The most eloquent Chrysostom frequently flourishes upon the same topic. In one place, elegantly describing the nature and excellency of self-sacrifice, he proceeds to speak of the fire which comes upon it, as being of a very new and uncommon kind, such as subsists not upon wood, or material fuel, but is self-subsisting, lives of itself, and gives life to the sacrifice, instead of consuming it9. Most certainly he thought not of the material elements: for he excludes all such gross fuel; neither were the elements capable of receiving life by the fire of the Spirit. Cyril of Alexandria reasons on this head exactly the same way, mysticizing the fire, and appropriating it to the persons considered as the sacrifice. What the Fathers aimed at in all was, to point out something in the Christian sacrifices correspondent or analogous to the ordinary sacrificial fires of the Pagans, and to the holy fire of the Jews, but yet far exceeding both, in purity, dignity, and energy.

But perhaps it may be here asked, Do not the same Fathers often speak of the Holy Spirit's coming upon the eucharistical elements, as well as upon the persons of the communicants? It is very certain that they do; for they supposed the Holy Ghost to consecrate, or sanctify, the elements into holy signs, or sacred symbols, representative and exhibitive of the body and blood of Christ not to make holocausts or sacrifices of them, but sacraments only; signs of the grand sacrifice, spiritually given and received in and through them. Therefore the Fathers do not speak of the fire of the Spirit, as inflaming or warming the elements; neither could they with any propriety or aptness do it: if there be any chance expression seeming to look that way, it charist explained in the preceding Charge, p. 190, &c.

4 Καινὸς γὰρ οὗτος τῆς θυσίας ὁ νόμος· διὸ καὶ παράδοξος τοῦ πυρὸς ὁ τρόπος. Οὐδὲ γὰρ ξύλων δεῖται καὶ ὕλης ὑποκειμένης, ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸ καθ' ἑαυτὸ ζῇ τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἡμέτερον, καὶ οὐδὲ κατακαίει τὸ ἱερεῖον, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον αὐτὸ (wonolel. Chrysostom. in Rom. Hom. xx. p. 657. tom. ix. Conf. de Sacerdot. lib. iii. p. 383. tom. i. Item de Pœnitent. Hom. ix. p. 349. tom. ii. Item de Beat. Philogon. Hom. vi. p. 500. tom. i. et in Hebr. Hom. xi. p. 115, 116. tom. xii. Item, tom. i. p. 648, 671.

r Cyrill. Alex. cont. Jul. lib. x. p. 345. Compare my Review, vol. iv. P. 759.

S See Sacramental Part of the Eu

There is a passage of Ephræm Syrus, which has been thought to contain some such meaning: Christus Salvator noster ignem et spiritum manducandum atque bibendum præstitit nobis carne vestitis, corpus videlicet et sanguinem suum. Ephr. Syrus, de Natura Dei incomprehensibili, p. 682. But ignis there seems to mean the Logos, received with the Spirit; received, not by the elements, but by the persons upon their partaking of the elements. Vid. Albertin. p. 453, 454. The same is received in Baptism also.

can be understood only of the gift of the Spirit accompanying the elements to every worthy communicant. Upon the whole, it is manifest, that when the Fathers oppose their sacrificial fire (viz. the fire of the Spirit) to the sacrificial fires of Jews and Pagans, they supposed it to enlighten, inflame, and spiritualize, not the elements, but the persons: therefore the persons were the true and acceptable sacrifices, living sacrifices, burning and shining holocausts.

VIII.

There was another ancient, but less noted distinction of sacrifice, into false and true; or into untrue and true, which amounts to the same.

Philastrius, speaking of the Jewish sacrifices, observes, that they were not perpetual, nor true, nor salutary u. That is to say, that though they had truth of propriety, and were, properly speaking, sacrifices, yet they had not truth of excellency, as the Christian sacrifices have. Justin Martyr, long before, had hinted the same thought w. And so also had Lactantius in opposing the true sacrifices of Christians to the false ones (though he does not expressly so call them) of Jews and Pagans. St. Austin expresses the distinction of false and true in plain terms; opposing the true Christian sacrifice, performed in the Eucharist, to all the false sacrifices of the aliens. The context may perhaps make it somewhat doubtful, whether true sacrifice in that place refers to the grand sacrifice, or to the eucharistical sacrifice, since they are both of them mentioned in the same chapter. But I choose to refer the words to the nearer, rather than to the more remote antecedent, as most natural, and therefore most probable and the commendation there given to the true sacrifice, by way of preference, runs no higher than what he elsewhere says of the sacrifice of the Church, offered in the Eucharist. z That sacrifice Austin prefers, under the name of true, before the false sacrifices both of Jews and Pagans.

:

" Necessitate indocilitatis cogente, sacrificia temporalia, non perpetua, nec vera fuerunt indicta Judæis, nec salutaria. Philastr. Hær. cix. p. 221. w Just. Mart. Dial. p. 389.

x Lactant. Epit. p. 169, 204, 205. y Huic summo veroque sacrificio cuncta sacrificia falsa cesserunt. Augustin.de Civit. Dei, lib. x. c. 20. p. 256. Compare my Review, vol. iv. p. 760.

z Hujus autem præclarissimum atque optimum sacrificium nos ipsi sumus: hoc est civitas ejus; cujus rei mysterium celebramus oblationibus nostris. Cessaturas enim victimas, quas in umbra futuri offerebant Judæi: et unum sacrificium Gentes a solis ortu usque ad occasum, sicut jam fieri cernimus oblaturas, per Prophetas oracula increpuere divina. Au

I may just note by the way, that there is another sense of false sacrifice to be met with in Cyprian, which belongs not to this place; for he understood schismatical sacrifices; which he calls false and sacrilegious sacrifices, as offered in opposition to the true pastors. The Jewish and Pagan sacrifices were denominated false, in such a sense as we speak of a false diamond, or false money, meaning counterfeit, figure, imitation: schismatical sacrifices are called false in such a sense as we say a false title, a false patent, or the like. But enough of this.

IX.

Hitherto I have been considering such names of distinction as served to discriminate the Christian sacrifices from the sacrifices both of Jews and Pagans. I proceed next to some other distinctions which respected only the Jewish sacrifices as opposed to the sacrifices of the Gospel. Hereto belongs the distinction between old and new; which we meet with first in Irenæus of the second century b: who appears to understand the new oblation of the offices of piety and benevolence performed at the Christian altar c. The sum of his doctrine is, that the old sacrifices which the law required, and which even then had the second place only, have now under the Gospel no place at all; and that the true sacrifices which then had the first place, have now the sole place under a new form, with many new and great improvements. The service, not the elements, are with him the new oblation d

Cyprian, after Irenæus, has the same distinction, under the terms of old and new; observing, that by the accounts given in

gustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. xix. cap. 23. tom. vii.

Unde et in ipso verissimo et singulari sacrificio, Domino Deo nostro agere gratias admonemur. Augustin. de Spir. et Lit. c. 11. p. 94. tom. x. Conf. de Civit. Dei, lib. x. c. 6. p. 243. tom. vii. Et contr. Advers. Leg. lib. i. c. 18. p. 568. tom. viii.

a Dominicæ hostiæ veritatem per falsa sacrificia profanare. Cyprian. de Unit. Eccles. Sacrilega contra verum sacerdotem sacrificia offerre. Cyprian. Ep. 69.

Novi Testamenti novam docuit oblationem, quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens, in universo mundo offert Deo, ei qui alimenta nobis præstat,

primitias suorum munerum in Novo Testamento. Iren. lib. iv. c. 17. p. 249. Compare my Review, vol. iv. p. 741, 743.

The following words of Origen are a good comment upon what is said by Irenæus :

Si quis vel egentibus distribuat, vel faciat aliquid boni operis pro mandato, munus obtulit Deo. Origen. in Num. Hom. xi. p. 311. Compare Review, vol. iv. p. 741, 742.

d Irenæus hath plainly said, Deus in se assumit bonas operationes nostras. Iren. lib. iv. c. 18. p. 251. But where hath he said, Deus in se assumit panem nostrum et vinum nostrum, or pecuniam nostram? Nowhere.

way for the newe.

the Old Testament, the old sacrifice was to be abolished to make He refers to Psalm 1. 13, 23. Isaiah i. 11. iv. 6. Mal. i. 10. Not that every text there cited directly asserted so much; for at the same time that the prophets spake slightly of the old sacrifices, in comparison, yet God required a religious observance of them: but since those sacrifices were so slightly spoken of, even while their use and obligation remained, that single consideration was sufficient to intimate, that they were to cease entirely under a more perfect dispensation. So the Fathers understood that matter; and therefore those texts out of the Psalms, and out of the Prophet Isaiah, with others of like kind, were not foreign, but were conclusive and pertinent, with respect to the purpose for which they were cited. They did not only prove that the new were then comparatively better than the old, but that a new and better dispensation should admit of no other but the best. This I hint, to prevent any one's imagining, because material sacrifices obtained along with spiritual then, though the spiritual were preferred, that therefore so it may be now, under the last and most perfect economy, where the circumstances are widely different. But I return.

Cyprian, among the new sacrifices, reckons the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of righteousness, spiritual incense, that is, prayers, and the pure offering, whatever it means §.

Eusebius mentions the new mysteries of the New Testament, contained in the unbloody and rational sacrifices h. From whence appears the vanity of arguing, (as some have done,) that the

Η Ενὶ δὲ τῷ Κυρίῳ μόνῳ θυσιαστής ριον αναίμων καὶ λογικῶν θυσιῶν κατὰ καινὰ μυστήρια τῆς νεᾶς καὶ καινῆς διαOnκns. Euseb. Demonstr. Evang. lib. i. c. 6. p. 20. Θύομεν καινῶς, κατὰ τὴν καιvv dia@nkηv. Ibid. cap. 1o. He explains the meaning of new, lib. i. c. 6. p. 16.

i Bellarmin. de Eucharist. p. 749, 751. Conf. Unbloody Sacrifice, part i. p. 268, 269.

That pretence has been often answered by learned Protestants. Pet. Martyr contr. Gardin. p. 54. Jewel against Hard. p. 421. Bilson, p. 696. Hospinian, p. 568. Chrastovius de Missa, lib. i. p. 57. Mason, 585. Du Moulin. Buckl. 432. Rivet. Cathol. 106. Buddæus, Miscel. Sacr. tom. i. p. 54. Deylingius, Miscell. Sacr. p. 98, 99.

new sacrifice, spoken of by the Fathers, could not mean spiritual sacrifice, which had obtained long before: for it is certain fact, that the Fathers did so understand and so apply the name of new sacrifice; and therefore it is reasoning against fact, or disputing against the Fathers themselves, to argue in that way. Besides that the argument may very easily be retorted, since neither material sacrifice, nor bread sacrifice, nor wine sacrifice, could be reckoned altogether new: for they obtained under the old, that is, under the Jewish economyk. In one sense, indeed, they are new, (which is no commendation of them,) they are new Christianity, having been unknown in the Church for six whole centuries or more, and not brought in before the late and dark ages; probably, about the time when material incense came in, under the notion of a Christian sacrifice. But of this I may say more in another article below. I shall only add here, that St. Austin called the cross-sacrifice, Christ's body and blood, as participated, the new sacrifice m.

X.

I proceed to another distinction, as considerable as any before mentioned; and that is of legal or literal, and spiritual or evangelical. Indeed, the word spiritual may, and sometimes has been opposed to material or corporeal; and so far the distinction would resolve into article the fifth, before considered under the names of material and immaterial: but here I consider the name of spiritual under another conception, as opposed to literal and legal. The New Testament itself often distinguishes between the letter and the spirit", that is, between the Law, which is the outward shell, and the Gospel, the inward kernel. This distinction may be otherwise expressed by the words carnal and spiritual: for the word flesh is frequently a Scripture name for the external and legal economy, as opposed to the spirit, which is the name for the Gospel, as before hinted. Earthly and spiritual mean

k Exod. xxix. 40. v. 11, 12, 13. Levit. ii. 4, &c. Numb. xxvii. 13. 14. Compare Brevint on the Mass, p. 116, 121. Kidder, p. 93. new edit. fol.

1 See Christian Sacrifice explained, Appendix, p. 185. Compare Dodwell on Incensing, p. 222. Claget on the Worship of the Blessed Virgin, p. 188. vol. ii. in fol.

m Ut jam de cruce commendaretur nobis caro et sanguis Domini, novum sacrificium. Augustin. in Psalm.

xxxiii. p. 211. tom. iv. ed. Bened.

n Rom. ii. 29. vii. 6. viii. 2. 2 Cor. iii. 6. Compare Christian Sacrifice explained, p. 124. and Glassius's Philolog. Sacr. p. 1427.

• Rom. iv. I. 2 Cor. v. 16. Gal. iii. 3. iv. 23, 29. Philipp. iii. 4. Hebr. vii. 16. Tertullian expresses the distinction by the words carnalia et spiritalia. Adv. Jud. cap. v. p. 188. So also Jerome on Malachi; and probably some others.