Works
This Objection indeed looks very big at the first sight, but it is no more but a show, and we shall deal well enough with it. For we are to take notice, that these Authors, all four of them, lived and wrote within and after the Third Seculum was begun, and the eldest of them Minutius Felix after Tertullian; Origen after him: yea, why do I say after the Third Seculum was begun or within it? whenas two of them, Arnobius and Lactantius, lived and wrote rather after it was ended, and in the beginning of the Fourth; Arnobius in the time of the Persecution of Diocletian, Lactantius somewhat after him; for he was his Scholar, and dedicates his Institutions adversùs Gentes to Constantine the Great.
Now then remember what Authorities and Testimonies were even now produced for the Christians Oratories all that Seculum throughout, not Probabilities only, but such as are altogether irrefragable and past contradiction. This they seem not to have considered, unless they dissembled it, who so securely urge these passages, to infer a Conclusion point-blank against evidence of Fact. As for example, (I will allege no more but what is out of possibility to be denied or eluded) Had the Christians no Oratories or Churches in Gregory Thaumaturgus his time? Had they none in S. Cyprian's? Had they none in the days of Dionysius Alexandrinus? Had they none when Galienus released their To 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ? Had they none in those Halcyonian days whereof Eusebius speaks, when the multitude of Christians was grown so great, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the ancient Edifices were no longer able to contain their Assemblies; but that they were fain to build new and spacious Churches in every City from the foundations? Had they none when the Edict of Diocletian came forth for demolishing them? For all these were before that either Arnobius or Lactantius wrote. Let those therefore, who put so much confidence in these passages, tell us, before they conclude, how to untie this knot, and then shall say something.
What then, will you say, is the meaning of these passages? and how may they be satisfied, and this s • ruple taken off? I answer; The Gentiles in these Objections had a peculiar notion of what they called a Temple: and these Fathers and Authors, in their disputes with them, answer them according unto it. For they defined a Temple by an Idol and the inclosure of a Diety; not of the Statue or Image only, but of the Demon himself: that is, They supposed their God's by the power of Spells and Magical consecrations to be retained and shut up in their Temples, as Birds in a Cage, or the Devil within a circle, that so their suppliants might know where to have them when they had occasion to seek unto them; and that, for such retaining or circumscribing of them in a certain Place, an Idol was necessary, as the Centre of their collocation. Thus much Origen himself will inform us in those his disputes against Celsus, as in his 3. Book pag. 135. Editionis Graeco-lat. where he describes 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Temples and Idols, to be places where Demons are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , enthroned or seated, either having preoccupied such places of themselves,
According to this notion of a Temple, these Authors alleged grant that Christians neither had any Temples, no nor ought to have; forasmuch as the God whom they worshipped, was such a one as filled the Heaven and the Earth, and dwelt not in Temples made with hands. And because the Gentiles appropriated the name of a Temple to this notion of encloistering a Deity by an Idol; therefore the Christians of those first Ages, for the most part, abstained therefrom, especially when they had to deal with Gentiles, calling their Houses of worship Ecclesiae, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (whence is the Dutch and our English Kurk and Church ) in Latin Dominica; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, Oratories, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or the like: seldom 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or Templa; that appellation being grown, by the use of both sides, into a name of distinction of the Houses of Gentile Superstition from those of Christian Worship. Which that I affirm not upon bare conjecture, these Examples will make manifest. First, that of Aurelian the Emperor, before alleged, in his Epistle to the Senate. De Libris Sibyllinis inspiciendis:
That this Answer is true and genuine, I prove, first, Because the Gentiles themselves, [unspec 1] who objected this want to the Christians, neither were nor could be ignorant that they had Oratories where they performed their Christian service; when they were so notoriously known (as we saw before) to the Emperors Galienus and Aurelian, and a controversy about one of them referred unto the latter; when also the Emperor's Edicts flew about in every City for demolishing them. Why therefore do they object in this manner, but because, for the defect of something they thought thereto necessary, they esteemed not those Oratories for Temples?
Secondly, Because in that dispute between Origen and Celsus it is supposed by both [unspec 2] that the Persians and Jews were, as concerning this matter, in like condition with the Christians, neither of both enduring to worship their God's in Temples. Hear Origen speak, Lib. 7. p. 385, 386.
Yet certainly neither Celsus nor Origen, whatsoever they here say of the Persians and Jews, were ignorant that the Persians had their Pyraea or Pyrathaea, (Houses where the Fire was worshipped) though without Images or Statues; also that the Jews had both then, and also formerly, their Synagogues and Proseuchae in the places and Countries where they were dispersed; and once a most glorious and magnificent Temple or Sanctuary: Ergo, by Temples they understand not Houses of prayer and religious rites in the general; but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Places where Demons were incloistered by the position of an Idol or consecrated Statue. And here let me add (because it is not impertinent) what I have observed in reading the Itinerarium of Benjamin Tudelensis the Jew; namely, that he expresses constantly after this manner the Oratories of Jews, Turks and Christians by differing names: those of the Jews he calls 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , i. Houses of assembly or Synagogues; the Turkish Mosquees 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Houses of prayer; but the Christian Churches, because of Images, (yea that renowned Church of S. Sophie itself) he called always 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 BAMOTH, the name of the Idol-Temples in the Old Testament, which we translate High-places. This I note for an example of that proneness in Religions of a contrary Rite thus to distinguish, as other things, so their Places of worship, by diversity of names, though they communicate in the same common nature and use.
[unspec 3] Thirdly, That the Answer I have given to these objected passages is genuine, I prove, Because some of these Authors acknowledge elsewhere that Christians had Houses of Sacred worship in their time. As namely Arnobius (whose words were as pressing as any of the rest, yet) in the self-same Books acknowledges the Christian Oratories by the name of CONVENTICULA or Meeting-places; by that name endeavoring, I suppose, to express the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The place is about the end of his fourth Book adversùs Gentes:
Nay Origen himself, one of the first brought to depose against us, (if Rufinus his Translator deserve my credit) will in his Homily upon the 9. chap. of Joshua testify both for Churches and Altars among Christians in his time. For thus he allegorizeth there the story of the Gibeonites, whose lives Joshua and the Elders spared, but gave them no better entertainment than to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Congregation and for the Altar of the Lord:
Thus Origen by his Interpreter. And if anywhere Rufinus may be trusted, sure he may in this; forasmuch as in his Peroration in Epist. ad Romanos he hath given us his word, that in his translation of this and the next Book he took not his wonted liberty to insert or alter anything, but simply expressed everything as he found it. Hear his words;
Lastly, Because the fore-alleged words of Lactantius are so usually brought against us, though they be nothing urgent, and his time be altogether repugnant to any such inference; yet absolutely to take away all scruple, let us hear him also, Instit. Lib. 5. c. 2. expressly giving evidence for us, and that even by the name of Templum.
And thus having removed that stumbling-stone which hath been the main inducement to the contrary opinion, so prejudicial to those works of religious bounty and piety; I hope my Proofs will find the freer passage with those of understanding and judgment, to whose pious consideration I have devoted this my Discourse.
THE REVERENCE OF GOD'S HOUSE. ECCLESIASTES 5. 1.
SOLOMON, whom God chose to build that sacred and glorious Temple to his Name, it hath pleased his holy Spirit to make also our principal Instructor how we ought to demean ourselves in such sacred places. This appears, as by that his solemn and famous Prayer made at the Dedication thereof, so also by this Scripture which I have now begun to read; the first seven verses of this Chapter, if we will rightly understand them, being wholly spent upon that argument, and containing precepts and instructions fitted to the several duties of holy worship we are to perform, both at our coming thither, and whilst we remain there.
To unfold them all, were too much for the shortness of the time allotted me: May it please you therefore to vouchsafe me your Christian patience and charitable attention, whilst I utter my thoughts upon the words I have now read. For the better and more distinct explication whereof, consider in them these two parts; An Admonition, and a Caution. 1. An Admonition of reverent and awful demeanour when we come to God's House; Look to thy foot, or feet, when thou comest to the House of God. 2. A Caution, not to prefer the secondary Service of God before the first and principal; Be more ready to obey, than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they know not that they do evil. In the first, or Admonition, I will consider two things: 1. The Place, God's House; 2. The Duty of those who come thither, Look to thy feet. Of these in order, and first of the Place, God's House.
SECTION I.
THE House of God is the place set apart for his Worship and service, and so hath peculiar Relation unto him; wherewith being invested it becomes sacred and holy; not only whilst Divine duties are performed therein, as some erroneously affirm, but as long as it is for such use; namely, according to the nature of other Sacred things, which continue their state of separateness and sanctity, so long as that relation they have unto God (wherein this Sanctity consists) is not quite abolished.
To erect and set apart such Places as these for the exercise of the Rites of Religion, is derived from the Instinct of Nature, and approved of God from the beginning. It began not with that Tabernacle or ambulatory Temple which Moses caused to be made by God's appointment at Mount Sinai, but was much more ancient. Noah built an Altar as soon as he came out of the Ark • Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, (wheresoever they came to pitch their Tents,) erected Places for Divine worship, (that is, Altars with their septs and enclosures) without any special appointment from God. Jacob in particular vowed a place for Divine worship by the name of God's House, where he would pay the Tithes of all that God should give him, Gen. 28. 19, &c. Lo here a Church endowed. Yea Moses himself ( Exod. 33. 7.) before the Ark and that glorious Tabernacle were yet made, pitched a Tabernacle for the same purpose without the Camp, whither everyone that sought the Lord was to go. And all this was done tanquam recepti moris, as a thing of custom, and as mankind by Tradition had learned to accommodate the Worship of their God, by appropriating some Place to that use; Nature teaching them, that the work was honored and dignified by the peculiarness of the place appointed for the same; and that if any work were so to be honored, there was nothing it more beseemed than the Worship and service of Almighty God, the most peculiar and incommunicable act of all other.
Nay more than this; It was believed in those elder times, That that Country or Territory, wherein no Place was set apart for the Worship of God, was unhallowed and unclean. Which, I think, I rightly gather from that Story in the Book of Joshua, of the Altar built by Reuben, Gad and the half Tribe of Manasseh upon the bank of the River Jordan; which Joshua and the Elders, as their words intimate, supposed they had done lest the land of their possession, being by the River Jordan cut off from the land of Canaan, (where the Lord's Tabernacle was) and so having no place therein consecrated to the worship of their God, might otherwise be an unclean and unhallowed habitation. Hear the words of Phinehas and the Princes sent to dissuade them ( Joshua 22. 19.) and judge whether they import not as I have said. If the land (say they) of your possession be unclean, then pass ye • ver unto the land of the possession of the LORD, where the LORD'S Tabernacle dwelleth, and take possession amongst us: but rebel not against the LORD, nor against us, in building you an Altar besides the Altar of the LORD your God.
Now concerning the condition and property of Places thus sanctified or hallowed, what it is; whence can we learn better than from that which the Lord spake unto Moses, Exod. 20. immediately after he had pronounced the Decalogue from Mount Sinai: where premising that they should not make with him gods of gold and gods of silver, but that they should make him • an Altar of earth (as namely their ambulatory state then permitted, otherwise of stone) and thereon sacrifice their burnt-offerings and peace-offerings; he adds, in all places where I record my Name, I will come unto thee, and bless thee, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , In every place where the remembrance or memorial of my Name shall be, or, Wheresoever that is which I have or shall appoint to be the remembrance or memorial of my Name and presence, there I will come unto thee, and bless thee. Lo here a description of the Place set apart for Divine worship: It is the Place where God records his Name, and comes unto men to bless them, Two things are here specified: The Monument, Record or Memorial of God's Name; secondly, His coming or meeting therewith men. Of both let us inquire distinctly, what they mean.
I know it would not be untrue to say in general, That God's Name is recorded or remembered in that place upon which his Name is called, or which is called by his Name, (as the Scripture speaks,) that is, which is dedicate to his worship and service: But there is some more special thing intended here; namely, the Memorial or Monument of God's Name is that token or Symbole whereby he testifieth his Covenant and commerce with men. Now although the Ark • called the Ark of the Covenant or Testimony, (wherein lay the two Tables, namely the Book or Articles of the Covenant, and Manna, the Bread of the Covenant) were afterwards made for this purpose, to be the standing Memorial of God's Name and Presence with his people: yet cannot that be here either only, or specially aimed at; because when these words were spoken, it had no being, nor was there yet any commandment given concerning the making thereof. Wherefore the Record here mentioned I understand with a more general reference to any Memorial whereby God's Covenant and commerce with men was testified: such as were the Sacrifices immediately before spoken of, and the seat of them the Altar; which therefore may seem to be in some sort the more particularly here pointed unto. For that these were Rites of remembrance, whereby the Name of God was commemorated or recorded, and his Covenant with men renewed and testified, might be easily proved. Whence it is that that which was burned upon the Altar is so often called the Memorial; as in Leviticus the 2. 5. 6, and 24. chapters. Accordingly the son of Sirach tells us, chap. 45. 16. that Aaron was chosen out of all men living, to offer Sacrifices to the Lord, incense and a sweet savor, for a Memorial, to make reconciliation for his people. Add also that ( Isaiah 66. 3.) Qui recordatur thure, quasi qui benedicat Idolo; He that (without true contrition and humiliation before the Lord) recordeth or maketh remembrance with incense, is as if he blessed an Idol: But I must not stay too long upon this.
You will say, What is all this to us now in the time of the Gospel? I answer, Yes: For did not Christ ordain the holy Eucharist to be the Memorial of his Name in the New Testament? This (saith he) is my Body, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Do this for my Commemoration, or in Memorial of me. And what if I should affirm that Christ is as much present here as the Lord was upon the Mercy-seat between the Cherubims? Why should not then the Place of this Memorial under the Gospel have some semblable sanctity to that where the Name of God was recorded in the Law? And though we be not now tied to one only Place, as those under the Law were; and that God heareth the faithful prayers of his Servants wheresoever they are made unto him, (as also he did then:) yet should not the Places of his Memorial be promiscuous and common, but set apart to that sacred purpose. In a word, All those sacred Memorials of the Jewish Temple are both comprehended and excelled in this One of Christians; the Sacrifices, Shew-bread, and Ark of the Covenant; Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist being all these unto us in the New Testament, agreeable to that of the Apostle, Rom. 3. 25. God hath set forth Jesus Christ to be our 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 through faith in his blood, that is, our Propitiatory or Mercy-seat; for so it is called in the Greek both of the Old and New Testament; nor is the word, I think, ever used but in that sense, unless in Ezekiel 43. for the Settle of the Altar.
But you will say, This Christian Memorial is not always actually present in our Churches, as someone or other at least of those in the Law were in the Temple. I answer, It is enough, it is wont to be; as the Chair of State loses not its relation and due respect, though the King be not always there. And remember that the Ark of the Covenant was not in Jerusalem when Daniel opened his windows and prayed thitherward; yea, that it was wanting in the Holy Place (I mean that sacred Cabinet made by Moses ) all the time of the second (or Zerubbabel's ) Temple; and yet the place esteemed notwithstanding as if it had been there.
You will yet except and say, That in the Old Testament those things were appointed by divine Law and Commandment, but in the New we find no such thing. I answer, In things for which we find no new Rule given in the New Testament, there we are referred and left to the Analogy of the Old. This the Apostle's proof taken from thence for the maintenance of the Ministers of the Gospel, 1 Cor. 9. 13, 14. [ viz. Thus were they, Ergo, So God hath ordained that we] will give us to understand; likewise the practice of the Church in baptizing Infants, derived surely from the Analogy of Circumcision; the hallowing of every first day of the week, as one in every seven, from the Analogy of the Jewish Sabbath; and other the like. S. Jerome witnesseth the same in that saying of his,
There comes here very fitly into my mind a passage of Clemens, (a man of the Apostolic age, he whose name S. Paul saith was written in the Book of life ) in his genuine Epistle Ad Corinthios, lately set forth, pag. 52.
It follows in the Text alleged, There I will come unto thee, and bless thee. In the Place where the Lord's Memorial is, where his Colours, as I may so speak, are displayed and set up, there, in a special manner, he vouchsafes his presence with the sons of men to bless them: or, to speak rotunde, where his Memorial is, there His 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 SHECINAH or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is, (as the Hebrew Masters term it,) that is, His GLORY. The Gentiles ascribed the presence of their God's to the places where Images and Statues were erected and consecrated for them: But such personal similitudes the God of Israel abhors, and forbids to be made unto Him; yet promiseth his presence in every place where the Memorial or Record of his Name shall be; but of his own appointment, not of man's devising. For thus, I suppose, is the Text there to be understood, and to be construed by way of Antithesis or opposition: You shall not make with me gods of silver, nor gods of gold: An Altar only of earth, or of stone, shalt thou make unto me, to offer thy Sacrifices upon. For in every place where I shall record my Name, I will come unto thee, and bless thee. And here take notice, that for this reason the Tabernacle of the Lord was called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Tabernacle of meeting; not of men's meeting together, as is commonly supposed, when we translate it, Tabernacle of the Congregation; but of God's meeting there with men. I have a good author for it; for so the Lord himself gives the reason of the name in three several places of the Law, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The Tabernacle of meeting, • here I will meet with you. See Exod. 29. 42. 30. 36. Num. 17. 4. and Masius in Ios. c. 18.
SECTION II.
THUS we have seen What is the condition and property of that Place which in my Text is called God's House. But before I proceed to speak of the Duty of those who come thither, (which was the second thing I propounded) there is one thing yet to be cleared concerning that which I last mentioned, namely, How God is said to come unto, or to be present with, men in one place more than another; seeing his Presence fills every place; Heaven being his throne, and the whole Earth his footstool. For although we read often in Holy Scripture of such a SHECINAH, or Speciality of the Divine presence, and have it often in our mouths; yet what it is, and wherein the Ratio thereof consisteth, is seldom, if at all, inquired into. When we speak of Churches, we content ourselves to say, That God's special presence there is in his Word and Sacraments: But though it be true that the Divine Majesty is there specially present where his Word and Sacraments are; yet seems not this Speciality of presence to be the same with his Word and Sacraments, but a diverse relation from them. This may be gathered, in some sort, out of those words of Exodus whereupon we have so long dwelt, as where the recording of God's Name and his coming thither are spoken of as two: but is more strongly evinced by such instances of Scripture, where the Lord is said to have been specially present in places where this Record of his Word and Sacraments was not; as for example, to Moses in the Bush, to Jacob at Bethel, and the like. The true Ratio therefore of this SHECINAH or Speciality of Divine Presence must be sought and defined by something which is common to all these, and not by that which is proper to some only.
Well then, to hold you no longer in suspense, This Specification of the Divine presence, whereby God is said to be in one place more than another, I suppose (under correction) to consist in his train or retinue. A King is there where his Court is, where his train and retinue are: So God the Lord of Hosts is there specially present where the Heavenly Guard, the blessed Angels, keep their sacred station and rendezvous.
That this is consonant to the revelation of holy Scripture, I show, first, from the collection or inference which the Patriarch Jacob makes upon that Divine vision of his at Bethel: where having seen a ladder reaching from heaven to earth, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon it; Surely, (saith he) the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. How dreadful is this place! It is no other but the House of God, even the gate of Heaven, that is, Heaven's Guild-hall, Heaven's Court; namely, because of the Angels: For the Gate was wont to be the Judgment-Hall, and the Place where Kings and Senators used to sit, attended by their guard and ministers.
Secondly, I prove it from that interpretative expression used in the New Testament of the Lord's descent upon Mount Sinai when the Law was given; intimating, that the Specification of the presence of the Divine Majesty there also consisted in the Angelical retinue there encamping. For so S. Steven, Acts 7. 53. You who have received the Law by the disposition of Angels, and have not kept it. S. Paul twice; first, Gal. 3. 19. The Law was added because of transgressions, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator: and again, Heb. 2. 2. he calls the Law, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the word spoken by Angels. Howbeit in the story itself we find no such thing expressed, but only that the Lord descended upon the Mount in a fiery and smoking cloud, accompanied with thunders and lightnings, with an earthquake, and the voice of a trumpet. Whence then should this expression of S. Steven and the Apostle proceed, but from a supposition, that the Special presence of the Divine Majesty, wheresoever it is said to be, consisted in the encamping of his sacred retinue the Angels? for that of himself, He, who filleth the Heaven and the Earth, could not descend, nor be in one place more than another.
Yea all the Apparitions of the Divine Majesty in Scripture are described by this retinue. That of the Ancient of days coming to judgment, Dan. 7. 10. Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; to wit, of Angels. Whence we read in the Gospel, that Christ our Savior shall come in the glory of his Father, that is, with an Host of Angels, as the Holy Ghost himself in the same places expounds it: for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Glory here signifies the Presence of the Divine Majesty.
In the same style, of the same Appearing, prophesied Enoch, the seventh from Adam, Jude verse 14. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Behold, the Lord cometh with his holy Myriads, or ten thousands; for so it ought to be rendered, and not, as we have it, with ten thousand of his Saints. Wherefore here the vulgar Latin comes nearer, which hath, Ecce, venit Dominus in sanctis millibus suis. A like expression whereunto of the Divine presence we shall find in Moses Blessing, Deut. 33. 2. The Lord (saith he) came from Sinai unto them, (i. unto Israel) and rose up from S • ir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, he came with his holy ten thousands, or holy Myriads, (for so it should be translated: then it follows,) from his right hand went a fiery law for them. From whence perhaps that notion of the Jewish Doctors, followed by S. Steven and the Apostle [ That the Law was given by Angels ] had its beginning. And thus you have heard out of Scripture What that is whereby the Special presence of the Divine Majesty is (as I suppose) defined, that is, wherein it consists; namely, such as is appliable to all places wherein he is said to be thus present, even to Heaven itself his Throne and Seat of glory, the proper place (as everyone knows) of Angelical residence.
Now, according to this manner of presence is the Divine Majesty to be acknowledged present in the Places where his Name is recorded, as in his Temple under the Law, and in our Christian Oratories or Churches under the Gospel; namely, that the heavenly Guard there attend and keep their rendezvous, as in their Master's House: according to that vision which the Prophet Isaiah had thereof, Isaiah 6. 1. I saw the Lord (saith he) sitting upon a Throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the Temple, [Septuagint, and John 12. 41. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] that is, the Angels and Seraphims his stipatores; as may be gathered from that which immediately follows, verse 3. where it is said, The Seraphims cried one unto another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of his Glory.
This King Agrippa in Josephus intimates, in that Oration he is said to have made unto the Jews a little before that fatal siege, dehorting them from rebelling against the Romans: where speaking to the people hard by, and in view of that sacred Temple, he hath these words;
The • ame is implied in that of the 138. Psalm, ver. 1, 2. according to the translation of the Septuagint and Vulgar; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , In conspectu Angolorum psallam tibi; Adorabo ad Templum sanctum tuum, & confitebor Nomini tuo: Before the Angels I will sing praise unto thee; I will worship towards thy holy Temple, and praise thy Name.
And according to this sense I understand that of Solomon in this Book of Ecclesiastes within two or three verses of my Text, concerning vows to be made in God's House: When thou vowest a vow, defer not to pay it—Better it is thou shouldest not vow, than vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou BEFORE THE ANGEL, It was an error; —that is, Let not such a foolish excuse come from thee in the house of God, before the holy Angels. For note that the word Angel may be taken collectively, for more than one.
For this cause all the curtains of the Tabernacle were filled with the pictures of Cherubims, and the walls of Solomon's Temple within with carved Cherubims; the Ark of the Testimony overspread and covered with two nighty Cherubims, having their faces looking towards it and the Mercy-seat, ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) with their wings stretched forth on high, called Heb. 9. 5. The Cherubims of glory, that is, of the Divine Presence: All to signify, that where God's sacred Memorial is, the en • ign of his Covenant and commerce with men, there the blessed Angels out of duty give their attendance.
Nor is it to be over-passed, that the Jews at this day continue the like opinion of their modern Places of worship; namely, that the blessed Angels frequent their assemblies, and praise and laud God with them in their Synagogues: notwithstanding they have no other Memorial of his there than an imitative one only, to wit, a Chest with a Volume or Roll of the Law therein, instead of the Ark with the two Tables. For thus speaks the Seder Tephilloth, or Form of prayer used by the Jews of Portugal; O Lord our God, the Angels, that supernal company, gathered together with thy people Israel here below, do crown thee with praises, and altogether do thrice redouble and cry that spoken of by the Prophet, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. They allude to Isaiah's Vision of the Glory of God, above mentioned.
You will say, Such a presence of Angels perhaps there was in that Temple under the Law; but there is no such thing in the Gospel. No? why? Are the Memorials of God's Covenant, his Insignia in the Gospel, less worthy of their attendance than those of the Law? or have the Angels, since the nature of man, Jesus Christ our Lord, became their Head and King, gotten an exemption from this service? Surely not. S. Paul, if we will understand and believe him, supposes the contrary, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. 11. verse 10. where treating of a comely and decent accommodation to be observed in Church-assemblies, and in particular of women's being covered or veiled there, he enforces it from this presence of Angels; For this cause (saith he) ought the woman to have a covering on her head, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , because of the Angels; namely, which are there present. For otherwise the reason holds not, that she should more be covered in the Place of Prayer than anywhere else, unless the Angels be more there than elsewhere. This place much troubleth the Expositors: but see what it is to admit a truth; for now there is no difficulty in it.
And that the ancient Fathers conceived no less venerably of their Christian Oratories in this particular than the Jews did of their Temple, appears by S. Chrysostom • , who is very frequent in urging an awful and reverent behavior in God's house from this motive of Angelical presence. As in his Homily 36. in 1 Corinth. where reproving the irreverent behavior of his Auditory in that Church, in talking, walking, saluting, and the like, (which he saith was peculiar unto them, and such as no Christians elsewhere in the world presumed to do,) he enforces his reproof with words that come home to our purpose:
And in his 4. Homily De incomprehensibili Dei natura, towards the end;
Namely, that in his 15. Homily upon the Epistle to the Hebrews, against those that laughed in the Church:
The like unto this you shall find in his 24. Homily upon the Acts of the Apostles;
I will allege but one passage more of his, lest I should grow tedious, and that is out of his 6. Book de Sacerdotio, not very far from the beginning; where speaking of the time when the holy Eucharist is celebrated,
S. Ambrose acknowledgeth the same in c. 1. Luc.
Yea Tertullian, (in whose time, which was within two hundred years after Christ, some will scarcely believe that Christians had any such Places as Churches at all,) if I understand him, intimates as much in his Lib. de Oratione c. 12. where reprehending the irreverent gesture of some in sitting at the time of Prayer in the Church;
I cite the passage of these Fathers thus at large, lest I might to some seem to broach a Novelty. And though some of those of S. Chrysostom be Hyperbolically expressed; yet for the main and substance of what he intended, I believe it to be true, and ground my belief upon the authority of S. Paul before alleged, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Because of the Angels. If any shall say, whatsoever were then, they will not believe there in any such kind of presence in our Churches now: I must tell them, If it be so, it is because of our irreverent and unseemly behavior in them, which makes those blessed Spirits loath our company. For though they be invisible and incorporeal creatures, yet can they not look into our hearts, (that is God their Master's prerogative) but are witnesses of our outward behavior and actions only; and it was a case of external decorum, wherein the Apostle mentions this presence of theirs for a motive or reason; For this cause ought the woman to have a covering on her head, because of the Angels. For they love not to behold anything that is uncomely and unbeseeming, but fly from it: and if we lose their company, the best members of our congregation are wanting.
Thus you have heard what is the dignity and prerogative of God's House. Who now that considers and believes this, (and there was a time when it was believed,) will not say with the Patriarch Jacob, when he saw the Angels ascending and descending at Bethel, Quàm reverenda sunt haec loca! How reverend are these places! For every Place where the name of God is recorded, is Bethel, where the Angels of God are ascending and descending, that is, God in a special manner present and meeting with men. How seemly therefore, orderly and awfully should we compose ourselves in them? how reverent should our manner be at our coming into them? which is the second thing I propounded to speak of. Thus much therefore of God's House: I come now to the Duty of those who come thither; Look to thy feet when thou comest to the House of God.
SECTION III.
LOOK to thy feet, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; for so the Cethib or Textual reading hath it: the Masorites in the margin note another reading, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the singular number. But which way soever of the two it be read, the sense is still the same; Look to thy foot being to be expounded plurally Look to thy feet, as in other places of Scripture. The Symbolical application of this Precept to the purifying and ridding the Mind of corrupt and fleshly thoughts, though it be useful, and the thing itself true, yet I will let pass, as being not argumentative; and betake myself wholly to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Literal meaning, which the Symbolical or Tropological signification destroyeth not, but presupposeth. The meaning therefore in general is; Have a care that thy feet be as they should be, when thou goest (or comest) to the House of God. But what is that? Most of the Interpreters (saith Ibn Ezra ) compare it with that which is said of Mephibosheth, 2 Sam. 19. 24. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 He dressed not his feet, that is, He washed them not: So here, Look to thy feet when thou goest to the House of God, is as much as to say, Come not into God's House illotis pedibus, with unwashed feet. This is true, but goes not far enough. For I suppose here is an allusion in particular to that Rite of Discalceation used by the Jews and other Nations of the Orient at their coming into Sacred places; namely, that whereof the Lord spake to Moses, Exod. 3. 5. and again to Joshua, Ios. 5. 15. Exue calceamenta tua de pedibus tuis; locus enim in quo stas terra sancta est: Put thy shoes from thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
For although the verb 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 here used signifies properly motum à loco, that is, to go; and not in locum, to come, (in which respect the Rite of washing the feet perhaps, being a preparatory act, might agree better with it;) yet is it not always so used: besides, it is an unusual Trope in Scripture, ex antecedente intelligere consequence, by the antecedent to understand the consequent; which hath place here. That whereby I gather it is, because the Precepts following my Text, whereunto this word of motion belongs 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (that is, in common ) are not of things to be done when we are going to the House of God, but when we are come thither: as, When thou comest to the House of God, be not rash nor hasty to utter anything before God, &c. When thou comest to the House of God, and makest a vow before him, defer not to pay it,—neither say thou before the Angel, &c.—To which may be added the latter part of my Text, When thou comest to the house of God, be more ready to hear, or obey, than to offer the Sacrifice of fools. All, as you see are of things to be done when we are come into God's house. Therefore 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which is common to them, should rather note motum in termino ad quem; not when thou goest, but when thou comest to the house of God; and accordingly this admonition of care to be had of the feet, to intend something to be observed when we come there, rather than when we are going thither: Which was, (as I have said) among the Jews and other Nations, of the Orient especially, that Rite of Discalceation, or putting of their shoes, still used and continued amongst them unto this day, when they come into their Temples and Sacred places.
Which that I affirm not without good warrant, in case any one shall doubt thereof, these Testimonies following will sufficiently evidence. First, That Symbole of Pythagoras, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , OFFER SACRIFICE AND WORSHIP WITH THY SHOES OFF. What mystical or symbolical sense he intended, I inquire not; but it is plain, his expression alludes to some such custom then used by those who came to worship in the Temples of their God's.
Wherein that my collection fails me not, Justin Martyr will bear me witness in his second Apology, where he tells us, That those who came to worship in the Sanctuaries and Temples of the Gentiles were commanded by their Priests, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, to put off their shoes: which their God's learned (saith he) by way of Imitation, from that which the Lord spake to Moses out of the flaming Bush, Loose thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. This Testimony for the antiquity of the practice is without exception. Yet by the Father's good leave, I am prone to think that those words unto Moses gave not the first beginning unto it, but were an admonition only of the Divine presence, thereby commanding the Rite then accustomed in places so hallowed: and that therefore it was rather, as other Religious Rites, derived unto the Gentiles by Tradition from the Patriarchs before Moses; of whom both the Jews and those Nations of the Orient which agreed with them in this custom were descended. Concerning whose present custom Drusius in his Notes upon Joshua affirmeth,
For the Jews in particular, that this Rite of Veneration was anciently used by them in Places sanctified by the Divine Presence; Maimonides puts us out of doubt, telling us in his Beth Habbechirah, chap. 7.
It is further confirmed by their modern practice in their Synagogues; even here in these Western and colder parts of the world: where though no such custom be in use as in the Orient, nor our manners with conveniency capable thereof, yet they still observe it, as far as the guise of the West will permit them; an argument it descends unto them by a strong and rooted Tradition from their forefathers. My Author is Buxtorf. Synagog. Iudaic. lib. 5. c. 5. where he hath these words;
And for the Mohammedans, what they do in their Mosquees, Bartlemew Georgivez, who was a long time a captive amongst them, can best inform us, in his Book De ritu & ceremoniis Turcarum.
Lastly, That we may not want an instance among Christians, Zaga Zabo, an AEthiopian Bishop, sent Ambassador from David King of the Abyssines to John the third King of Portugal, above an hundred years since, in his description of the Religion and Rites of the Abyssine Christians, thus informs us:
Now the religious guise of the Jews and other Nations of the Orient having anciently been (and still being) such as you have heard, when they entered into their Temples, or remained in them; the words of my Text, Look to thy Foot or feet, being taken for an expression borrowed from and alluding thereto, will have the same sense, as if we, inflecting them to our manners, should say, Look unto thy Head, (that is, have a care thy Head be fitted as it ought to be) when thou comest into the House of God; meaning that he should put off his hat, or be uncovered, when he comes thither, and use such other reverence as is wont to accompany it. For know that the Holy Ghost, mentioning or specifying but one Rite, is yet so to be understood as implying therewith the rest of the same order accustomed to go with it; according to that usual Trope of Scripture, by a part, or that which is more notable or obvious in any kind or rank of things, to imply the rest; the rule whereby we interpret the Decalogue, and is the more fitly appliable here, because this guise of Discalceation was a leading Ceremony to the other gestures of Sacred veneration then used, as that of putting off the hat (in civil use at least) is wont to be with us. Nor as if Solomon or the Holy Ghost in this Admonition intended the outward Ceremony only, and no no more; (that were ridiculous to imagine;) but the whole act of Sacred reverence commenced in the heart and affection, whereof this was the accustomed and leading gesture: to wit, the very same and all that which the Lord commandeth in that original law, Lev. 19. 30. Sanctuarium meum reveremini, Reverence my Sanctuary; which Jonathan's Targum explaineth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Ye shall go to the House of my Sanctuary with reverence; Solomon paralleleth here with, Look to thy foot when thou goest to the House of God. For so is the manner of Scripture almost every where, under the name of the Gesture only to understand and imply the whole duty of Veneration which such Gesture representeth and importeth.
But as this is most true, so is it on the other side as false, if any shall from hence collect, That therefore the Outward worship may securely be neglected, (in Time, and Place where and when it may be done,) so the Inward be performed. Nay the contrary follows: For if the Inward worship be chiefly intended when the Outward or Bodily is only named, as it is granted; is it not then absurd to imagine, that where that which is not expressly named is meant, there that which is only mentioned should be excluded? Nay surely, where the Outward is mentioned, (as here in my Text,) there no doubt but the Outward, in one kind or other, is a part of the duty commanded, whatsoever besides it be intended. And because it is a disease almost proper to our time, (for our forefathers were mostly sick of the other extreme,) so far to slight and disesteem (that I may not say disdain) the worship of God by the Body, as to think it may be omitted and neglected even in Time and Place convenient, as in God's House and public service, without all guilt of sin; give me therefore leave to propound a few Considerations for the Cure of such as are sick of that malady. For as that which seems but some lighter Symptom at the first, if the cure thereof be neglected and contemned, oftentimes proves fatal, and destroys life itself; so may this. I would have them therefore consider,
- 1. That we all look not only for the Glorification of our Souls, but of our Bodies in the life to come; Now a Reward presupposeth a Work. It is meet and right therefore we should worship and glorify God here in this life with the Body as well as the Soul, if we look that God should one day glorify both.
- 2. That as the Outward worship without the Inward is dead, so the Inward without the Outward is not complete; even as the Glorification of the Soul separate from the Body is not, nor shall be consummate, till the Body be again united unto it.
- 3. That those who derogate so much from Bodily worship in the service of the true God, as kneeling, bowing, and the like, make by consequent Idolatry a sin far less heinous in degree than it is. For is not Idolatry to communicate that honor with a creature which is due unto the Creator alone? By how much therefore the worship of gesture and posture is less due unto God when we do our homage unto him, by so much is the sin the less heinous and grievous when the same is given unto an Idol. For I believe, they will not deny but part of the sin of Idolatry consists even in the outward worship given unto an Idol, as kneeling, bowing, and falling down before it, and the like.
- 4. Lastly, That although Bodily worship, being considered in itself, be one of the minora Legis, of the lesser things of the Law, and the honor done unto God thereby of no great value (though not of none) in his sight; yet may a voluntary and presumptuous neglect even of so small a duty be a great and heinous sin, because such a neglect proceeds from a profane disposition and election of the heart. For a sin is not always to be esteemed according to the value of the duty omitted, but from the heart's election in omitting it. Non est bonum per se (saith Seneca) munda vestis, sed mundae vestis electio; quia non in rebonum est, sed in electione: that is, A clean garment hath no goodness of itself, but it is the election of a clean garment which is commended; because the goodness consists not in the thing, but in the election thereof. So say I here; It is not the value or merit of the work which aggravates the sin in omitting the doing thereof, but the Election not to do it.
Now therefore to return to my Hypothesis; By that which hath been delivered it appears, That it is not only lawful to use some Reverential gesture when we come into God's House, (which yet some think they are very liberal if they grant,) but that it is a duty commanded by God himself, and so no Will-worship; as namely in that Divine admonition given first to Moses, and afterward to Joshua, Put thy shoes from off thy feet, &c. in that Law, Reverence my Sanctuary; in this Instruction by Solomon, Look to thy feet when thou comest to the house of God: That the Saints and people of God in the Old Testament, and Christians in the New, have used such Reverence: That the neglect thereof is condemned of Profaneness by the practice of Jews, Gentiles, Pagans, Mohammedans, all Religions whatsoever: if any be to be excepted ( proh pudor & dolor! ) it is ourselves.
But without doubt, in this we are not in the right, nor was it so from the beginning. Whatsoever is dedicated unto God in general, or (to speak in the phrase of Scripture) whatsoever is called by his Name, that is, is His by peculiar relation, ought to be used with a different respect from things common: and God's House (as you have heard) hath something singular from the rest. Should we then come into it as into a Barn or Stable? It was not (once) good manners so to come into a man's house: For our Blessed Savior, when he sent forth his Disciples to preach the Gospel, Matt. 10. 12. said, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , when ye enter into an house, salute it. Why should we not think it a part of religious manners to do something answerable when we come into the House of God? that is, to bless the Master thereof, (you know how far that word extendeth;) and if not to say, God be here, (which hath been the form, and is somewhere still, when we enter into a man's House) yet to say with Jacob at Bethel, God is here; and to testify in some manner or other, as the Saints of God were wont to do, that we acknowledge it; and that both at our first coming thither, and while we continue there; for the one follows from the other. And because I paralleled before that Oriental rite of Discalceation (whereunto I supposed the words of my Text to have reference) with ours of Vncovering the Head, by the name of a leading ceremony; if any shall therefore ask me, what other Gesture I implied thereby as fitting to accompany this in the case we speak of, I answer, That belongs to the discretion of our Superiors and the authority of the Church to appoint, not to me to determine. For here as in other Ceremonies, the Church is not tied, but hath liberty to ordain (having respect to the Analogy of the Old Testament) what she shall judge most suitable and agreeable to the time, place, and manners of the people where she lives. But if I may without offense or presumption speak what I think, then I say, That Adoration, or Bowing of the body, with some short ejaculation, (which the Church of Israel used in their Temple together with Discalceation, and which the Christians of the Orient use at this day, and time out of mind have done, at their ingress into their Churches,) is of all other the most seemly, ready and fitting to our manners; which yet I submit: namely, according to that of the 132. Psal. v. 7. Introibimus in Tabernacula ejus, incurvabimus nos scabello pedum ejus: We will go into his Tabernacles, and worship before (or toward) his Footstool, that is, the Ark of the Covenant or Mercy-seat, which you shall find thus styled, 1 Chron. 28. 2. and according to that, Psal. 5. 7. I will enter into thine House in the multitude of thy mercies; in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy Temple, (i. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , for they stood in the Courts when they worshipped) which is the Form the Jews use at this day when they come first into their Places of worship; and so might we too, for anything I know. The ordinary form among the Greeks is that of the Publican, God be merciful to me a sinner; yet sometimes they premise this of the Psalm before it.
SECTION IV.
AND thus have I done with the First part of my Text, which for distinction sake I called The Admonition: I come now to the Second, which I termed A Caution; Be more ready to obey, than to offer the Sacrifice of fools: as much as to say, Prefer not the Secondary service of God before the First and Principal. Our Translation hath, Be more ready to hear, than, &c. whereby some have taken occasion childishly to apply this Scripture against that custom of a short and private Prayer at our first coming into the Church, before we join with the Congregation. For we should (say they) rather hear and listen to what the Minister is reading or speaking, (as Solomon here bids us;) than at such a time to betake ourselves to any private devotion; which (say they) is but the Sacrifice of fools. But I would themselves who thus argue were as wise as they should be: For if they were, they would consider both that Solomon (according to the time wherein he spake) must needs mean of another kind of Sacrifice than what so loose a notion importeth, namely of such as were then used in the Temple he had built; and besides, that this sense of theirs directly thwarts the purport and meaning of the words going before, which is, that we ought to use some sign of reverence when we come into the house of God, such as according to the custom of the West is this. But though none of these things were, yet would this Text be nothing to their purpose: Forasmuch as by Hearing in this place is not meant auricular hearing, but practical, that is, Obedience to God's commandments, according as the Vulgar hath, Melior est obedientia quàm victimae stultorum. For it is the same with that Proverbial sentence of Scripture, Obedience is better than Sacrifice, which Samuel used in that bitter reproof of King Saul, for sparing Agag and the best of the spoil of the Amalekites, upon a pretence of sacrificing to the Lord in Gilgal. Hath the Lord (saith he) as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice; and to hearken, than the fat of rams. The word here twice rendered obey, is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . the same which is in my Text, and it is an ordinary signification thereof in Scripture. The case is clear.
But was not the offering of Sacrifice, will some man say, part of the obedience due unto the divine Law? How come they then to be thus opposed one to the other? Give me leave therefore, before I give my full explication of this passage, to inquire and consider of some others, of much more difficulty in this respect, yet their meaning conducing to the understanding of this.
There are divers places in Scripture disparaging and villifying Sacrifices, yea so far, as if Sacrifice were a service which God neither appointed nor approved. As Psal. 51. 16, 17. Thou desirest not Sacrifice, (saith David,) else would I have given it thee; but thou delightest not in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God thou wilt not despise. Hosea 6. 6. I will have mercy, and not sacrifice. Micah 6. 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the most High? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? 7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, and with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8. He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Nay, Ier. 7. 21, 22, 23. he seems to say expressly, that he never commanded them: Put (saith he) your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your Fathers nor commanded them, in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk ye in the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.
Yet nothing is more plain than that God ordained Sacrifices at Mount Sinai. How then shall this difficulty be resolved? Some, and those of the Ancients too, have affirmed, that these Ordinances of Sacrifice were not given to Israel at first, nor prima intention Dei; but were (as they call them) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , superinducta, afterwards imposed upon them, when they had committed Idolatry in making and worshipping the golden Calf. But the contrary to this is also apparent. For to pass by Cain and Abel's sacrifices and the sacrifices of Noah and Abraham; when the Lord pronounced the Decalogue from Mount Sinai, he added this, as it were an Appendix thereto, Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold: Only an Altar thou shalt make unto me, and shalt Sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep and thine Oxen, &c. and this before Moses came down from the Mount, or the Calf was yet made. Nay, more than all this, when Moses and Aaron were sent unto Pharaeoh, the effect of their Embassy was, The God of the Hebrews saith, Let my people go, that they may sacrifice unto me, three days journey in the wilderness. And when Pharaoh would have given them leave to have sacrificed to their God in the Land; No, (saith Moses) we will go three days journey into the wilderness, and there Sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us. What shall we answer then to those passages of Scripture where God disclaimeth Sacrifice, saying, he required no such Service at his people's hands; yea, that he commanded them no such thing when he brought them out of the Land of Egypt?
For the assoiling this difficulty, according to the differing quality of the passages which are or may be produced to this purpose, I lay down these three Propositions.
-
1. That according to the propriety and genius of the Hebrew tongue, a Comparative sense is often expressed after the form of an Antithesis: As in that of Joel, Rent your hearts, and not your garments; that is, more or rather than your garments: Prov. 8. 10. Receive my instruction, and not silver; that is, rather than silver, (as the words following teach us to construe it) and knowledge rather than choice gold. Likewise in the New Testament, Lay not up treasures for yourselves on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven; that is, Treasures in Heaven rather than treasures on earth; have more • are to lay up the one than the other.
According to this construction only, without more ado, some of the aforesaid passages will be discharged of their difficulty: as namely that of Hosea, I desired mercy, and not sacrifice, that is, more or rather than sacrifice; as the following words give us to understand, which are, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings; and according as the same sense is elsewhere expressed, as Prov. 21. 3. To do justice and judgment, is more acceptable to the Lord than Sacrifice. But all will not be thus salved.
- 2. Wherefore I lay down this second Proposition; That antecedenter, antecedently, it is true, that God commanded not Sacrifice should be offered unto him, neither when the Law was given, nor before; but consequenter, consequently only. For the understanding whereof we must know, That Sacrifice was a Rite whereby men renewed a Covenant with God, by making a • onement for their sin; therefore it presupposed a breach and transgression of the Law. But the will of God was not, that men should transgress his Law, and violate the Covenant he had made with them, but that they should observe and keep it; which if they did, Sacrifice would have no place. This is that I mean, when I say that God required not nor commanded Sacrifice antecedently, but that men should keep his Commandments. But in case sin were committed, and the articles of his Covenant violated, then and in such a state God ordained and admitted of Sacrifice for a Rite of atonement and redintegration of his Covenant with men: that is, he commanded Sacrifice only consequenter, consequently, as a remedy, if sin were committed. And if those Ancients could be thus understood who say that Sacrifice was not ordained when the Law was first given, but after it was transgressed; namely, if their meaning were only, that the ordinance of Sacrifice presupposed a transgression of the Law; then their Assertion were true: but otherwise historically taken, it cannot be defended. Now according to this proposition is of that of Jeremiah 7. 22, 23. to be understood, (or if there be any other like it) I spake not unto your Fathers, nor commanded them, in the day that I brought them out of the Land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings and Sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them; Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.
- 3. My third Proposition is this; That when Sacrifice was to be offered in case of sin, yet even then God accepted not thereof primario, primarily and for itself, as though any refreshment or emolument accrued to him thereby, (as the Gentiles fondly supposed of their gods;) but secondarily only, as a testimony of the conscience of the offerer, desiring with humble repentance to glorify him with a Present, and by that Rite to renew a covenant with him. For Sacrifice (as I have said) was oblatio foed • ralis a federal oblation. Now Almighty God renews a Covenant with, or receiveth again into his favor, none but the repentant sinner; and therefore accepts of Sacrifice in no other regard, but as a token and effect of this. Otherwise it is an abomination unto him, as whereby men professed a desire of being reconciled unto God, when they had offended him, and yet had no such meaning. Hence God rejects all Sacrifices wherein there is no Contrition, nor Purpose to forsake sin and keep his commandments, which are the parts of Repentance. So is to be taken that in the first of Isaiah: To what purpose is the multitude of your Sacrifices?—Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me.—Wash ye, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil: —then (if you offer sacrifice unto me) though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, &c. and that in Isaiah the last: To this man will I look, to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit. He that killeth an ox, (namely otherwise,) is as if he slew a man; he that Sacrificeth a lamb, (unless he comes with this disposition) as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an Idol. And surely, he that blesseth an Idol is so far from renewing a Covenant with the Lord his God, that he breaks it: So did they who without conscience of Repentance presumed to come before him with a Sacrifice; not procure atonement, but aggravate their breach.
According to one of these three senses are all passages in the Old Testament disparaging and rejecting Sacrifices literally to be understood: namely, when men preferred them before the greater things of the Law; valued them out of their degree, as an antecedent duty; or placed their efficacy in the naked Rite, as if ought accrued to God thereby; God would no longer own them for any ordinance of his: nor indeed in that disguise put upon them were they.
I will except only one Passage out of the number, which I suppose to have a singular meaning; to wit, that of David in the 51. Psalm, v. 16, 17. which the ancient translations thus express: Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique; sed holocaustis non oblectaberis, (vel, holocaustum non acceptabis.) Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus, &c.—If thou wouldst have had a Sacrifice, I would have offered it; but thou wilt accept no burnt-offering, &c. —For this seems to be meant of that special case of Adultery and Murder which David here deploreth: for which Sins the Lord had provided no Sacrifice in his Law. Wherefore David in this his Penitential confession tells him, That if he had appointed any Sacrifice for expiation of this kind of sin, he would have given it him; but he had ordained none, save only a broken spirit and a contrite heart: which thou, O God, (saith he) wilt not despise, but accept that alone for a Sacrifice in this case, without which Sacrifice in no case is accepted.
Now out of this Discourse we are sufficiently furnished for the understanding of this Caution of Solomon in my Text, Be more ready to obey, than to offer the Sacrifice of fools; or, as the words in the Original import, Be more approaching God with a purpose and resolution of obedience to his Commandments, than with the Sacrifice of fools; that is, Have a care rather to approach the Divine Majesty with an offering of an obediential disposition, than with the bare and naked Rite. But the sense is still the same; namely, The House of God at Jerusalem was an House of sacrifice, which they, who came thither to worship, offered unto the Divine Majesty, to make way for their prayers and supplications unto him, or to find favor in his sight. Solomon therefore gives them here a caveat, not to place their Religion either only or chiefly in the external Rite, but in their readiness to hear and keep the Commandments of God; without which that Rite alone would avail them nothing, but be no better than the sacrifice of fools, who when they do evil, think they do well. For without this readiness to obey, this purpose of heart to live according to his Commandments, God accepts of no Sacrifice from those who approach him, nor will pardon their transgressions when they come before him. He therefore that makes no conscience of sinning against God, and yet thinks to be expiate by Sacrifice, is an ignorant fool, how wise and religious soever he may think himself to be, or appear unto men, by the multitude or greatness of his Sacrifices. The reason, Because the Lord requires Obedience antecedently and absolutely, but Sacrifice consequently only; and then too not primario, or chiefly and for itself, but secondarily only, as a testimony of Coutrition and a ready desire and purpose in the offerer to continue in his favor by Obedience.
This is Solomon's the Preacher's meaning: Wherein behold, as in a glass, the condition of all external Service of God in general, as that which he accepteth no otherwise than secondarily; namely, as issuing from a Heart respectively affected with that devotion it importeth. For God, as he is a living God, so he requires a living worship: But as the Body without the Soul is but a carcass: so is all external and bodily worship wherein the pulse of the Heart's devotion beats not.
But if this be so, you will say, it were better to use no external worship at all of course, as we do the worship of the Body in the gestures of bowing, kneeling, standing, and the like, than to incur this danger of serving God with a dead and hypocritical service; because it is not like the Heart will be always duly affected when the outward worship shall be required. I answer; Where there is a true and real intent to honor God with outward and bodily worship, there the act is not Hypocrisy, though accompanied with many defects and imperfections. Here therefore that Rule of our Savior touching the greater and lesser things of the Law must have place: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , These things (that is, the greater things of the Law) we ought to do, and not to leave the other (though the lesser) undone. For otherwise, if this reasoning were admitted, a man might upon the same ground absent himself from coming to Church upon the days and times appointed, or come thither but now and then; alleging the indisposition of his Heart to join with the Church in her public worship at other times: or if he came thither, act a mute; and when others sing and praise God, be altogether silent, and not open his mouth, nor say Amen when others do. For all these are external services; and the service of the voice and gesture are in this respect all one, there is no difference. But who would not think this to be very absurd? We should rather upon every such occasion rouse and stir up our Affections with fit and seasonable meditations, that what the order and decency of • Church-assembly requires to be done of every member outwardly, we may likewise do devoutly and acceptably. These things we ought to do, and not leave the other undone.
But you will say, What if I cannot bring my Heart unto that religious fear and devotion which the outward worship I should perform requireth? I could say that some of the outward worship which a man performs in a Church-assembly, he does not as a singular man, but as a member of the Congregation. But howsoever, I answer; Let the worship of thy Body, in such a case, be at least a confession and acknowledgment before God of that love, fear and esteem of his Divine Majesty thou oughtest to have, but hast not. For though to come before God without that inward devotion requisite, be a sin; yet to confess and acknowledge, by what our outward gesture importeth, the duty we owe unto him, but are defective in, I hope is not; no more than the confession of any other sin. For our worship, in such a case, if we will so intend it, is an act of Repentance: and as the modern Greeks are wont to call their Adorations, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Repentances; so may we in this case make ours to be: namely, as if we said, Lord, I ought to come before thee with that religious sear, humble reverence, and lifting up of Heart, which the gesture, the posture I here present, importeth; but, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. If a man's Heart be so profane and irreligious as not to acknowledge thus much, I yield that such a one might better spare his labor, and not come into the presence of God at all. Otherwise I conclude still with our Blessed Savior's determination in the like case, Those greater things we ought to do, and not to leave the other undone.
THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE.
MALACHI 1. 11.
Ab ortu Solis usque ad occasum, magnum erit Nomen meum in Gentibus; & in omni loco offeretur Incensum Nomini meo, & Munus purum: quia magnum erit Nomen meum in Gentibus, dicit Dominus exercituum.
From the rising of the Sun even unto the going down of the same, my Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place Incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure Offering: for my Name shall be great among the Heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.
CHAP. I.
The Text a Prophecy of the Christian Sacrifice, according to the judgment of the ancient Fathers in the Second, Third and Fourth Centuries. The difficulty of explaining the Christian Sacrifice: The Reasons of this difficulty. The Method and Order propounded for this Discourse.
THIS place of Scripture, howsoever now in a manner silenced and forgotten, was once, and that in the eldest and purest times of the Church, a Text of eminent note, and familiarly known to every Christian, being alleged by their Pastors and Teachers, as an express and undoubted Prophecy of the Christian Sacrifice or Solemn Worship in the Eucharist, taught by our Blessed Savior unto his Disciples, to be observed of all that should believe in his Name: and this so generally and grantedly, as could never have been, at least so early, unless they had learned thus to apply it by Tradition from the Apostles.
For in the Age immediately succeeding them, being the second hundred of years after Christ, we find it alleged to this purpose by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, the Pillars of that Age; the former of them flourishing within little more than thirty years after the death of S. John, and the latter a Disciple of Polycarp S. John's Scholar. In the Age following, or third Seculum, it is alleged by Tertullian, Zeno Veronensis and Cyprian: in the fourth Seculum by E • sebius, Chrysostom, Jerome and Augustine; and in the afterAges by whom not? Nor is it alleged by them as some singular opinion or private conceit of their own, but as the received Tradition of the Church; whence in some Liturgies (as that of the Church of Alexandria, commonly called the Liturgy of S. Mark ) it is inserted into the Hymn, or Preface, which begins, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , It is truly meet and right; the conclusion of the Hymn or Laud there being, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Giving thanks we offer unto thee, O Lord, this reasonable and unbloody Service, even that which all Nations from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same offer unto thee; for thy Name shall be great among all Nations; and in every place Incense is offered unto thy holy Name, and Sacrifice and Oblation.
Thus you see the antiquity of Tradition for the meaning and application of this Prophecy.
But for the Christian Sacrifice itself whereunto it is applied, What the ancient Church understood thereby, What and Wherein the Nature of this Sacrifice consisted, is a point, though most needful to be known, yet beyond belief obscure, intricate and perplexed. He that shall make trial, will find I say true. A reverend and learned Prelate of ours acknowledges as much: Apud veteres Patres (saith he) (ut quod r • s est libere fateamur) de sacrificio corporis Christi in Eucharistia incruento frequens est mentio: quae dic • vix potest quant • p • re quorundam, alioqui doctorum hominum, ingenia exercuerit, torserit, vexaverit: To speak the plain truth, In the Writings of the ancient Fathers there is frequent mention of The unbloody Sacrifice of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist; a point which hath beyond expression puzzled and vext the minds of several men otherwise not unlearned. The reason of this obscurity hath grown partly from the changing of the Notion of the Church thereabout in following times; partly by the violence of the Controversies of this last Age, whilst each part finding the knot, and studying not so much the right way of untying it, as how to give the least advantage to the adverse party, have infinitely entangled the same, and made it more indissoluble than before.
I have acquainted myself long with this Argument, and spent many a thought thereabout, using the best means I could conceive to be informed; namely, Not so much to rely upon the opinions of modern Writers, as to peruse and compare the passages of the Ancients themselves, and their Forms and Liturgies, out of which I was assured the Truth might be learned, if I were but able to understand them.
What I have sound and learned, I desire to give an account of in this place, as I shall have occasion; the Argument being such as befits no other Auditory but the Schools of the Prophets. Nor will the Discourse be unprofitable for such as mean to be acquainted with the Writings of the Fathers and Antiquities of the Church: there being nothing in them so like to stumble the Reader as this.
To come then to the matter: where I will chalk out my Discourse in this order.
First, I shall premise, as the ground thereof, A Definition of The Christian Sacrifice as the ancient Church meant it.
Secondly, Explain the meaning of my Text, by application thereto.
Thirdly, Prove each part of the Definition I shall give, by the Testimonies of the Fathers, Councils and Liturgies of the first and best Ages; interlacing therewith such passages as may make for the better understanding either of the Testimonies I bring, or of the matter itself for which they are brought.
CHAP. II.
The Christian Sacrifice defined, and briefly explained. The two parts or double Object of this Sacrifice. What meant by Sacrificium Quod, what by Sacrificium Quo.
[unspec I] TO begin with the First, The Definition of the Christian Sacrifice: Under which name first know, That the ancient Church understood not, as many suppose, the mere Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; but the whole Sacred Action or Solemn Service of the Church assembled, whereof this Sacred Mystery was then a prime and principal part, and as it were the Pearl or Jewel of that Ring, no public Service of the Church being without it. This observed and remembered, I define the Christian Sacrifice, ex mente antiquae Ecclesiae, according to the meaning of the ancient Church, in this manner:
An Oblation of Thanksgiving and Prayer to God the Father through Jesus Christ and his Sacrifice commemorated in the Creatures of Bread and Wine, wherewith God had first been agniz'd. So that this Sacrifice as you see hath a double object or matter: first, Praise and Prayer, which you may call Sacrificium Quod; secondly, The commemoration of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross, which is Sacrificium Quo, the Sacrifice whereby the other is accepted. For all the Prayers, Thanksgivings and Devotions of a Christian, are tendered up unto God in the name of Jesus Christ crucified. According whereunto we are wont to conclude our Prayers with Through Jesus Christ our Lord. And this is the specification whereby the Worship of a Christian is distinguished from that of the Jew. Now that which we in all our Prayers and Thanksgivings do vocally, when we say, Through Jesus Christ our Lord; the ancient Church in her public and solemn Service did visibly, by representing him, according as he commanded, in the Symbols of his Body and Blood: For there he is commemorated and received by us for the same end for which he was given and suffered for us; that through him we receiving forgiveness of our sins, God our Father might accept our service and hear our prayers we make unto him? What time then so sit and seasonable to commend our devotions unto God, as when the Lamb of God lies slain upon the holy Table; and we receive visibly, though mystically, those gracious Pledges of his blessed Body and Blood? This was that Sacrifice of the ancient Church the Fathers so much ring in our ears; The Sacrifice of Praise and Prayer through Jesus Christ mystically represented in the Creatures of Bread and Wine.
But yet we have not all, there is one thing more my Definition intimates, when I say, Through the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ commemorated in the Creatures of Bread and Wine, wherewith God had first been agnized. The Body and Blood of Christ were not made of common Bread and common Wine, but of Bread and Wine first sanctified, by being offered and set before God as a Present to agnize him the Lord and Giver of all: according to that, The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; and Let no man appear before the Lord empty. Therefore as this Sacrifice consisted of two parts, as I told you, of Praise and Prayer, (which in respect of the other I call Sacrificium Quod,) and of the Commemoration of Christ Crucified, (which I call Sacrificium Quo:) so the Symbols of Bread and Wine traversed both; being first presented as Symbols of Praise and Thanksgiving to agnize God the Lord of the Creature, in the Sacrificium Quod; then, by invocation of the Holy Ghost, made the Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ, in the Sacrificium Quo. So that the whole Service throughout consisted of a reasonable part, and of a material part, as of a Soul and a Body: of which I shall speak more fully hereafter, when I come to prove this I have said by the Testimonies of the Ancients.
CHAP. III.
The words of the Text explained, and applied to the foregoing Definition of the Christian Sacrifice. Incense denotes the rational part of this Sacrifice, Mincha the material part thereof. What meant by Mincha purum. Two Interpretations of the Purity of the Christian Mincha given by the Fathers; a third propounded by the Author.
AND this is that Sacrifice which Malachi foretold the Gentiles should one day [unspec II] offer unto God; In every place Incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure Mincha: for my Name shall be great among the Heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. Which Words I am now, according to the order I propounded, to explicate, and apply to my Definition.
Know therefore that the Prophet in the foregoing words upbraids the Jews with despising and disesteeming their God; forasmuch as they offered unto him for sacrifice not of the best, but the lame, the torn and the sick; as though he had not been the great King, Creator and Lord of the whole World, but some petty God, and of an inferior rank, for whom anything were good enough. Vers. 6, 7. If I be a Father, where is mine honor? If I be Dominus, where is my fear? saith the Lord of Hosts unto you, O Priests that despise my name; and ye say, Wherein have we despised it? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine Altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? [I will tell you] In that ye say, The Table of the Lord is contemptible, or, not so much to be regarded; that is, you think so, as appears by the baseness of your Offering: for the Present shows what esteem the giver hath of him he honoreth therewith. But you offer that to me which ye would not think fit to offer to your Prorex or Governor under the King of Persia; which shows you have but a mean esteem of me in your hearts, and that you believe not I am He that I am. It may be, because you see me acknowledged of no other Nation but yours, and that ye have been subdued by the Gentiles, and brought into this miserable and despicable condition wherein you now are, you imagine me to be some Topical God, and as of small jurisdiction, so of little power. But know, that howsoever I now seem to be but the Lord of a poor Nation, yet the days are coming, when from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same, my Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place Incense shall be offered to my Name, and a pure Offering: for my Name shall be great among the Heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts: it follows, though you have profaned it, in that ye say, The Table of the Lord is contemptible; whereas I am a great King, and my Name shall be dreadful among the Heathen.
This is the coherence and dependence of the Words. Now to apply them. Incense (as the Scripture itself tells) notes the Prayers of the Saints. It was also that wherewith the remembrance was made in the Sacrifices, or God put in mind. Mincha, which we turn Munus, a Gift or Offering, is Oblatio farrea, an Offering made of meal or flower baked or fried, or dried or parched corn. We in our English, when we make distinction, call it a Meat-offering; but might call it a Bread-offering, of which the Libamen or the Drink-offering being an indivisible concomitant, both are implied under the name Mincha, where it alone is named.
The Application then is easy: Incense here notes the rational part of our Christian Sacrifice, which is Prayer, Thanksgiving, and Commemoration; Mincha the material part thereof, which is Oblatio farrea a Present of Bread and Wine.
BUT this Mincha is characterised in the Text with an attribute not to be overpast, Mincha purum; In omni loco offeretur incensum Nomini meo, & Mincha purum, In every place Incense shall be offered to my Name, and a pure Mincha: The Meat-offering which the Gentiles should one day present the God of Israel with should be Munus purum, a pure Offering, or, as the Septuagint, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a pure Sacrifice. Let us learn, if we can, what this Purity is, and wherein it consisteth, or in what respect the Gentiles Oblation is so styled.
1. Some of the Fathers take this Pure Offering, to be an Offering that is purely or spiritually offered: The old Sacrifices both of the Jew and Gentile were offered modo corporali, in a corporeal manner, by slaughter, fire, and incense; but this of Christians should be offered only 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by way of Prayer and Thanksgiving, as Justin Martyr expresses it; whence it is usually called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a reasonable and unbloody Sacrifice; namely, of the manner of offering it: not that there was no material thing used therein, as some mistake, (for we know there was Bread and Wine; ) but because it is offered unto God immaterially or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 only; which the Fathers in the first Council of Nice call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to be sacrificed without sacrificing rites. This sense of Pure Sacrifice is followed by Tertullian, as may appear by his words ad Scapulam, where speaking of the Christian Liturgy, Sacrificamus (saith he) pro salute Imperatoris;—sed, quomodo praecepit Deus, purâ prece: Non enim eget Deus, Conditor Vniversitatis, odoris aut sanguinis alicujus; haec enim Daemoniorum pabula sunt: We offer Sacrifice for the health and welfare of the Emperor; but it is (according as God hath commanded) the Sacrifice of pure prayer: For God, the maker of the World, stands not in need of the smell or savor or of the blood of any creature: These indeed are the food and diet which the Devils love. Also in his third Book against Marcion cap. 22. In omni loco offertur Sacrificium Nomini meo—In every place Sacrifice shall be offered to my Name—& sacrificium mundum, and a pure Sacrifice; that is, (saith he) gloriae relatio, benedictio, laus & hymni, giving glory to God, blessing, praise and hymns: which he presently calls munditia sacrificiorum, the purities of Sacrifices. The same way go some others. But this sense, though it fitly serves to difference our Christian Sacrifice from the old Sacrifices of the Jews and Gentiles, and the thing itself be most true; yet I cannot see how it can agree with the context of our Prophet, where the word Incense (though I confess mystically understood) is expressed together with Munus purum a pure offering. For it would make the Literal sense of our Prophet to be absurd, and to say, In every place Incense is offered to thy Name, and an Offering without Incense. And yet this would be the Literal meaning, if Pure here signified without Incense.
2. Let us hear therefore a second Interpretation of this Purity of the Christian Mincha, more agreeable to the dependence of the words; and that is à conscientia offerentis, from the disposition and affection of the offerer; according to that of the Apostle, Tit. 1. 15, 16. To the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled; They profess they know God, but in works they deny him. The Jews offering was profane and polluted, because it proceeded not out of a due belief, and a conscience thoroughly persuaded of the Greatness of their God, that he was the Creator and Lord of the whole earth, but rather some petty and particular God, like the God's of other Nations: But the Gentiles, who should see him not only the God of one Nation, but universally acknowledged over all the earth, should have no such reason to doubt, but firmly believe him to be the Great God, Creator of heaven and earth, and worship him as such; and so their Offering be a Pure Offering, not polluted with unbelief. And it is to be observed, that all the ancient Christian Liturgies begin with this acknowledgment: For the Sum of the Eucharistical Doxology, when the Bread and Wine is first presented before God, is comprehended in that of the Apocalypse, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
And to this way of interpreting the Purity of the Christian Sacrifice, to wit, from the conscience and affection of the offerers, the Fathers mostly bend. Irenaeus lib. 4. cap. 34. Sacrificia non sanctificant hominem, (non enim indiget Deus sacrificio) sed conscientia ejus qui offert sanctificat sacrificium, pura exsistens—Quoniam igitur cum simplicitate Ecclesia offert, juste munus ejus purum sacrificium apud Denm deputatum est: Sacrifices do not sanctify a man, (for God stands not in need of any of our Sacrifices;) but the Conscience of him that offers, being pure, sanctifies the Sacrifice—And because the Church offereth with Simplicity, (with a Conscience purified from all malice and hypocrisy) rightly therefore is her Oblation accounted by God a Pure Sacrifice. And a little after, Oportet enim nos oblationem Deo facere, & in omnibus gratos inveniri fabricatori Deo, in sententia pura & fide sine hypocrisi, &c. For it behooveth us to present God with our Oblations, and in all things to be found thankful unto God our maker; with pure minds and faith unfeigned, with steadfast hope and fervent love offering unto him the Firstfruits, or a Present, of his Creatures. Neither is Tertullian, whom I alleged before for the other interpretation, averse from this; for in his fourth Book Cont. Marc. c. 1. Sacrificium mundum, a pure Sacrifice, that is, saith he, simplex oratio de conscientia pura, sincere Prayer proceeding from a pure Conscience. But this conscientious purity they seem to restrain, at least chiefly, to freedom from malice, as that singular purity whereby this Christian Sacrifice is differenced from that of the Jew, because none can offer it but he that is in charity with his brother; according to that in the Gospel, When thou bringest thy gift unto the Altar, and rememberest thy brother hath ought against thee —Go first and be reconciled to thy brother, &c. And therefore in the beginning of this Christian Service, the Deacon was anciently wont to cry, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Let no man have ought against his brother; and then followed osculum sanctum, the kiss of reconciliation. Thus the Fathers of the first Council of Nice took Sacrificium purum, as appears Can. 5. where they expound 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the pure Gift or Oblation, to be that which is offered 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , omni simultate depositâ, all malice and hypocrisy, and the like instances of an unworthy and ignoble spirit, being laid aside.
But according to this Exposition, the Purity of the Christian Sacrifice will not be opposite to the pollution of the Jewish in the same kind, as it would if more generally taken, but in another kind; and so the sense stands thus; You will not offer me a pure offering, but the Gentiles one day shall, and that with a purity of another manner of stamp than that my Law requires of you. And thus I have told you the two ways according to which the Ancients understood this Purity; and I prefer the latter, as I think they did.
3. But there is a third Interpretation, were it backed by their Authority, (which I confess it is not) which I would prefer before them both; and, I think, you will wonder with me they should be so silent therein: namely, that this title of Purity is given to the Christian Mincha in respect of Christ whom it signifies and represents, who is a Sacrifice without all spot, blemish and imperfection. This the Antithesis of this Sacrifice to that of the Jews might seem to imply: For the Jews are charged with offering polluted Bread upon God's Altar; whereby what is meant the words following tell us, If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? and in the end of the Chapter, Cursed be the deceiver, who hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing. Now, if the Sacrifice of the Gentiles be called Pure in opposition to this; is it not so called in respect of that most perfect, unblemisht and invaluable Sacrifice it represents, Jesus Christ the Lamb of God? I leave it to your consideration.
CHAP. IV.
Six Particulars contained in the Definition of the Christian Sacrifice. The First, viz. That this Christian Service is an Oblation, proved out of Antiquity. How long the Apostles Age lasted, or when it ended. Proofs out of the Epistles of Clemens and Ignatius. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 how distinguished in Ignatius. The Christian Service is properly 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but improperly 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 according to the strict and prime sense of the word.
[unspec III] THUS having absolved the Two first things I propounded; given you a Definition of the Christian Sacrifice, and explained the words of my Text: I come now to the Third and longest part of my task, To prove each particular contained in my Definition by the Testimonies and Authorities of the ancient Fathers and Writers of the first and purest Ages of the Church. The Particulars I am to prove are in number Six.
- 1. That this Christian Service is an Oblation, and expressed under that Notion by the utmost Antiquity.
- 2. That it is an Oblation of Thanksgiving and Prayer.
- 3. An Oblation through Jesus Christ commemorated in the creatures of Bread and Wine.
- 4. That this Commemoration of Christ, according to the style of the ancient Church, is also a Sacrifice.
- 5. That the Body and Blood of Christ, in this Mystical Service, was made of Bread and Wine which had first been offered unto God, to agnize him the Lord of the Creature.
- 6. That this Sacrifice was placed in Commemoration only of Christ's sacrifice upon the Cross, and not in a real offering of his Body and Blood anew.
When I shall have proved all these by sufficient Authority, I hope you will give me leave to conclude my Definition for true, That the Christian Sacrifice (ex mente antiquae Ecclesiae, according to the meaning of the ancient Church) was An Oblation of Thanksgiving and Prayer to God the Father, through the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ commemorated in the Creatures of Bread and Wine, wherewith God had first been agnized.
[unspec I] Let us begin then with the first, That this Christian Service is an Oblation, and under that notion expressed by all Antiquity. The names whereby the Ancient Church called this Service are, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Oblation, Sacrifice; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Eucharist, (a word, if rightly understood, of equipollent sense;) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a Sacrifice of Praise, a reasonable and unbloody Sacrifice; Sacrificium Mediatoris, Sacrificium Altaris, Sacrificium pretii nostri, Sacrificium Corporis & Sanguinis Christi, the Sacrifice of our Mediator, the Sacrifice of the Altar, the Sacrifice of our Ransom, the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ. It would be infinite to note all the Places and Authors where and by whom it is thus called. The four last are S. Augustine's; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 are to be found with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, whose antiquity is the Age next the Apostles. But, you will say, the Fathers even so early had swerved from the style of the Apostolic Age, during which these kind of terms were not used; as appears, by that we find them not anywhere in their Epistles and Writings. But what if the contrary may be evinced, That this language was used even while the Apostles yet lived? For grant they are neither found in the Acts of the Apostles, nor in S. Paul's and S. Peter's Writings; yet this proves not they were not used in the Apostles times, no more than that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was not, whose case in this point is the same with the other. But know, that to confine the Apostles Age within the limits of S. Paul's and S. Peter's lives, is a general mistake: For the Apostles Age ended not till S. John's death, Anno Christi 99. and so lasted as long, within a year or thereabouts, after S. Paul's and S. Peter's suffering, as it was from our Savior's Ascension to their Deaths, that is, one and thirty years. And this too for the most part was after the Excidium or Destruction of Jerusalem, in which time it is likely the Church received no little improvement in Ecclesiastical Rites and Expressions; both because it was the time of her greatest increase; and because, whilst the Jews Polity stood, her Polity, for its full establishment, stood in some sort suspended. This appears by S. John's Writings, which are the only Scripture written after that time, and in which we find two Ecclesiastic terms of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The Word, for the Deity of Christ, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The Lord's day, for the first day of the week; neither of both seeming to have been in use in S. Paul's and S. Peter's times: and why may we not believe the like happened in others, and by name in these now questioned?
Which, that I may not seem only to guess, I think I can prove by two witnesses which then lived; the one Clemens, he whose name S. Paul says was written in the Book of life; and the other Ignatius. Clemens in his undoubted Epistle ad Corinthios (a long time missing, but now of late come again to light.) In this Epistle the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is three times used of the Christian Service, Pag. 52. All those duties (saith he) which the Lord hath commanded us to do, we ought to do them regularly and orderly; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Our Oblations and divine Services to celebrate them on set and appointed times. And a little after, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . They therefore that perform their Oblations on set and appointed times, are acceptable to God and blessed: for observing the Commandments of the Lord, they offend not. The other, Ignatius, in his Epistle ad Smyrnenses, hath both 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Non licet (saith he) absque Episcopo 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . It is not lawful without the Bishop either to baptize, or to celebrate the Sacrifice, or to communicate. Where 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 he calls, in a stricter sense, the first part of this sacred and mystical Service, to wit, the Thanksgiving, wherein the Bread and the Wine, as I told you, were offered unto God, to agnize his Dominion. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 he calls the mystical Commemoration of Christ's Body and Blood; and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the receiving and participation of the same. For know that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 are sometimes used for the whole Action, and sometimes thus distinguished. Of the genuineness of this Epistle the learned doubt not; but if any one do, I suppose they will grant that Theodoret had his genuine Epistles. Let them hear then a passage which he, in his third Dialogue, cites out of the Epistles of Ignatius, against some Heretics; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . They do not admit, or allow of, Eucharists and Oblations, because they do not acknowledge the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins. Here you see Oblations and Eucharists exegetically joined together. And so, I think, I have proved these terms of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to have been in use in the Church in the latter part of the Apostles Age.
But what if one of them, namely 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , were used sooner, even in S. Paul's and S. Peter's time? In the first Epistle of Peter, chap. 2. 5. You are (saith he, speaking to the Body of the Church) an holy Priesthood, to offer 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 spiritual Sacrifices to God by Jesus Christ. In the Epistle to the Heb. 13. 15. By him (that is, through Christ our Altar) let us offer 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Sacrifice of praise to God continually. Why should I not think S. Paul and S. Peter speak here of the solemn and public Service of Christians, wherein the Passion of Christ was commemorated? I am sure the Fathers frequently call this sacrifice 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Sacrifice of Praise. And in some ancient Liturgies, immediately before the Consecration, the Church gives thanks unto God for chufing them to be an holy Priesthood to offer sacrifices unto him, as it were alluding to S. Peter. Thus you see, first or last or both, the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 were no strangers to the Apostles Age.
I will now make but one Quaere, and answer it, and so conclude this point: Whether these words or names were used (seeing they were used) properly, or improperly ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) of the subject we speak of. I answer briefly; This Christian Service, as we have defined it, is an Oblation properly: For wheresoever anything is tendered or presented unto God, there is truly and properly an Oblation; be it spiritual or visible, it matters not; for Oblatio is the Genus: and Irenaeus tells me here, Non genus oblationum reprobatum est; oblationes enim & illic, oblationes autem & hîc; sacrificia in populo, sacrificia & in Ecclesia; sed species immutata est tantúm: For Offerings in the general are not reprobated; there were Offerings there, (viz. in the Old Testament) there are also Offerings here, (viz. in the New Testament;) there were Sacrifices among the people, (that is, the Jews,) there are Sacrifices also in the Church: but the Specification only is changed. But as for 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Sacrifice, according to its prime signification, it signifies a Slaughter-offering, as in Hebrew, so in Greek of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , macto, to slay; as the Angel Acts 10. 13. says to S. Peter, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Peter, kill and eat. Now we in our Christian Service slay no offering, but commemorate him only that was slain and offered upon the Cross: Therefore our Service is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 improperly and Metaphorically. But if 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 be Synecdochically taken for an Offering in general, as it is both in the New Testament and elsewhere, then the Christian Sacrifice is as truly called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .
CHAP. V.
The Second Particular, That the Christian Sacrifice is an Oblation of Thanksgiving and Prayer, proved from Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clemens Alexand, &c. The Altar, or Holy Table, anciently the place of the public Prayers of the Church. Prayer, Oblation and Sacrifice promiscuously used by the Fathers when they speak of the Christian Sacrifice. The Conjunction of Prayer and the Eucharist argued from Acts 2. 42. and from Ignatius ad Ephes. The three parts of which the Christian Synaxis consisted.
[unspec II] NOW I come to the Second particular contained in my Definition; To prove that the Christian Sacrifice, according to the meaning of the ancient Church, is an Oblation of Thanksgiving and Prayer.
My first Author shall be Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew; where, to the Evasion of the Jews, laboring to bereave the Christians of this Text (by saying it was meant of the Prayers which the dispersed Jews at that time offered unto God in all places where they lived among the Gentiles; which Sacrifices, though they wanted the material Rite, yet were more acceptable unto God in regard of their sincerity than those profaned ones at Jerusalem; and not that here was meant any Sacrifice which the Gentiles should offer to the God of Israel: to this Evasion) Justin replies, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . That Prayers and Thanksgivings made by those that are worthy are the only Sacrifices that are perfect and acceptable unto God, I do also affirm; for these are the only Sacrifices which Christians have been taught they should perform. If you ask where, and how; he tells you, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [leg. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in that thankful remembrance of their food both dry and liquid, wherein also is commemorated the Passion which the Son of God suffered by himself. It is a description of the Eucharist, wherein, as I have already told you, the Bread and Wine were first presented unto God, as the Primitiae or a kind of First-fruit-Offering, to agnize him the Giver of our Food both dry and liquid; and then consecrated to be the Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ.
My next Author shall be Tertullian ad Scap. in the place before alleged: Sacrificamus (saith he) pro salute Imperatoris;—sed, quomodo praecepit Deus, purâ prece: Non enim eget Deus, Conditor Vniversitatis, odoris & sanguinis alicujus; haec enim Daemoniorum pabula sunt. The Gentiles so thought, that their God's were refreshed and nourished with the smell and savor of their Sacrifices. Besides, in his third Book contra Marcionem cap. 22. In omni loco sacrificium nomini meo offertur, & sacrificium mundum, (to wit, saith he) Gloriae relatio, benedictio, laus & hymni; and Lib. 4. cap. 1. Sacrificium mundum, scilicet simplex oratio de conscientia pura.
Thirdly, Clemens Alexandrinus Lib. 7. Stromat. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , We (Christians) honor God by Prayer; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , And this we send up unto him as the best and holiest Sacrifice, honoring him by that most sacred Word, whereby we receive knowledge; that is, by Christ. Again, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The sacrifice of the Church is an oration exhaled from sanctified souls. He speaks not of the private Prayer of every Christian, but of the public Prayer of the Church as a Body; as will be evident to him that reads the place, and appears by the words quoted, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The Sacrifice of the Church; and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , exhaled (not from a sanctified soul, but) from sanctified souls. For to private Prayer was not given this title of the Christian Sacrifice, but unto the public, which the Church offered unto God when she presented herself before him, as one Body in Christ, by the mystical Communication of his Body and Blood.
This my next Author, Cyprian, will make plain in his 16, Epist. ad Mosen & Maximum. Nos quidem (saith he) vestri diebus & noctibus memores, & quando in sacrificiis precem cum pluribus facimus, & cum in secessu privatis precibus oramus: We indeed are mindful of you day and night; both when we in our Sacrifices pray publicly with others, and when we pray privately in our retirements: where we see the Sacrifice of Prayer to be, cùm precent cum pluribus facimus, and distinguished from that we do cùm in secessu privatis precibus oramus.
These Authorities are all within the first three hundred years: to which I will add one of the fourth; Optatus Milevitanns Lib. 6. contra Parmenianum, where he thus expostulates with the Donatists for breaking and defacing the Altars of the Catholics: Quid est enim tam sacrilegum (saith he) quàm Altaria Dei (in quibus & vos aliquando obtulistis) frangere, radere, removere? in quibus Vota Populi & Membra Christi portata sunt; quo Deus omnipotence invocatus sit: For what is there so sacrilegious as to break and deface, nay and quite take away, the Altars of God, whereon ye yourselves have sometimes offered; those Altars which did bear both the Prayers of the People and the Body and Blood of Christ, that so Almighty God might be invocated? Mark here Altaria in quibus Vota populi & Membra Christi portata sunt, and gather hence what parts the Christian Sacrifice consisted of: Vota populi are the Prayers of the Church, Membra Christi the Body and Blood of Christi, which the Prayers were offered with; both of them upon the Altar. For it is worthy your notice, That the ancient Church had no other Place whereat she offered her public Prayers and Orisons but that whereon the memory of the Body and Blood of Christ was celebrated; that as they were joined in their Use, so they might not be severed in their Place.
According to which use, and agreeable to this passage of Optatus, speaks the Council of Reims, commanding the Table of Christ (that is, the Altar) to be reverenced and honored, Quia Corpus Domini ibi consecratur, & sanguis ejus hauritur; Preces quoque & Vota populi in conspectu Dei à Sacerdote offeruntur: Because there the Body of Christ is consecrated, and his Blood is drunk; there also the Prayers and Desires of the People are offered up by the Priest before God.
Furthermore, That the Christian Sacrifice was an Oblation of Prayer, and consisted in Invocation, is also another way to be evinced; namely, Because the Fathers, when they speak thereof, use the terms of Prayer, Oblation and Sacrifice promiscuously and interchangeably one for the other, as words importing the same thing.
Tertullian Exhort. ad Cast. dissuading a Widower from marrying again, because it would be uncomely in the Sacrifice of the Church to make mention (as the manner then was) of more Wives than one, and that too by the mouth of an once-married Priest, speaks thus; Neque enim pristinam poteris odisse, cui etiam religiostorem reservas affectionem, ut jam receptae apud Dominum, pro cujus spiritu postulas, pro qua oblationes annuas reddis. Stabis ergo ad Dominum cum tot uxoribus quoi in oratione commemoras? & offeres pro duabus? & commendabis illas duas per Sacerdotem de monogamia ordinatum? circundatum virginibus & univiris? & ascendet sacrificium tuum cum liberâ front? For thou canst not hate thy former wife, for whom thou reservest a more religious affection, as being received already with the Lord, for whose spirit thou makest request, for whom thou rendrest yearly Oblations. Wilt thou then stand before the Lord with as many wives as in thy prayers thou makest mention of? and wilt thou offer for two? and commend those two by a Priest ordained after his having been but once-married? encompassed with virgins and with women but once married? and shall thy Sacrifice ascend freely and confidently? Here postulatio and oblatio, oratio and offerre, oratio and sacrificium are interchangeably put one for the other. So also, in his Book De Oratione are Oratio and Sacrificium; where he speaks of the kiss of Peace and Reconcilement, used at the Eucharist: Quae oratio (saith he) cum divortio sancti osculi integra? quale sacrificium, à quo sine pace receditur? What Prayer can be complete that is without the holy kiss? what a kind of Sacrifice is that, from which Christians come away without the kiss of Peace?
Augustine De Civit. Dei Lib. 8. cap. 27. speaking of the honor of Martyrs; Nec Martyribus ( saith he ) sacrificia constituimus—quis audivit aliquando fidelium, stantem Sacerdotem ad Altare (etiam super sanctum corpus Martyris) ad Dei honorem cultúmque constructum, dicere in Precibus Offero tibi sacrificium, Petre, vel Paul? &c. We do not sacrifice to Martyrs—Who among the faithful, while the Priest was standing at the Altar built for the honor and worship of God, (nay though it were over the holy body of the Martyr,) I say, whoever heard the Priest to say thus in Prayer, To thee, O Peter, or O Paul, do I offer Sacrifice? Here Sacrificium is expounded by Preces, and Preces put for Sacrificium.
And Lib. 22. cap. 8. concerning one Hesperius, a man of quality in the City whereof Austin was Bishop, who, by the affliction of his cattle and servants, perceiving his Country-Grange liable to some malignant power of evil spirits, Rogavit nostros, ( saith S. Austin) me absent, Presbyteros, ut aliquis eorum illo pergeret, cujus orationibus cederent. Perrexit unus, obtulit ibi sacrificium corporis Christi, orans, quantum potuit, ut cessaret illa vexatio. Deo protinus miserante cessavit. He entreated our Presbyters, in my absence, that someone of them would go to the place, through the prevalency of whose Prayers he hoped the evil spirits would be forced away. Accordingly one of them went thither, and offered there the Sacrifice of Christ's Body, praying earnestly with all his might for the ceasing of that fore affliction: and it ceased forthwith through God's mercy. The Priest was entreated to pray there; he went, and offered sacrifice, and so prayed.
For this reason the Christian Sacrifice is among the Fathers, by way of distinction, called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Sacrificium laudis, that is, of Confession and Invocation of God; namely, to difference it from those of Blood and Incense. Augustine Lib. 1. contra Adversarium Legis & Prophetarum cap. 20. Ecclesia immolat Deo in corpore Christi sacrificium laudis, ex quo Deus Deorum locutus vocavit terram à Solis ortu usque ab occasum: The Church offereth to God the Sacrifice of praise, ever since the fulfilling of that in Psalm 50. The God of God's hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the Sun to the going down thereof. Again, Epist. 86. Sacrificium laudis ab Ecclesia toto orbe diffusa diebus omnibus immolatur: The Sacrifice of Praise is continually offered by the Christian Church dispersed all the world over. And elsewhere. And amongst the Greek Fathers this term is so frequent as I shall not need to quote any of them.
Now this joining of the Prayers of the Church with the mystical commemoration of Christ in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, was no after-Invention of the Fathers, but took its original from the Apostles times, and the very beginning of Christianity: For so we read of the first believers Acts 2. 42. that they were 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . which the Vulgar Latin turns, Erant autem perseverantes in doctrina Apostolorum, & communicatione fractionis panis, & orationibus; And they persevered in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in the communication of the breaking of bread, and Prayers: but the Syriac, Perseverantes erant in doctrina Apostolorum, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; & communicabant in oratione, & fractione Eucharistiae: They persevered in the doctrine of the Apostles, and communicated in Prayer and in breaking of the Eucharist; that is, They were assiduous and constant in hearing the Apostles, and in celebrating the Christian Sacrifice. Both which Translations teach us, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Breaking of Bread and Prayers, are to be referred to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Communion, as the Exegesis thereof; namely, that this Communion of the Church consisted in the Breaking of Bread and Prayers; and so the conjunction 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to be Exegetically taken, as if the Greek were rendered thus, Erant perseverantes in (audienda) doctrina Apostolorum, & in communicatione, videlicet, fractione panis, & orationibus. And who knows not that the Synaxis of the ancient Christians consisted of these three parts, Of hearing the Word of God, of Prayers, and Commemoration of Christ in the Eucharist? Our Translation therefore here is not so right, which refers 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and translates it, The fellowship of the Apostles.
The Antiquity also of this conjunction we speak of appears out of Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, where speaking of the damage which Schismatics incur by dividing themselves from the communion of the Church, he utters it in this manner; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; Let no man (saith he) deceive himself: unless a man be within the Altar, he is deprived of the Bread of God. And if the prayer of one or two be of that force as to set Christ in the midst of them, how much more shall the joint-prayer of the Bishop and whole Church, sent up unto God, prevail with him to grant us all our requests in Christ? These words of Ignatius directly imply that the Altar was the place as of the Bread of God, so of the Public Prayers of the Church; and that they were so nearly linked together, that he that was not within the Altar, (that is, who should be divided therefrom) had no benefit of either.
CHAP. VI.
The Third Particular, That the Christian Sacrifice is an Oblation of Thanksgiving and Prayer through Jesus Christ Commemorated in the Creatures of Bread and Wine. Sacrifices under the Law were Rites to invocate God by. That the Eucharist is a Rite to give thanks and invocate God by, proved from several Testimonies of the Fathers and the Greek Liturgies. A passage out of Mr. Perkins agreeable to this notion. What meant by that usual expression of the Ancients speaking of the Eucharist, [ Through Jesus Christ the great High Priest. ] By Nomen Dei in Mal. 1. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus understood Christ. Why in the Eucharist Prayers were to be directed to God the Father.
THE second Particular thus proved, the Third comes next in place, which is, I [unspec III] That this Oblation of Thanksgiving and Prayer was made through Jesus Christ commemorated in the creatures of Bread and Wine: Namely, they believed that our Blessed Savior ordained this Sacrament of his Body and Blood as a Rite to bless and invocate his Father by, instead of the manifold and bloody Sacrifices of the Law. For, That those bloody Sacrifices of the Law were Rites to invocate God by, is a Truth, though not so vulgarly known, yet undeniable; and may, on the Gentiles behalf, be proved out of Homer and other Authors; on the Jews, by that speech of Saul, 1 Sam. 13. 12. when Samuel expostulated with him for having offered a burnt-offering: I said, saith he, The Philistines will come down upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord; I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt-offering: upon which place Kimchi notes, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Sacrifice was a Rite or Medium, whereby Prayer was usually presented unto God. The same is likewise true of their Hymns and Doxologies, as is to be seen 2 Chron. 29. 27. and by the words of the Chaldee Paraphrast Jonathan, upon Exod. 38. 8. concerning the women that assembled at the door of the Tabernacle: The Women (saith he) which came 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to pray, stood at the door of the Tabernacle by their Oblation, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and they praised and confessed; afterwards they returning to their husbands, brought forth righteous children.
It is further confirmed for Invocation in general, by that which the Scripture so often reports of Abraham and Isaac. That they built Altars where they came, and there they called upon the name of the Lord: But the Altar was a place for Sacrifice.
Instead therefore of the slaying of Beasts and burning of Incense, whereby they called upon the Name of God in the Old Testament; the Fathers, I say, believed our Savior ordained this Sacrament of Bread and Wine, as a Rite whereby to give thanks and make supplication to his Father in his Name.
The mystery of which Rite they took to be this: That as Christ, by presenting his Death and Satisfaction to his Father, continually intercedes for us in Heaven; so the Church on Earth semblably approaches the Throne of Grace, by representing Christ unto his Father in these holy Mysteries of his Death and Passion. Veteres enim, (saith Cassander) in hoc mystico sacrificio, non tam peractae semel in Cruee oblationis, cujus hîc memoria celebratur, quàm perpetui Sacerdotii & jugis sacrificii, quod quotidie in Coelis sempiternus Sacerdos offert, rationem habuerunt; cujus hîc Imago per solennes Ministrorum, preces exprimitur. The Ancients did not in this mystical Sacrifice so much consider and respect the Oblation once made upon the Cross, (the memory whereof is here celebrated,) as the everlasting Priesthood of Christ and the perpetual Sacrifice which he, our High Priest forever, doth continually offer in Heaven; the resemblance whereof is here on earth expressed by the solemn prayers of God's Ministers.
This a Reverend and famous Divine of blessed memory, once of this Society, and interred in this place, saw more clearly, or expressed more plainly, than any other Reformed Writer I have yet seen, in his Demonstratio Problematis, and Title de Sacrificio Missae; where he speaks thus: Veteres Coenam Domini, seu totam coenae actionem, vocârunt Sacrificium, variis de causis:—quia est commemoratio, ade • que repraesentatio Deo Patri, sacrificii Christi in cruce immolati: The ancient Fathers used to call the Supper of the Lord, or the whole action of the Supper, a Sacrifice; and that for divers reasons— Because it is a Commemoration, and also a Representation unto God the Father, of the Sacrifice of Christ offered upon the Cross. He goes on, Hoc modo fideles etiam inter orandum Christum offerunt Deo Patri victimam pro suis peccatis, dum scilicet mente affectúque ad sacrificium ejus unicum feruntur, ut Deum sibi habeant faciántque propitium: In this sense the Faithful in their prayers do offer Christ as a Sacrifice unto God the Father for their sins, in being wholly carried away in their minds and affections unto that only and true Sacrifice, thereby to procure and obtain God's favor to them. That which every Christian doth mentally and vocally, when he commends his prayers to God the Father through Jesus Christ, making mention of his death and satisfaction; that in the public service of the Church was done by that Rite which our Savior commanded to be used in Commemoration of him.
These things thus explained, Let us now see by what Testimonies and Authorities it may be proved the ancient Church had this meaning. I will begin with S. Ambrose, because his Testimony is punctual to our explication. Offic. lib. 1. cap. 48. Ante (saith he) Agnus offerebatur, offerebatur & Vitulus: nunc Christus offertur; sed offertur quasi homo, quasi recipiens passionem; & offert seipsum quasi sacerdos, ut peccata nostra dimittat: hîc in imagine, ibi in veritate, ubi apud Patrem pro nobis quasi advocate us intervenit. Heretofore (under the Law) was wont to be offered a Lamb, and a Bullock: (Exod. 29.) But now (under the Gospel) Christ is offered; but he is offered as a man, and as one that suffered; and he also as a Priest offers himself, for the forgiveness of our sins. Here (on earth) this is done in a resemblance and representation; there (in Heaven) in truth, where he as our Advocate intercedes for us with his Father. An Author which Cassander in his Consultations quotes without name, expresses this mystery fully; Non impie à nobis (saith he) Christus occiditur, sed pie sacrificatur; & hoc modo mortem Domini annunciam us donec veniat: hoc enim hîc per eum humiliter agimus in terris, quod pro nobis ipse potenter (sicut filius pro sua reverentia exaudiendus) agit in Coelis; ubi apud Patrem pro nobis quasi advocatus intervenit; cui est pro nobis intervenire, carnem quam pro nobis & de nobis sumsit, Deo Patri quodaemmodo pro nobis ingerere. Christ is not wickedly slain by us, but piously sacrificed; and thus we show the Lord's death till he come: For we by him do that here on earth in a meaner way, which he (as a Son to be heard for his reverence or piety) doth for us in heaven powerfully and prevailingly, where he as our Advocate mediates for us with the Father, whose office it is to intercede for us, and to present that flesh which he took for us and of us, to God the Father in our behalf.
My next Author shall be Eusebius, Demonstrat, Evangel. lib. 1. cap. 10. where mentioning that of the 23. Psalm, Thou hast prepared a Table before me, &c. Thou anointedst my head with oil; Herein, saith he, are plainly signified the Mystical unction, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and the venerable Sacrifices of Christ's table; (he means the Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whereby propitiating God, we are taught to offer up all our life long unto the Lord of all, unbloody and reasonable Sacrifices, most acceptable to him, by his most glorious High Priest, Jesus Christ. Here Eusebius affirms that Christians are taught to offer unto God reasonable and unbloody sacrifices, that is, Prayer and Thanksgiving, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , propitiating, or finding favor with God, through the venerable mysteries of Christ's Table. For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is, litare, i. e. propitiare, or placare Numen, votum impetrare, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , gratum facere.
Next I produce Cyril of Jerusalem (or more likely John his successor) Author of those five Catecheses Mystagogicae: In the last of which, relating and expounding the meaning of that which was said or done in the celebration of the Eucharist, according to the use of his time, amongst other things he says thus; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , after that Spiritual Sacrifice, that unbloody Service, that is, After the Thanksgiving and Invocation of the Holy Ghost upon the Bread and the Wine, to make it the Body and Blood of Christ, (of which he was speaking before) was done, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. We do over that Propitiatory Sacrifice beseech God for the common peace of the Churches, for the good estate of the World, for Kings, their Armies and Confederates, for the sick and the afflicted, and in fine for all that are in an helpless condition. And this is the manner of the Greek Liturgies, immediately upon the Consecration of the Dona (viz. the Bread and Wine) to be the Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ, and the Commemoration thereon of his Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, to offer to the Divine Majesty, as it were over the Lamb of God then lying upon the Table, their Supplications and Prayers, for the whole state of Christ's Church and all sorts and degrees therein, together with all other their suits and requests; and that ever and anon interposing the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , we offer unto thee, for these and these, that is, we commemorate Christ in this mystical Rite for them. This Prayer therefore our Author Cyril in the place afore-quoted calls 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the prayer of the holy and most worthily dreaded Sacrifice lying then upon the Table: and saith, that it is a most powerful Prayer, as that wherein we offer unto the Divine Majesty 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Christ that was once slain for our sins, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , propitiating the merciful God for our selves and others we pray for.
And this is that, if I mistake not, which Tertullian means lib. de Oratione cap. 11. where he says of the Christians, that they did Dominicâ passion orare. Nos vero (inquit) non attollimus tantùm [manus,] sed etiam expandimus; & Dominicâ passion orantes confitemur Christo, id est, Christum; We do not only lift up, but spre •• forth our hands, and praying with the Lord's passion, (that is, by the Commemoration thereof in the Eucharist) confess unto Christ, that is, confess and acknowledge Christ; according to the Dialect of the Scripture, Confitemur Domino for Confitemur Dominum: For by commemorating Christ and offering our Prayers to the Father in his Name, we confess and acknowledge him to be our Mediator. So Eusebius de Laude Const. calls it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , To send up Prayers in his Name to the God of all.
The same with Tertullian means S. Austin, describing the Christian Sacrifice to be, immolare Deo in Corpore Christi sacrificium Laudis, lib. 1. contra Adversarium Legis & Prophetarum, cap. 20. Ecclesia (saith he) immolat Deo, in Corpore Christi, sacrificium Laudis, ex quo Deus Deorum locutus vocavit terram à Solis ortu usque ad occasum, Psalm 50. 1. The Church offereth unto God the Sacrifice of Praise in the Body of Christ, ever since the fulfilling of that in Psal. 50. The God of God's hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the Sun to the going down thereof.
Lastly, That the representation of the Body and Blood of Christ in this Christian Service was intended and used as a Rite whereby to find grace and favor with God, when the Church addressed herself unto him, (which is that I undertook to prove,) is apparent by a saying of Origen Hom. 13. in Levite. where treating of the Shew-bread, which was continually set before the Lord with Incense, for a memorial of the children of Israel, that is, to put God in mind of them, he makes it in this respect to have been a lively figure of the Christians Eucharist; for, saith he, Ista est commemoratio sola quae propitium facit Deum hominibus; That's the only Commemoration which renders God propitious to men.
All these Testimonies have been express for our purpose, That the Thanksgivings and Prayers of the Church in the Christian Sacrifice were offered unto the Divine Majesty through Christ commemorated in the Symbols of Bread and Wine, as by a Medium whereby to find acceptance.
There is, besides these, an usual expression of the Fathers, when they speak of the Eucharist; which though it be not direct and punctual, as the former, yet I verily believe it aimed at the same Mystery: namely, when they say that in this Sacrifice they offer Praise and Prayer to God the Father, through Jesus Christ the great High Priest. I will quote an Example or two. Clemens, or the Author of the Constitutions, lib. 2. cap. 29. all. 25. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , You, (saith he) O Bishops, are now unto your people as Priests and Levites,—standing at the Altar of the Lord our God, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and offering unto him reasonable and unbloody Sacrifices through Jesus Christ the great High Priest. The same Clemens, in a more undoubted writing of his, to wit his Epist. ad Corinthios, quoting that of the 50. Psalm after the Septuagint, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The sacrifice of Praise shall glorify me; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ,— and there is the way wherein I shall show to him that sacrificeth the salvation of God; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , This is the way, saith Clemens, that is, the Sacrifice of Praise is the way, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , wherein we have found our salvation, Jesus Christ, the High Priest of all our offerings. The Fathers are wont to expound this place of the Eucharist; and therefore I doubt not but Clemens means of the same, and tells us that in this Sacrifice Christ, the High Priest of our offerings, is found, that is, represented and commemorated.
In the same style speaks Just. Mar. Dial. cum Tryphone. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . There is not any sort of men in the world, whether Barbarians, or Greeks, or of what denomination soever—amongst whom Prayers and Thanksgivings are not made to the Father and Maker of all through the name of the crucified Jesus. He is speaking of the Christian sacrifice, and our Text in Malachi, In omni loco offeretur Incensum Nomini meo: where note that by Nomen Dei the Name of God he understands Christ, through whom in this Sacrifice our devotions are offered. So doth Irenaeus and others, Iren. lib. 4. cap. 33. Quod est aliud Nomen quod in Gentibus glorificatur, quàm quod est Domini nostri, per quem glorificatur Pater, & glorificatur homo—quoniam ergo Nomen Filii proprium Patris est, & in Deo omnipotent, per Iesum Christum offert Ecclesia; been ait secundùm utraque, Et in omni loco offeretur Incensum Nomini meo, & Sacrificium purum. What other Name is there that is glorified among the Gentiles, than the Name of our Lord, by whom the Father is glorified, and man also is glorified?—And because the Name of the Son is the Father's, and in Almighty God, the Church offers through Jesus Christ; well saith the Prophet in respect of both, And in every place Incense shall be offered to my Name, and a pure Sacrifice.
Now how this Incense and Sacrifice, which the Prophet saith the Gentiles should offer to the Name of God, may be expounded, Offered by the Name of God, to wit, by Christ, Origen lib. 8. contra Cels. will inform us; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 We worship, (saith he) as we are able, with our Prayer and Supplications the one God and his only Son, the Word and Image of God, Jesus Christ; offering to the God of the Universe our Prayers by his only-begotten Son, TO WHOM WE FIRST OFFER THEM; beseeching him, that he, being the Propitiation (i. Propitiator) for our sins, would vouchsafe, as our High Priest, to present our PRAYERS and SACRIFICES and INTER CESSIONS to God most High. The sum whereof is this, That which we offer to the Father by Christ, we offer first to Christ; that he, as our High Priest, might present it to his Father. More passages hath Origen in the same Books of this kind.
But I will not weary you too much in this rugged way; Only I will add, that out of this which we have hitherto discoursed and proved, may be understood the meaning and reason of that Decree of the third Council of Carthage and Hippo, namely, Vt nemo in Precibus, vel Patrem pro Filio, vel Filiumpro Patre, nominet: Et cum Altari assistitur [N. B.] semper ad Patrem dirigatur oratio: That none in their Prayer should name either the Son for the Father, or the Father for the Son: And that, when they stand at the Altar, they ought always to direct their Prayers to the Father. The reason, Because the Father is properly the Object 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to whom; the Son only 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , by whom, in this Mystical service; and therefore to direct here our Prayers and Thanksgivings to the Son, were to pervert the order of the Mystery, which is, as hath been proved, An Oblation of Praise and Prayer to God the Father through the Intercession of Jesus Christ, represented in the Symbols of Bread and Wine.
CHAP. VII.
The Fourth Particular, That the Commemoration of Christ in the Creatures of Bread and Wine (in the Eucharist) is a Sacrifice, according to the style of the ancient Church. How Sacrifices are distinguished from all other Offerings. A Sacrifice defined. The universal Custom of mankind to contract or confirm Covenants and Friendship by eating and drinking together: This illustrated from Testimonies of Scripture and human Authors. Sacrifices were Federal Feasts, wherein God and men did feast together in token of amity and friendship. What was God's Messe or portion in the Sacrifices. The different Laws of Burnt-offerings, Sin and Trespass-offerings, and the Peace-offerings. Burnt-offerings had Meat and Drink-offerings annexed to them, and were regularly accompanied with Peace-offerings. That Sacrifices were Feasts of amity between God and men, proved by four Arguments. The reason of those phrases, Secare foedus and Icere foedus. That in those Sacrificial Feasts, (and also in the Eucharist) God is to be considered as the Convivator, and Man as the Conviva. This cleared by several passages in this (as also in the) following Chapter.
[unspec IV] THE Fourth Particular propounded was this, That the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, or Lord's Supper, or the Commemoration of Christ in the Creatures of Bread and Wine, is also a Sacrifice, according to the style of the ancient Church.
It is one thing to say, That the Lord's Supper is a Sacrifice, and another to say, That Christ is properly sacrificed therein. These are not the same: For there may be a Sacrifice which is a representation of another Sacrifice, and yet a Sacrifice too. And such a Sacrifice is this of the New Testament, a Sacrifice wherein another Sacrifice, that of Christ's death upon the Cross, is commemorated. Thus the Papists gain nothing by this Notion of Antiquity, and our asserting the same: For their Tenet is, That Christ in this Sacrifice is really and properly sacrificed; which we shall show in due time that the Ancients never meant.
To begin with this, That the Lord's Supper or Mystical Rite of the Body and Blood of Christ is a Sacrifice: As in the Old Testament the name of Sacrifice was otherwhile given to the whole Action in which the Rite was used, sometimes to the Rite alone: so in the Notion and Language of the ancient Church, sometimes the whole Action or Christian Service (wherein the Lord's Supper was a part) is comprehended under that name; sometimes the Rite of the Sacred Supper itself is so termed, and truly, as ye shall now hear.
The resolution of this Point depends altogether upon the true Definition of a Sacrifice, as it is distinguished from all other Offerings. Which, though it be so necessary that all disputation without it is vain; yet shall we not find that either party interested in this question hath been so exact therein as were to be wished. This appears by the differing Definitions given and confuted by Divines on both sides: The reason of which defect is, because neither are deduced from the Notion of Scripture, but built upon other conceptions. Let us see therefore if it may be learned out of Scripture what that is which the Scripture, in a strict and special sense, calls a Sacrifice.
Every Sacrifice is an Oblation or Offering: but every offering is not a Sacrifice, in that strict and proper acception we seek. For Tithes, First-fruits, and all other called Heave-offerings in the Law, and whatsoever indeed is consecrated unto God, are Oblations or Offerings; but none of them Sacrifices, nor ever so called in the Old Testament. What Offerings are then called Sacrifices? I answer, Burnt-Offerings, Sinofferings, Trespass-offerings and Peace-offerings. These, and no other, are called by that name.
Out of these therefore must we pick the true and proper ratio and nature of a Sacrifice. It is true, indeed, that these Sacrifices were Offerings of beasts, of beeves, of sheep, of goats, of fowls: but the ratio or essence of anything consists not in the matter thereof; as the Gowns we wear are still the same kind of apparel, though made of differing stuffs. These Sacrifices also were slain, and offered by Fire and Incense: but neither is the modus of anything the ratio or essential Form thereof. That therefore may have the nature and formal of a Sacrifice, which consists of another matter, and is offered after another and differing manner. Those we call Sacraments of the Old Testament, Circumcision and the Passover, were by effusion of blood; ours are not; and yet we esteem them nevertheless true Sacraments: So it may be here.
To hold you therefore no longer in suspense: A Sacrifice, I think, should be defined thus; An Offering whereby the offerer is made partaker of his God's Table, in token of Covenant and Friendship with him, &c. or more explicately thus; An Offering unto the Divine Majesty of that which is given for the Food of man; that the offerer partaking thereof might, as by way of pledge, be certified of his acceptation into Covenant and fellowship with his God, by eating and drinking at his Table. S. Augustine comes toward this Notion, when he defines a Sacrifice (though in a larger sense) Quod Deo nuncupamus, reddimus & dedicamus, hoc fine, ut sanctâ societate ipsi adhaereamus; That which we devote, dedicate and render unto God, for this end, that we may have an holy society and fellowship with him. For to have society and fellowship with God, what is it else but to be in league and covenant with him?
In a word, a Sacrifice is Oblatio foederalis. For the true and right understanding whereof, we must know, That it was the universal custom of mankind, and still remains in use, to contract covenants and make leagues and friendship by eating and drinking together. When Isaac made a covenant with Abimelech the King of Gerar, the Text saith, He made him and those that were with him a Feast, and they did eat and drink, and rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to another, Gen. 26. 30, 31. When Jacob made a covenant with Laban, after they had sworn together, he made him a Feast, and called his brethren to eat Bread, Gen. 31. 54. When David made a league with Abner, upon his promise to bring all Israel unto him, David made Abner and the men that came with him a Feast, 2 Sam. 3. 20. Hence in the Hebrew tongue a Covenant is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 To eat; as if they should say An eating: which derivation is so natural, that it deserves to be preferred before that from the other signification of the same Verb, which is To choose. And this will suffice for the custom of the Hebrews.
Now for the Gentiles, Herodotus tells us, the Persians were wont to contract leagues and friendship inter Vinum & Epulas, in a full Feast, whereat their wives, children and friends were present. The like Tacitus reports of the Germans. Amongst the Greeks and other Nations, the Covenantees ate Bread and Salt together. Unto which comes near that Ceremony some-where used at Weddings, that the Bridegroom, when he comes home from Church, takes a piece of Cake, tastes it, then gives it to his Bride to taste it likewise; as a token of a Covenant made between them. The Emperor of Russia at this day, when he would show extraordinary grace and favor unto any, sends him Bread and Salt from his Table: And when he invited Baron Sigismond, the Emperor Ferdinand's Ambassador, he did it in this form; Sigismunde, comedes Sal & panem nostrum nobiscum, Sigismond, you shall eat our Bread and Salt with us. Hence that Symbol of Pythagoras, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Break no bread, is interpreted by Erasmus and others to mean Break no friendship. Moreover the Egyptians, Thracians, and Libyans in special, are said to have used to make leagues and contract friendship by presenting a cup of Wine one to another; which custom we find still in use amongst our Western Nations. And what is our • le pledge you, but I take it as a pledge of league and friendship from you? Yea it is a rule in Law, that if a man drink to him against whom he hath an accusation of slander or other verbal injury, he loses his Action, because it is supposed he is reconciled with him.
Such now as were these Covenant-feastings and eatings and drinkings in token of league and amity between men and men, such are Sacrifices between Man and his God; Epulae foederales, Federal feasts, wherein God deigneth to entertain Man to eat and drink with or before him, in token of favor and reconcilement. For so it becomes the condition of the parties, that he which hath offended the other, and seeks for favor and forgiveness, should be entertained by him to whom he is obnoxious; and not e contrá: that is, that God should be the Convivator, the entertainer or maker of the Feast, and man the Conviva, or Guest. To which end the Viands for this sacred Epulum were first to be offered unto God, and so made his; that he might entertain the offerer, and not the offerer him. For we are to observe, that what the Fire consumed was accounted as God's own Mess, and called by himself the meat of his Fire-offerings: the rest was for his guests, which they were partakers of either by themselves, as in all the Peace-offerings; or by their proxies the Priests, as in the rest, to wit, the Holocausts, the Sin and Trespass-offerings. The reason of which difference was, I suppose, because the one was ad impetrandum or renovandum foedus, for the making or renewing the Covenant with God, where therefore a Mediator was needful; the other, to wit, the Peace-offerings, ad confirmandum & consignandum, for the confirming the Covenant only, wherein therefore they addressed themselves before the Divine Majesty with greater confidence. If any shall object, That the Holocaust was wholly burnt and consumed, and so nobody partaker thereof; I answer, It is true, the Beast which was slain was wholly burnt, and so all of it as it were God's Mess: But there was a Meat-offering and Drink-offering annexed thereunto, as a part of the holy Feast; of which a handful only was burnt for a memorial, the remainder was for the Priests to eat in the holy place. Besides Burnt-offerings were regularly accompanied with Peace-offerings (as you shall find them in Scripture ordinarily joined together;) now in these the people that offered had the greatest share. In a word, That those who offered Sacrifice, both among Jews and Gentiles, were partakers of the same, is a thing to be taken for granted; as appears by the warning God gave the Israelites, Exod. 34. 12, 15. That they should make no covenants with the inhabitants of the land; Lest, when they went a whoring after their God's, and offered a sacrifice unto them, they might call them, and they also eat of their sacrifice. Also by that Psal. 106. 28. They joined themselves to Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead. By that of S. Paul, Heb. 13. 10. We have an Altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve at the Tabernacle. So that of this there need be no question.
It remains only that we prove, That these sacred Epulae were Epulae foederales, Federal Feasts, and so our Definition will stand good. Now this will appear first in general, by that expression of Scripture, wherein the Covenant which God makes with Man is expressed by eating and drinking at his Table, Luke 13. 26. Those to whom the Lord opens not, plead for themselves, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets, &c. Chap. 22. 29, 30. Our Savior tells his Disciples, I appoint you a Kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdom. Apocal. 3. 20. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in unto him, and will sup with him, and he with me. But these passages, you will say, show rather how fitly Sacrifices might be Feasts of amity between God and men, than prove they were so indeed: Hear therefore such proofs as I think come home to the point.
First, Every sacrifice, saith our Savior, Mark 9. 49. is salted with salt. This Salt is called Levite. 2. 13. The salt of the Covenant of God; that is, a Symbol of the perpetuity thereof. Now if the Salt which seasoned the Sacrifice were Salfoederis Dei, the Salt of the Covenant of God, what was the Sacrifice itself but Epulum foederis, the Feast of the Covenant?
Secondly, Moses calls the Blood of the Burnt-offerings and Peace-offerings, wherewith he sprinkled the children of Israel when they received the Law, The Blood of the Covenant which the Lord had made with them; This is, saith he, the Blood of the Covevenant which the Lord hath made with you, Exod. 24. 8.
Thirdly, But above all, this may most evidently be evinced out of the 50. Psalm, the whole Argument whereof is concerning Sacrifices: There God saith, verse. 5. Gather my Saints together unto me, which make covenant with me by sacrifice, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . And verse. 16. of the Sacrifices of the wicked and such as amend not their lives, Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my Statutes 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and take my Covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, &c. Statutes here are Rites and Ordinances, and particularly those of Sacrifice, which whoso bringeth unto God, and thereby supplicates and calls upon his Name, is said to take the Covenant of God in his mouth; forasmuch as to invocate God with this Rite, was to do it by way of commemoration of his Covenant, and to say, Remember, Lord, thy covenant, and, For thy covenant's sake, Lord, hear my prayer and supplication. For what hath man to do with God, to beg any favor at his hands, unless he be in covenant with him? Whereby appears the reason why mankind, from the beginning of the world, used to approach their God by this Rite of sacrificing, that is, ritu foederali, by a foederal Rite.
Fourthly, I add in this last place, for a further confirmation yet, That when God was to make a Covenant with Abram, Gen. 15. he commanded him to offer him a Sacrifice, verse. 9. Offer unto me (saith he, so it should be turned) a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, each of three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. All which he offered accordingly, and divided them in the midst, laying each piece or moiety one against the other; and when the Sun went down, God in the likeness of a smoking furnace and burning lamp past between the pieces, and so (as the Text says) made a covenant with Abram, saying, unto thy seed will I give this land, &c. By which Rite of passing between the parts, God condescended to the manner of men. And note here, that the Gentiles, and Jews likewise, in their more solemn Covenants between men and men, (which were made under pain of curse or execration) used this Rite of Sacrifice, whereby men covenanted with their God, as it were to make their God both a witness and party with them. And here the Jews cut the Sacrifice in sunder, and past between the parts thereof; as God did here with Abram: which was as much as if they had said,