and that our feeble love should be confirmed.
Some, wishing to prepare people for the worthiness required to receive the sacrament, have cruelly agitated and tormented poor consciences, yet have taught them nothing of what they needed to know. They have said that those receive the sacrament worthily who are in a state of grace, and they have interpreted being in a state of grace as being clean and purified from every sin. By this doctrine, every person who has ever lived or now lives upon earth would be excluded from the use of this sacrament.
For if we must find our worthiness within ourselves, we are undone. We can expect nothing but ruin and confusion. Though we exert ourselves with all our strength, we shall accomplish nothing except finally to become more unworthy than ever, after laboring as much as possible to discover some worthiness in ourselves.
To heal this wound, they have invented a means of acquiring worthiness: after duly examining our conscience, we are to purge away our unworthiness by contrition, confession, and satisfaction.
We have already explained the nature of this purging where it was more appropriate to treat the subject.
As for the present matter, I say that these remedies and comforts are far too feeble and frivolous for consciences troubled and cast down, afflicted and terrified by the horror of their sin. For if our Lord, by his prohibition, admits no one to partake of his Supper unless he is righteous and innocent, a person needs no small assurance to be certain that he possesses the righteousness he hears God requires.
But where shall we find assurance that those who have done all they can have thereby discharged their duty toward God? And even if this were so, when would anyone dare assure himself that he had truly done all that lay within him? Since no certain assurance of our worthiness is offered to us in this way, entrance to the sacrament would always remain shut and barred by that dreadful prohibition:
“Whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment upon himself.”
It is now easy to judge the character of this doctrine and from what author it has proceeded, since it deprives and strips poor sinners of all the consolation of this sacrament, in which all the sweetness of the gospel was nevertheless offered to us. The Devil could scarcely have devised a more direct way to destroy men than to deceive and stupefy them so that they would never taste the sweetness of the nourishment with which their most gracious heavenly Father intended to feed them.
Therefore, lest we fall into such confusion and so deep an abyss, let us recognize that these holy provisions are medicine for the sick, strength for sinners, and alms for the poor. They would be of no use to the holy, righteous, and rich, if any such people could be found. For since Jesus Christ is given to us in them as food, we readily understand that without him we faint and perish. Moreover, since he is given to us as life, we understand that without him we are altogether dead in ourselves.
Therefore, the only and best worthiness we can bring before God is to offer him our vileness and unworthiness, so that by his mercy he may make us worthy of himself; to be confounded in ourselves, so that we may be comforted in him; to humble ourselves in ourselves, so that we may be exalted in him; to accuse ourselves, so that we may be justified in him; and to be dead in ourselves, so that we may be given life in him.
Moreover, we must desire and pursue the unity that he commends to us in his Supper. And just as he makes us all one in himself, so we should desire that one will, one heart, and one voice should be in us all.
If we had carefully considered these things, we would never be troubled by such thoughts as these: How can we, destitute and stripped of every good, defiled and infected with the stains of sin, and half dead, worthily eat the Lord’s body?
Rather, we would remember that we come as the poor to a gracious giver of alms, as the sick to the physician, and as sinners to the Savior. We would understand that the worthiness God requires consists first and chiefly in faith, which attributes and assigns everything to God and nothing to ourselves; and secondly in love, which it is enough to present to God even in its imperfection, so that he may increase and improve it, since it cannot be offered in perfection.
Some others agree with us that worthiness consists in faith and love, yet have greatly erred concerning the measure of this worthiness. They require a perfection of faith to which absolutely nothing could be added and a love equal to that which our Lord Jesus Christ has shown toward us. But by this very requirement they drive and repel everyone from receiving this holy Supper no less than those mentioned above. For if their opinion prevailed, no one would receive it except unworthily, since everyone without exception would be found guilty and convicted of imperfection.
Indeed, it was exceedingly ignorant—not to say senseless—to require for receiving the sacrament a perfection that would render the sacrament empty and superfluous. For it was instituted not for the perfect, but for the weak and feeble, in order to awaken, stimulate, incite, and exercise them in what they lack, both in faith and in love.
What we have thus far said concerning this sacrament amply demonstrates that it was not instituted to be received once a year merely as a matter of duty, as is now the common practice. Rather, it was intended to be frequently used by all Christians, so that the passion of Jesus Christ might often be brought to their remembrance. By this recollection and remembrance, their faith was to be sustained and strengthened, and they themselves stirred and exhorted to offer confession and praise to the Lord and to magnify and proclaim his goodness. Finally, their mutual love was to be nourished and maintained, and they were to testify that love to one another, recognizing its bond in the unity of the body of Jesus Christ.
For whenever we partake of the sign of the Lord’s body, we mutually bind ourselves to one another, as though by a written pledge, to every duty of love, so that none of us should do anything that wounds his brother or neglect anything by which he might aid and assist him whenever necessity requires it.
Saint Luke recounts that this was the practice of the Apostolic Church when he says:
“The believers continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship—that is, in almsgiving—in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
It should therefore have been the established practice that no assembly of the Church was held without the word, without almsgiving, without participation in the Supper, and without prayers.
It may also be reasonably inferred from Saint Paul’s writings that this order was established in the Corinthian church. Indeed, the custom that commands people to partake only once a year is most certainly an invention of the Devil, whoever may have introduced it.
Zephyrinus, Bishop of Rome, is said to have been the author of this ordinance, though I do not believe that in his time it was what it has now become. As far as he was concerned, it may be that his institution made good provision for his church, given the circumstances of the time. For there can be no doubt that the holy Supper was then offered to believers whenever they assembled as a congregation, and that a considerable number of them partook of it.
But since it scarcely ever happened that they all partook together at one time, and since those who lived among unbelievers and idolaters needed to testify to their faith by some outward sign, this holy man established a particular day for the sake of order and good governance, on which the entire Christian population of Rome would confess its faith by participating in the Supper of our Lord.
Yet they did not cease to partake frequently on that account, since not long before, Anacletus, also Bishop of Rome, had instituted the practice that all Christians should partake every day. But the institution of Zephyrinus, which was otherwise good, was afterward turned to evil when a fixed law requiring one Communion each year was established. The result has been that almost everyone, having partaken once and regarding themselves as having fully discharged their duty for the entire year, falls asleep for the remainder of it.
The practice ought to have been entirely different. The Supper of our Lord should have been offered to the Christian congregation at least once every week, and the promises by which we are spiritually fed and nourished in it should have been declared. Certainly, no one should have been compelled to receive it, but all should have been exhorted to do so, while those who neglected it should have been reproved and corrected. Then all together, as those who hunger, would have gathered for such a feast.
I therefore had good reason to lament from the beginning that this custom, which assigns us one day of the year and leaves us idle and asleep for the entire remainder, was introduced through the cunning of the Devil.
From the same invention arose another ordinance, which has robbed and withheld one half of the Supper from the greater part of God’s people: namely, the sign of the blood. Because it has been reserved exclusively for a certain number of shaven and anointed men, it has been forbidden to the laity and the profane—for these are the titles and names they give to God’s inheritance.
The edict and ordinance of the eternal God is:
“Drink from it, all of you.”
Yet man dares to revoke and annul it by a new and contrary law, decreeing that not everyone should drink from it. And lest such legislators appear to contend against God without reason, they allege the abuses that might arise if the cup were made available to all, as though these had neither been foreseen nor considered by the eternal wisdom of God.
Moreover, they subtly argue that one sign is sufficient for both. “For if it is the body,” they say, “it is the whole Jesus Christ, who can no longer be disjoined or separated from his body. Therefore, the body contains the blood.”
Behold the agreement between our understanding and God as soon as human reason is given the slightest freedom to run headlong and parade its cleverness! Our Lord points to the bread and calls it his body; pointing to the cup, he calls it his blood. But the audacity of human reason and wisdom replies, on the contrary, that the bread is the blood and the wine is the body—as though our Lord had distinguished his body from his blood, both in words and signs, without cause or purpose; and as though anyone had ever heard the body or blood of Jesus Christ called both God and man.
Certainly, if he had intended to designate his whole person, he would have said, “It is I,” as he customarily speaks in Scripture, rather than:
“This is my body. This is my blood.”
—Matthew 26:26, 28
I am well aware that the ministers of Satan—as is their good custom when treating Scripture with mockery—ridicule us here and quibble that Jesus Christ admitted only his Apostles to participation in this Supper, whom he had already ordained and consecrated into the order of sacrificers, which they call the priesthood.
But I would have them answer five questions, from which they will not escape without being easily convicted, together with their lies.
First, by what oracle was this explanation, so far removed from the word of God, revealed to them? Scripture recounts that twelve were seated with Jesus Christ, but it does not so obscure Christ’s dignity as to call them sacrificers—a title of which we shall speak later in its proper place. And although he then gave the sacrament to the twelve, he nevertheless commanded them to do likewise, that is, to distribute it among themselves in the same manner.
Second, why, during that better age—from the Apostles until a thousand years afterward—were all without exception made participants in both parts of the sacrament? Was the ancient Church ignorant of the company Jesus Christ had admitted to his Supper? It would be the height of shamelessness to retreat or equivocate here. The ecclesiastical histories and the writings of the Ancients are readily available, and they bear abundant and unmistakable testimony to this fact.
Third, why did Jesus Christ say simply of the bread that they should eat it, but of the cup that they should all drink from it—which they did—as though he had expressly intended to anticipate and prevent this diabolical wickedness?
Fourth, if our Lord, as they claim, considered only sacrificers worthy of his Supper, what man would ever have been so bold and presumptuous as to admit others to participate in it when they had been excluded by our Lord—especially since this participation is a gift over which no one could possess authority without the command of him who alone could give it? Indeed, by what audacity do they today undertake to distribute the sign of the body of Jesus Christ to the common people if they have neither a command nor an example from our Lord permitting them to do so?
Fifth, was Saint Paul lying when he told the Corinthians that he had received from the Lord what he taught them? For he afterward declares that this teaching required everyone without distinction to partake of both parts of the Supper.
And if Saint Paul learned from our Lord that everyone, without distinction or difference, was to be admitted to it, let those who exclude and reject nearly all God’s people consider from whom they learned to do so. For they can no longer claim God as their author, in whom there is neither yes and no—that is, who neither changes nor contradicts himself.
And yet we cloak such abominations with the name and title of the Church and defend them under that covering, as though these Antichrists were the Church—men who so readily trample underfoot, overthrow, and abolish the doctrine and institutions of Jesus Christ —or as though the Apostolic Church, in which Christianity flourished in all its excellence, had not been the Church.
By these inventions and others like them, Satan has endeavored to spread and mingle his darkness throughout the sacred Supper of Jesus Christ, in order to corrupt, deprave, and obscure it, or at least to prevent its purity from being retained and preserved in the Church.
But the crowning horror of this abomination came when he established a form by which this sacred Supper was not only obscured and perverted, but entirely erased and abolished, so that it vanished and disappeared from human memory. This occurred when he blinded nearly the whole world with the pestilent error that the Mass is a sacrifice and offering by which the forgiveness of sins is obtained.
I know how deeply this plague has taken root, beneath how great an appearance of goodness it conceals itself, how it covers itself with the name of Jesus Christ, and how many suppose that the whole substance of faith is comprehended in the single name of the Mass. But once it has been most clearly proved from the word of God that this Mass, however adorned and embellished, gravely dishonors Jesus Christ, oppresses and buries his cross, consigns his death to oblivion, deprives us of the benefit that came to us from it, and destroys and scatters the sacrament in which the remembrance of that death was left to us—will it possess any roots so deep that this most powerful axe, the word of God, cannot cut, sever, and cast them down? Will there be any covering so beautiful that the evil hidden beneath it cannot be exposed by this light?
Let us therefore demonstrate first what we have asserted: that in the Mass an intolerable blasphemy and dishonor are committed against Jesus Christ. For he was appointed and consecrated by the Father as Priest and High Priest, not merely for a time, as we read of those appointed under the Old Testament. Since their lives were mortal, their priesthood and office could not be immortal. They therefore needed successors to be appointed in their place after their death. But Jesus Christ, who is immortal, needs no vicar to be substituted for him.
He was therefore appointed by the Father as Priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, so that he might exercise the office of the priesthood eternally and perpetually.
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”
This mystery had long before been represented in Melchizedek, who, after being introduced once in Scripture as priest of the living God, is never mentioned there again, as though he had lived forever without end. By this likeness Jesus Christ was called a priest according to his order.
Now, those who offer sacrifices every day necessarily require priests to make their offerings, and these priests are substituted for Jesus Christ as his successors and vicars. By this substitution they not only strip Jesus Christ of his honor and rob him of the prerogative of his eternal priesthood, but also endeavor to cast him down from the right hand of his Father, where he cannot sit immortal without at the same time remaining Priest forever.
Let them not allege that their sacrificers are not substituted as vicars for Jesus Christ as though he were dead, but merely serve as assistants to his eternal priesthood, which thereby remains forever in its proper state. For the Apostle’s words press them too closely to allow such an escape:
“Many were made priests because death prevented them from continuing; but Jesus Christ, because he continues forever, possesses a priesthood that does not pass away.”
Jesus Christ, therefore, who cannot be prevented by death, stands alone and has no need of companions.
The second charge brought against the Mass is that it buries and suppresses the cross and passion of Jesus Christ. This is certainly most true. For if Jesus Christ offered himself as a sacrifice upon the cross in order to sanctify us forever and obtain eternal redemption for us, then without doubt the effect and efficacy of that sacrifice endure without end.
Otherwise, we would esteem it no more highly than the oxen and calves sacrificed under the law, whose offerings are proved to have been ineffectual, weak, and devoid of all effect and power by the very fact that they were so often repeated. We must therefore confess either that the sacrifice Jesus Christ offered upon the cross lacked the power of eternal cleansing and sanctification, or that Jesus Christ made one sacrifice once for all.
This is what the Apostle says:
“Christ, the great Priest and High Priest, appeared once at the consummation of the ages to erase, destroy, and abolish sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
Again:
“It was the will of God to sanctify us through the offering of Jesus Christ made once for all.”
And again:
“By one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified.”
He then adds this remarkable statement:
“Where forgiveness of sins has once been obtained, no further offering remains.”
This was also signified by Jesus Christ in the final word he uttered as he was about to yield up his Spirit:
“It is finished.”
We customarily regard the final words of the dying as solemn commands.
In dying, Jesus Christ testifies to us that by his one sacrifice everything pertaining to our salvation was perfected and accomplished. Yet we add innumerable others to it every day, as though it were imperfect, although Jesus Christ has so plainly commended and declared its perfection to us.
Since the most holy word of God not only affirms, but cries aloud and solemnly declares, that this sacrifice was once perfected and that its power and efficacy are eternal, do not those who seek and demand other sacrifices accuse it of imperfection and weakness? And to what end does the Mass tend, which was established on the condition that a hundred thousand sacrifices should be offered every day, except that the passion of Jesus Christ—by which he offered himself as the one sacrifice to the Father—should remain buried and suppressed? Is there anyone, unless he is utterly blinded, who does not see that this was Satan’s audacious attempt to resist and fight against the plain and manifest truth of God?
I am well aware of the deception by which this father of lies customarily conceals his cunning, seeking to persuade us that these are not many different sacrifices, but one and the same sacrifice frequently repeated. But these clouds of his darkness are easily dispelled without difficulty. For throughout his entire argument, the Apostle maintains not only that there are no other sacrifices, but that this one sacrifice was offered once and must never be repeated.
But we must hear upon what foundation the Mass-mongers establish their sacrifices. They appeal to Malachi’s prophecy, in which our Lord declares:
“Throughout the whole world incense shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering.”
They reason as though it were something new or unusual for the Prophets, when speaking of the calling of the Gentiles, to represent the spiritual worship of God by the ceremonies of the law, so that they might show the people of their own age more familiarly how the Gentiles were to be brought into true participation in God’s covenant. Indeed, the Prophets customarily described the things fulfilled under the gospel by means of the figures belonging to their own time.
This will be more easily understood through examples. Instead of saying that all peoples will turn to God, they say:
“They shall go up to Jerusalem.”
Instead of saying that the peoples of the south and east will worship God, they say that they will offer the riches of their countries as gifts. To show the great and abundant knowledge that would be given to believers in the revelation of Christ, they say:
“Your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
But since examples of this manner of speaking are sufficiently frequent, I shall not spend time recounting many of them.
These poor, bewildered men are grossly deceived in recognizing no sacrifice other than that of their Mass, since believers now truly sacrifice to God and offer him a pure offering, of which we shall speak shortly.
I now come to the third effect of the Mass, where we must explain how it erases and removes from human memory the true and unique death of Jesus Christ. For just as among men the confirmation of a testament depends upon the death of the testator, so our Lord confirmed by his death the testament by which he granted us the forgiveness of our sins and eternal righteousness.
Those who dare to alter or innovate within this testament disown his death and regard it as worthless. And what is the Mass but a new and entirely different testament? For does not every Mass promise a new forgiveness of sins and a new acquisition of righteousness, so that there are now as many testaments as there are Masses?
Let Jesus Christ, then, come again and confirm this new testament by another death—or rather, by infinitely many deaths, the infinitely many testaments contained in the Masses. Was I not therefore right when I said at the outset that by the Masses the one true death of Jesus Christ is erased and forgotten?
Moreover, does not the Mass directly tend toward killing and slaying Jesus Christ again, if that were possible? For, as the Apostle says:
“Where there is a testament, the death of the testator must necessarily intervene.”
The Mass claims to present a new testament of Jesus Christ; it therefore requires his death.
Moreover, the sacrifice that is offered must necessarily be slain and immolated. If Jesus Christ is sacrificed at every Mass, then at every moment, in a thousand places, he must be cruelly slain and put to death. This is not my argument, but the Apostle’s:
“If Jesus Christ had needed to offer himself frequently, he would have had to suffer frequently since the foundation of the world.”
We must now consider the fourth work of the Mass: namely, that it deprives us of the benefit that came to us from the death of Jesus Christ by preventing us from recognizing and considering it. For who will believe himself redeemed by the death of Jesus Christ when he sees a new redemption in the Mass? Who will trust that his sins were forgiven there when he sees another forgiveness?
Nor will anyone escape by saying that we obtain forgiveness of sins in the Mass only because it was already acquired by the death of Jesus Christ. For this amounts to nothing other than saying that we were redeemed by Jesus Christ on the condition that we redeem ourselves.
For this is the doctrine that the ministers of Satan have sown, and this is what they defend today with clamor, sword, and fire: that when we offer Jesus Christ to the Father in the Mass, by the work of this offering we obtain forgiveness of sins and are made participants in the passion of Jesus Christ. What, then, remains to the passion of Jesus Christ except that it should be an example of redemption by which we learn to become our own redeemers?
I now come to the final “benefit” of the Mass: that the sacred Supper, in which our Lord left the remembrance of his passion engraved and imprinted, is taken away, lost, and abolished by the Mass. For the Supper is a gift of God that ought to be taken and received with thanksgiving. The sacrifice of the Mass, on the contrary, is presented as a payment made to God, which he receives from us as satisfaction.
As great as the difference is between receiving and giving, so great is the difference between a sacrament and a sacrifice. And this is indeed the most wretched ingratitude on man’s part: where he ought to acknowledge with thanksgiving the bounty and liberality of divine goodness, he instead seeks to persuade God that he has placed God under obligation to him.