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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 intercedingsacrificing 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 forever. And yet they appeal to the Bible in proof of their doctrine!

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 break, 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

is the same it was before; and by every test by which the substance can be examined, it is found to be the same. Yet they say the two things are as unlike as bread, and the body, soul and divinity of Christ! And this on pain of perdition must be believed, though the senses all exclaim against it; and reason, that calm faculty, almost getting into a passion with the absurdity of the doctrine, cries out against it; and though all experience be against it. And in favor of it, there is what? Why, Christ said "This is my body," speaking as Paul did when he said "and that rock was Christ;" and as he himself did, when he said "I am the door." Did any one ever contend that Christ was literally a door or a rock? Oh no. Why then is it contended that the bread was literally his body? Is it so said? And are not the other things also so said? It is strange the Catholics should contend for a literal interpretation in the first case, while they will not allow it in the other cases.

But if they contend for a strictly literal interpretation of "this is my body," why do they not abide by such an interpretation? Why do they say, as in the Christian's Guide, page 14, that "in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ?" If Christ says it is his body, he does not say it is his soul and divinity. Where do they get that from? They say it is his body, because he says it is. But why do they say it is his soul and Divinity also, when he does not say so? You see they do not interpret the passage literally, after all.

But what do the Catholics do with this host? Principally two things.

1. They adore it. The Bible says "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." But the Catholics worship the host. Yes, but is not Christ to be worshiped, and do they not hold that the host is Christ? Suppose they do hold So. Does it follow that every thing is as they hold i to be? And if in this case the fact be different from what they hold it to be, is not their worship idolatry whatever they may verily think? Paul verily thought that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. But did his verily thinking it was his duty, make it so, or exculpate him? No, he ought to have been better informed. And Catholics ought to be better informed than to suppose that the host is Christ-a wafer, God—a bit of bread, not only the body, but the very soul and divinity of Christ! I say they ought to know better. And if they do not, they must take the consequences of such ignorance.

2. The other thing which they do with the host is to eat it. This is all very well on our theory. It is bread; and what is bread for but to be eaten. Christ tells us to put it to this use. He says "Take, eat." But on their supposition that it is bread no longer, it is no longer proper to be eaten. Its nature being so changed, there ought to be a corresponding change in its use. If it is to be adored, it is not to be devoured. Common sense teaches this. These two uses of it, adoring it and eating it, are incongruous to each other. One of them at least ought to be dispensed with. If they continue to eat it, they ought to give up adoring it. But if they must have it as an object of worship, they should cease to use it as an article of food. Any body can tell you that you ought not to eat what you

worship. Cicero thought such a thing could not be. In his work on Theology, he asks "Was any man ever so mad as to take that which he feeds upon for a god?" But Cicero did not live late enough, else he could not have asked that question. Papal Rome has far outdone Pagan Rome.

but

If I believed in transubstantiation, I would never receive the Eucharist. I know that I must spiritually eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, that I may have life in me, that is, I must by meditation and faith, contemplate and appropriate his sacrifice; I could never literally eat what I believed to be my divine Saviour. What, take him actually between my teeth! chew and swallow what I had just before worshiped, and adored! Let not the language be objected to. It is unavoidable. Rather let horror be felt at the thing. I would not speak lightly of sacred things, nor untenderly of the opinions of others; but the idea of adoring and eating the same object is shocking to me. Some readers will perhaps say that I must misrepresent the Catholics-that it is impossible they should believe so. Let such convict me of misrepresentation, if they can, and I will take the first opportunity of retracting.

37. Priests.

Where are we? Under what dispensation are we living? One would suppose, from hearing so much said among a certain class of people about priests,

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