The doctrine of Transubstantiation is a Romish superstition prevalent in America. The sacrifice of the mass is an inheritance from the heathen. The word of God is expressly contrary to it. In all of Paul's epistles we are told that Christ effected our redemption on Calvary, - died once to atone for human sins, and that man's guilt was thereby cancelled; that he justified by his death all the generations of the earth, that his blood alone saves the world. According to the Council of Trent, the mass is the continuation of the sacrifice on Calvary. Continuation there was no need of any. “We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins; but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness; for after that he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Heb. 10: 10–17.
Notwithstanding these positive utterances of Holy Writ, we find in the Roman Catholic's catechism, approved and in use in Boston, these words:—
Q. What is the Holy Eucharist?
A. The Holy Eucharist is a sacrament which contains really and indeed the body and blood, the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the forms and appearances of bread and wine.
Q. Does anything remain of the bread and wine after consecration?
A. No; the substance of the bread is changed into that of the body of Jesus Christ, and the substance of the wine is changed into that of his blood.
Q. What is this change called?
A. It is called transubstantiation.
Q. How is this change effected?
A. It is effected through the almighty power of the words of Jesus Christ spoken by the priest in mass.
This is the boastful claim. It is pretended, and Romanists are superstitious enough to believe, that a priest can make a God, an Omnipotent, Infinite, Omniscient, Almighty, Eternal, Invisible and Omnipresent God, whenever he so chooses and wills. Without characterizing the claim, let us examine it. Are the words, “This is my body, this is my blood,” to be understood in a literal sense? On another occasion Christ said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven;” and no one ever supposed that he was actually bread, and subsequently changed or transubstantiated. Said a Romanist recently, whose attention was called to the absurdity of this claim, “A little examination was sufficient to shake my belief in that doctrine which I had hitherto professed. Would Jesus Christ have told us things that were impossible to be? Now, it is impossible, absolutely impossible, that what is bread should, at one and the same time, be his body, and that what is wine should contemporaneously be his blood. This cannot be either simultaneously or successively. The church of Rome saw the first to be an absurdity, and, therefore, held to the second. But how can the body of Christ become bread, and his blood wine, if such change be not in accordance with the laws of nature? Could Christ deceive us? Now, it is not true that bread and wine, according to nature, has ceased to exist in the sacrament, for we see they do exist; that which we see and touch and taste, are natural bread and wine. Can there be faith against nature? And yet that is against nature which neither is nor can be; whatever is must be according to nature's laws. There may be substances of a higher nature, and subject to superior laws, than those with which we are acquainted; but they can never exist in contradiction to them, since Nature herself, in that case, would be destroyed. Therefore, what is bread and wine cannot — not be bread and wine; God, omnipotent as he is, cannot order it otherwise. But the sacrament, after consecration, is always natural bread and wine; therefore, it is not the substance of the body and blood of Christ.”
Transubstantiation is not only Illogical, it is Unnecessary.
Paul truly said, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace in the Holy Ghost (Rom. 14: 17). Christ said, It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life (John 6: 63). Corporeal substances may be a type, a figure of the spiritual, but nothing more. The words of Christ are full of truth and wisdom. The interpretation of the Romanist is a grovelling conception, full of error, falsehood, and absurdity. Christ could not better symbolize the effect of his passion and death than by the bread and wine. And we cannot more grossly abuse it than by attributing to a sinful priest the virtue and power of the Saviour; with the additional enormity, that what Christ has been able to do once, a wretched priest can repeat as often as he chooses. No wonder that many priests in this land refuse and declare that the mass is nothing but a lie, a solemn imposture, an actual sacrilegious assault upon Christ.
The dogma which constitutes the mass, with its double element of transubstantiation and propitiatory sacrifice, is the most fatal of Romish doctrines, the most detestable of all heresies, and the most abominable of all practices. Around this as their sun revolves all the rest of the papal system. If there is no propitiatory sacrifice but through the Eucharist, if the priest controls it, and has it in his power to make Christ, or to refuse to do so, every worshipper is bound to the priesthood by his every hope of salvation.
Contemplate the use made of this alleged sacrifice. Money, said Gavazzi, is the end of all popish practices. Money procures masses for the repose of souls in purgatory. In proportion to the alms, the mass, it is said, has more efficacy, because God regards the money given, and in proportion grants more suffrages to the souls in torments. Because of this pretended claim to power, millions of money have been won for Rome, and millions more are forthcoming. Here rests the power of control which enables priests to build these magnificent institutions and churches, despite the poverty of their people and the blasphemous character of their boastful pretension. “The ancient pagans worshipped their god under material forms; the Assyrians the sun; the Egyptians, reptiles and vegetables; the Greeks, heroes; the Romans, emperors; and the modern pagans, under the form of a stone, or a tree. These were called and are called pagans, because they worship God under material forms. But the Roman Catholics, according to the Boston Catechism, worship God under this material form of bread and wine; therefore, are we not justified in pronouncing Romanism as no better than paganism?
It is because of this superstition that Rome holds in her hand the destiny of the soul. The dying wait for extreme unction and rest their faith on a bread-God which a man makes, rather than on the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, slain on Calvary that every believer may have life. Because of this, the sermon has been largely excluded from the sanctuary, and instead of the bread of life furnished in the gospel, there is a forest of candles burning at the altar; people are counting their beads and praying before pictures; mummeries take the place of worship, and chants to the virgin the praises to Almighty God.
This superstition is here, and its influence is felt. That it should be tolerated is a surprise to the reflecting. Enter a Catholic church on Christmas. There is the archbishop in his robes, with his cross, his crook, and his crozier; there are priests in numbers moving about making their crosses, obeisances, and genuflections. When the bishop rises, crook and crosier move before him, and priests follow after; the book is shifted from side to side, and is read and chanted in a language which none understand. There is the elevating of the host and the bowing down of the people; the waving of incense, prostrations, lustrations, and all the usual accompaniments of such a service, no better than a pantomine, and not much different from a play at a theatre. If mass thus performed, with all the splendor and pomp of ritual, is thus unmeaning, how insipid must it be when...performed in country chapels by ignorant priests “who hunt up the sheep to shear off the wool.” For, be it remembered, the people cannot obtain the forgiveness of their sins only in the church and at the hands of their priest. Hence, in lands most full of superstition, their churches throng with worshippers, and in lands illumined by the Gospel, the learned become infidel, and the women go to mass.
On the contrary, behold the faith of the gospel with those who believe in Christ rather than in the surroundings of Christ; with those who recognize the fact, that Jesus, not the manger, — not Mary, - not the gifts, but Jesus, the child Jesus, the man Jesus, the crucified, - Jesus the risen and ascended Lord is our hope; the bread and wine symbolizes the body and blood of Christ. Approaching the Lord's supper, we enjoy sacramental union with Christ in this last supper, and commemorate his death till he come; thus we escape all the false consequences of stating “you have the real presence of Christ in this wafer;” thus we save ourselves from the charge of being cannibal, or Christ eaters; thus we do God's will and obey Christ's commands and can pray, Oh, Christ! be all in all, that all may profit by thy blood! Christ, teach all by thy inspired Word, to worship Thee accordingly; open all eyes by means of Thy truth to escape the delusions of human doctrines towards Thee! Thus do we receive all from Christ; give all to Christ; labor all for Christ, and Christ becomes all in all, and is for all. Christ in life, Christ in the hour of anguish, Christ in the time of tribulation, Christ in death, Christ our joy and glory forever!
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