hope to escape, when arraigned for so daring profanations?
[Examine yourself carefully upon the use you have made of the Sacramento, and receive them, for the future, as if death were immediately approaching.]
“Let a man prove himself." — 1 Cor.
“ There are bad Christians who are called by the name of Faithful, and who are not such; by whom the Sacraments of Christ are dishonoured and profaned.”— St. Austin.
NINETEENTH DAY.— ON THE MASS.
1. A Sacrifice is an exterior or visible offering made by a lawful minister to God alone, in testimony of his supreme dominion. Our absolute dependence upon God, and the homage we owe him, render sacrifice essential to religion. Hence from the beginning of the world, it has been always offered. Abel, Noe, Melchisedech, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have sacrificed to the Almighty; and a variety of sacrifices were prescribed in the written law of Moses.
2. All these, however, were only weak figures of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross: for sin was too great an evil, its guilt was of too black a die, to be ever removed by the blood of sheep and oxen. No other atonement could compensate for its enormity than the sufferings of a God, therefore did he come. “ In the beginning of the book it was written of him, that he should do the will of his Father.” By the one oblation of himself he paid off all our debts: he closed up the abyss of separation, cancelled the handwriting of sin that lay against us; and the sanctified he perfected for ever.
3. Was this not enough? Most undoubtedly it was; nay, one drop of his blood was fully adequate to all these purposes. Why, then, is the same sacrifice daily renewed in the Mass? why is he still immolated upon our altars? why is his body mystically
