Errors Corrupting the Sacrament

To come to the fourth principal matter: the devil, knowing that our Lord left nothing more beneficial to the Church than this holy sacrament, according to his accustomed manner, exerted himself from the beginning to contaminate it with errors and superstitions, and to corrupt and destroy its fruit, and has not ceased to pursue this course, until he has almost wholly subverted the ordinance of the Lord, and converted it into falsehood and vanity. My intention is not to indicate at what time each abuse took its rise, and at what time it has been increased. It will suffice to indicate under different heads what errors the devil has introduced, against which we must be on guard, if we wish to enjoy the Supper of our Lord in its entirety.

As to the first error: while the Lord has given us his Supper in order that it be distributed among us, to testify that in communicating in his body we have part in the sacrifice which he offered on the cross to God his Father, for the expiation and satisfaction of our sins, men have, on the contrary, out of their own head invented that it is a sacrifice by which we obtain the remission of our sins before God. This is a blasphemy which is intolerable. For if we do not acknowledge the death of our Lord Jesus Christ as a unique sacrifice by which he has reconciled us to the Father, effacing all the faults for which we are liable to his judgment, we destroy its virtue. If we do not confess Jesus Christ to be the sole sacrificer, or as we commonly call it Priest, by whose intercession we are restored to the Father's favour, we despoil him of his honour and do him grave hurt. Since, then, this view of the Supper held by some, that it is a sacrifice for procuring the remission of sins, derogates from the true view, it must be condemned as pernicious. Now that it does so derogate is notorious. For how can we reconcile these two things, that Jesus Christ in dying has offered a sacrifice to his Father by which he has once for all procured remission and pardon for all our faults, and that it is necessary every day to sacrifice in order to obtain that which we ought to seek in his death alone? This error was not from the beginning so extreme; but little by little has increased, until it came to what it is. It appears that the ancient Fathers called the Supper a sacrifice. But they offered the reason that the death of Jesus Christ is there represented. Hence what they say is this, that this name is attributed to it solely because it is a memorial of the unique sacrifice, at which we ought to stop short. Yet I cannot quite excuse the custom of the ancient Church. For by gestures and manner of acting, they outlined a kind of sacrifice, as if it were the same ceremony as there was in the Old Testament, except that in place of the animal bread was used for victim. Because this approaches too near to Judaism, I do not approve it. For in the Old Testament, in the time of symbols, the Lord had ordained such ceremonies, until this sacrifice was made in the flesh which is its fulfilment. Since it has been perfected, there remains nothing but for us to receive its communication. Hence it is superfluous to symbolize it any longer. This is the significance of the order which Jesus Christ left us, not that we offer or immolate, but that we take and eat that which has been offered and immolated. However, though there was some weakness in such observance, there was not such impiety as later supervened. For what properly belongs to the death of Christ has been wholly transferred to the mass, that is to satisfy God for our sins, and by this means to reconcile us to him. Moreover, the office of Jesus Christ has been attributed to those who are called priests, that is persons sacrificing to God, and by sacrificing interceding for us and so obtaining grace and pardon for our faults. I do not wish to dissimulate the explanations which the enemies of truth allege in this connection. They say that the mass is not a new sacrifice, but only an application of the unique sacrifice of which we have spoken. Though they disguise their abomination a little by so speaking, yet it is no more than a mere quibble. For it is not simply affirmed that the sacrifice of Christ is unique, but that it is not to be repeated, seeing that its efficacy endures always. It is not said that Christ once offered himself to the Father, in order that others after him might make the same oblation, and thus apply to us the virtue of his intercession. What is said is that he is entered into the heavenly sanctuary, and that he there appears for us to render the Father favourable by his intercession. As to applying the merit of his death to us, in order that we may perceive its benefit, this is effected not in the manner that the popish Church thinks, but when we receive the message of the Gospel as it is proclaimed to us by the preaching of the ministers, whom God has appointed as his ambassadors, and as it is sealed by the sacraments. The opinion of everyone has been approved by all their doctors and prelates, that in hearing mass or having it said, one merits, by this devotion, grace and righteousness before God. We say that to obtain any profit from the Supper, we need bring nothing of our own, to merit what we seek; we have only to receive by faith the grace which is there presented to us, which indeed does not reside in the sacrament, but points us to the cross of Jesus Christ as its source. Thus, then, it is apparent that there is nothing more contrary to true understanding of the Supper, than to make such a sacrifice of it as diverts us from recognizing the death of Christ as a sacrifice unique and with a virtue that lasts for ever.

This being well understood, it will appear that all masses, in which there is no such communion as the Lord instituted, are nothing but abomination. For our Lord did not ordain that a single priest, after having made his sacrifice, should keep himself apart, but desired that the sacrament be distributed in the gathering, after the example of the first Supper which he made with his apostles. But after this evil opinion was forged, out of it, as from an abyss, has come the unhappy custom, that the people, contenting themselves with being present to participate in the merit of what is being done, abstain from communicating, because the priest pretends to offer his host for all, and especially for those present. I omit to speak of the abuses which are so stupid that they deserve no notice, such as attributing a mass to each saint, and transferring what is said of the Lord's Supper to St. William and St. Walter, or making a common market of them for buying and selling or other such villainies, to which the word sacrifice has given rise.

The second error which the devil has sown to corrupt this holy mystery, has been to forge and invent that, after the words pronounced with the intention of consecration, the bread is transubstantiated into the body of Christ, and the wine into his blood. This lie first of all has no foundation in Scripture, nor any evidence from the ancient Church; and, what is more, cannot be reconciled or harmonized with the Word of God. When Jesus Christ, pointing to the bread, called it his body, is it not a too forced construction to say that the substance of the bread is annihilated, and in its place the body of Christ is substituted? But there is no need to consign the matter to dubiety, seeing that the truth is sufficiently evident to refute the absurdity. I leave alone the numberless passages from both the Scriptures and the ancient Fathers where the sacrament is called bread. I only say that the nature of the sacrament requires that the material bread remain as visible sign of the body. For it is a general rule for all sacraments that the signs which we see have some correspondence with the spiritual things they symbolize. As then at Baptism we have assurance of internal washing when the water is given us for attestation to cleanse our bodily defilements, so in the Supper there must be material bread, to testify to us that the body of Christ is our food. For otherwise what meaning could there be in whiteness symbolizing it for us? We see clearly, then, how the whole representation, which our Lord wished to give in condescension to our infirmity, is lost, unless the true bread remain. For the meaning of the words which our Lord requires us to use is as if it were said: Just as man is sustained and maintained so far as the body is concerned by eating bread, so my flesh is the spiritual nourishment by which souls are vivified. Moreover, what would become of the other simile which Paul employs: As many grains of corn are mixed together to make one bread, so we must be united together, since we all partake of one bread. If there were whiteness only without substance, would it not be mockery to speak thus? Therefore without any doubt we conclude that this transubstantiation is an invention forged by the devil, to corrupt the truth of the Supper.

From this phantasy, several other follies have sprung. And would to God that they were only follies, and not gross abominations! For a local presence of I know not what kind has been imagined, and Jesus Christ, in his divinity and his humanity, thought to be attached to this whiteness, without regard to all the absurdities which follow. Though the old doctors of the Sorbonne dispute with great subtlety, how the body and blood are joined to the signs, yet it cannot be denied that this opinion has been received by great and small in the popish Church, and that it is cruelly maintained today by fire and sword, that Jesus Christ is contained under these signs, and that he must there be sought. Now to maintain this, it is necessary to confess, either that the body of Christ is without limit, or that it can be in different places. In saying so, we come at last to the point where it appears nothing but a phantom. Hence to wish to establish such a presence, that the body of Christ is enclosed within the sign, or is joined locally to it, is not only a dream but a damnable error, contradicting the glory of Christ, and destructive of what we ought to hold concerning his human nature. For Scripture teaches us everywhere, that as our Lord Jesus Christ on earth took our humanity, so he has exalted it to heaven, withdrawing it from its mortal condition, but not changing its nature. So we have two things to consider when we speak of our Lord's humanity. We may not destroy the reality of his nature, nor derogate at all from its glorious estate. To observe this rightly, we have always to raise our thoughts on high, to seek our Redeemer. For if we wish to abase him under the corruptible elements of this world, besides subverting what Scripture declares concerning his human nature, we annihilate the glory of his ascension. Because several others have treated this matter amply, I desist from saying more. I only wish to note in passing that to enclose Jesus Christ fantastically under the bread and wine, or so to join him to them as to amuse our understanding there instead of looking at him in heaven, is a pernicious fancy. We shall refer to this in another place.

Now this perverse opinion, having been once accepted, has given rise to many other superstitions. And first, this carnal adoration, which is nothing but idolatry. For to prostrate oneself before the bread of the Supper, and to adore Jesus Christ in it as though he were there contained, is to make an idol displace the sacrament. We have no commandment to adore, but to take and eat. This, then, ought not to have been audaciously attempted. Moreover, the practice always observed in the ancient Church was that, before celebrating the Supper, the people were solemnly exhorted to lift their hearts on high, to show that we must not stop at the visible sign, to adore Jesus Christ rightly. But there is no need to battle at length over this point, when the presence and conjunction of reality and sign, of which we have spoken and shall again speak, is well understood. From the same source proceeded other superstitious practices, such as carrying the sacrament in procession through the streets once a year, making another day a tabernacle for it, and all the year round keeping it in a cupboard to amuse the people, as if it were a god. Because all this has not only been contrived without the Word of God, but also is directly contrary to the institution of the Supper, it ought to be rejected by all Christians.

We have shown the source of the calamity which befell the popish Church, that the people abstained from communicating in the Supper for a whole year; and this because it is held to be a sacrifice, which is offered by one in the name of all. But again, even when thus used only once a year, it is miserably wasted and as it were rent in pieces. For instead of distributing the sacrament of the blood to the people, as the command of our Lord intends, they are made to believe that they must be content with the other portion. Thus poor believers are unhappily defrauded of the gift which our Lord had made to them. For if it is no little benefit to communicate in the blood of our Lord as our nourishment, it is a very great cruelty to steal it from those to whom it belongs. In this we can see with what audacity and boldness the pope tyrannized over the Church, when once he usurped dominion. Our Lord, having commanded his disciples to eat the bread sanctified in his body, when he came to the chalice does not say simply: Drink, but adds expressly that all are to drink of it. Could we have anything clearer than this? He says that we are to eat the bread, without using a universal term. He says that we are all to drink of the cup. Whence this difference, unless he wished to anticipate this wickedness of the devil? Yet such is the pride of the pope, that he dares to say: All are not to drink. And to show that he is wiser than God, he alleges that there is good reason that the priest have some privilege over the people, in honour of the sacerdotal dignity. As if our Lord had not at all considered how one ought to be distinguished from the other! Moreover, he objects to the dangers which might occur if the chalice were given to all. It could happen that some drop be occasionally spilt; as if our Lord had not foreseen this! Is not this to accuse God openly of confusing the order to be observed, and putting his people in danger without purpose? To show that there is no great disadvantage in this change, they point out that under one kind all is contained so that the body cannot be divided from the blood; as if our Lord had foolishly distinguished them! For if we can leave one of the parts behind as superfluous, it would have been folly to recommend them separately. Some of his supporters, seeing that it was impudence to maintain this abomination, have wished to excuse it otherwise.

They say that Jesus Christ, in instituting the sacrament, spoke only to his disciples whom he had elevated to sacerdotal rank. But what will they answer to what Paul says, when he delivered to all Christian people that which he had received from the Lord, that each should eat of this bread and drink of this cup? And in fact, who revealed to them that our Lord gave the Supper to his apostles as priests? The words mean the opposite, when he commands them to follow his example. He then delivers to them the rule which he wished to be always observed in his Church. Thus it was observed in the ancient Church, until Antichrist, having gained the upper hand, openly raised his horns against God and his truth, to destroy it completely. We see then that it is an intolerable perversion to divide and dissect the sacrament thus, separating the parts which God joined.

To come to an end, we comprehend under one article what could be considered separately. The article is that the devil introduced the manner of celebrating the Supper without any doctrine, and in place of the doctrine substituted ceremonies, partly unfitting and useless, and partly even dangerous, from which much ill has followed—to such an extent, that the mass, which takes the place of the Supper in the popish Church, when strictly defined, is nothing but pure apishness and buffoonery. I call it apishness, because the Supper of our Lord is there counterfeited without reason, just as an ape, capriciously and without discernment, follows what it sees done. This being so, the chief thing which our Lord recommends to us, is to celebrate this mystery with true intelligence. It follows then that the substance of it all consists in the doctrine. This taken away, it is no more than a cold ceremony without efficacy. This is not only shown in Scripture, but also attested by the canons of the pope, in a sentence cited from Augustine, where he asks; What is the water of Baptism without the Word, but a corruptible element?—and the Word not merely as uttered but as understood. He thereby means that the sacraments take their virtue from the Word, when it is preached intelligibly. Without this, they are unworthy to be called sacraments. Now intelligible doctrine of the mass is so lacking, that on the contrary the whole mystery is considered spoiled, if everything is not done by stealth, so that nothing is understood. Therefore their consecration is nothing but a piece of sorcery, seeing that, by murmuring and gesticulating in the manner of sorcerers, they think to constrain Jesus Christ to descend into their hands. We see, then, how the mass being thus arranged, is a manifest profanation of the Supper of Christ, rather than an observance of it. For the proper and chief substance of the Supper is lacking, that the mystery be well explained to the people, and the promises clearly recited, instead of the priest muttering to himself apart without sense or reason. I call it buffoonery, because the mimicry and gesture made there suit rather a farce than such a mystery as the Supper of our Lord.

It is indeed true, that the sacrifices in the Old Testament took place with much ornament and ceremony. But because there was a sound meaning, and the whole was suited to instruct and excite the people to piety, they are far from being similar to those now used, which serve no end but the amusement of the people without any advantage. As these mass-mongers allege the example of the Old Testament in defence of their ceremonies, we must observe what difference there is between what they do and what God commanded the people of Israel to do. If there were only this, that what was then practised was founded on the command of the Lord, while all their frivolities have no foundation but men, there would be great enough dissimilarity. But we have more for which to reprove them. For it is not without reason that our Lord ordained such a form for a time, in order that it might some day come to an end and be abrogated. For as he had not then granted such clarity of doctrine, he desired that this people be more exercised in symbols, to compensate them for what they lacked in another direction. But since Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh, doctrine has been so much the more clarified, and the symbols have been diminished. Since then we have the body, we should relinquish the shadows. For if we are to return to ceremonies which are abolished, we should repair the veil of the temple, which Jesus Christ rent by his death, and should thus obscure the clarity of the Gospel. Thus we see that such a multitude of ceremonies in the mass is a kind of Judaicism, manifestly contrary to Christianity. I do not intend to disapprove ceremonies which contribute to decency and public order and increase reverence of the sacrament, provided they are sober and suitable. But such an abyss without end or measure is quite intolerable, seeing that it gave rise to a thousand superstititions, and as it were stupefied the people without bringing any edification.

Hence we can also see the difference there ought to be between the papists and those to whom God has given knowledge of his truth. To begin with, they will not doubt but that it is an abominable sacrilege to represent the mass as a sacrifice by which remission of sins is procured for us; or rather that the priest is mediator for the application of the merit of the death and passion of Christ to those who buy his mass, or attend it, or accord it devotion. But on the contrary, they must conclude that the death and passion of our Lord is the unique sacrifice by which the wrath of God is satisfied, and perpetual righteousness procured for us; and then that the Lord Jesus is entered into the heavenly sanctuary, finally to appear for us, and intercede with the virtue of his sacrifice. For the rest, they will readily grant that the fruit of this death is communicated to us in the Supper, not at all by the merit of the act, but by reason of the promises which we are there given, provided we receive them by faith. Second, they should not at all allow that the bread is transubstantiated into the body of Jesus Christ, nor the wine into his blood; but must insist on this, that the visible signs retain their true substance to represent to us the spiritual truth of which we have spoken. Third, they must hold for certain that our Lord gives us in the Supper what he signifies by it, and we thus really receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless they will not seek it as though it were enclosed under the bread or attached locally to the visible sign, so far are they from adoring the sacrament. But they will rather raise their understandings and their hearts on high, both to receive Jesus Christ, and also to adore him. From this it will follow that they disapprove and condemn as idolatry all these superstitious fashions, such as carrying the sacrament in solemn procession, or constructing for it tabernacles for its adoration. For the promises of our Lord do not extend beyond the use he has left us. Next they will hold that to deprive the people of one of the parts of the sacrament, that is of the chalice, is to violate and corrupt the ordinance of our Lord, and that for right observance both are to be distributed to all. Last, they will regard it as a superfluity, not only useless but also dangerous and ill-consorted with Christianity, to use so many ceremonies borrowed from the Jews, beyond the simplicity which the apostles left us; and that it is an even greater perversion to celebrate the Supper by mimicry and I know not what buffoonery, without expounding the doctrine but rather burying it, as if the Supper were a kind of magical trick.