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and in that character as the model of Christ's priesthood; and he speaks of his blessing Abraham, but says not a word about his bringing forth bread and wine. Why is not this circumstance—this most material circumstance, according to the Catholic notion, alluded to, if in it he acted as a priest and as the sacerdotal type of Christ? Why does the apostle, when speaking of him as a priest, mention only his benediction of Abraham? Now if, as I think it is manifest, he brought forth bread and wine not in the exercise of his office as priest, it overturns the Catholic argument

at once.

But secondly, consider what in all human probability was the object of the bread and wine. Would any one, in reading the passage, suppose it could have been for any other purpose than refreshment? What an idea! to come out to a people returning famished and weary from the toils of conflict, with a sacrificea propitiatory sacrifice too-the mass-with bread and wine, not to be eaten and drank, but to be offered to God! What more unnatural than such a supposition! On the other hand what more natural, and proper than to bring forth, for those fatigued soldiers, "wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart," to refresh them? It was just what, under the circumstances, they needed.

In further proof of the correctness of this view of the passage, we find that Abraham recognized the priesthood of Melchizedek, not by receiving bread and wine at his hands, but by giving him tithes. "And he gave him tithes of all."

We see then there is no proof of any sacrifice in this transaction. There was nothing offered to God.

Popery.

What was offered, was to Abraham and his company. But if the offering was to God, it could but constitute an eucharistic sacrifice. Bread and wine might be offered as thank-offerings. But a bloodless propitiatory sacrifice was unknown under the Old Testament. Whatever view we take of the passage, it cannot make for the mass. That which was offered was only bread and wine. The Catholics do not pretend that they were changed into the body and blood of Christ. Melchizedek lived nearly 2000 years before Christ had a body. How could transubstantiation take place so long before the incarnation? But if simple bread and wine were offered, then the act of Melchizedek, if any thing more than an example of hospitality, was rather the model of the Protestants' Lord's Supper, than the Roman Catholic's mass.— And here it may be observed, that Melchizedek does not seem to have denied the cup to the laity, as later priests have done. O no, it was the Council of Constance, in the 15th century, that established that custom.

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

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

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

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

ever.

36. The Host.

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

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

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

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