who, if any one, might be supposed a trustworthy interpreter of the Roman doctrine.
"The images of Christ and of the saints are to be venerated not only by accident and improperly, but properly and by themselves, so that they themselves are the end of the veneration [ut ipsæ terminent venerationem] as considered in themselves, and not only as they are copies." De Imagin. lib. ii. c. 21.
Again, in the Pontifical we are instructed that to the wood of the Cross "divine worship (latria) is due;" and that saving virtues for soul and body proceed from it; which surely agrees with the doctrine of Bellarmine as contained in the above extract, not with that of Bossuet.
4. The Vindicator of Bossuet speaks of the Mass to the following effect:
"The council tells us it was instituted only to represent that which was accomplished on the Cross, to perpetuate the memory of it to the end of the world, and apply to us the saving virtue of it, for those sins which we commit every day....... When we say that Christ is offered in the Mass, we do not understand the word offer in the strictest sense, but as we are said to offer to God what we present before him. And thus the Church does not doubt to say, that she offers up our Blessed Jesus to His Father in the Eucharist, in which He vouchsafes to render Himself present before Him."
But the Tridentine Fathers say in their Canons that,
"the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice; a sacrifice not only commemoratory of that of the Cross, but also truly and properly propitiatory for the dead and the living."
And Bellarmine says,
"A true and real sacrifice requires a true and real death or destruction of the thing sacrificed." De Missâ lib. i. c. 27.
And then he proceeds to show how this condition of the notion of a sacrifice is variously fulfilled in the Mass.
Leaving Bossuet, let us now turn to the history of the controversy in our own country, whether in former or recent times; and here I avail myself of an article of a late lamented Prelate of our Church, in a periodical work ten years since[1]. As to the particular instances adduced, it must be recollected that they are not dwelt on as a sufficient evidence by themselves of that differ-
- ↑ British Critic, Oct. 1825.
