Sacraments, (which are the ordinary instruments of conveyance, both with respect to our sacrifices and God's graces,) so he accepts not, ordinarily, of what Christians presume to offer in a solemn public way, without the external ministration of the proper officers. And why should not they be supposed as proper instruments to convey the invisible sacrifices of men to God, as to convey the invisible graces of God to men? To suppose otherwise, would be strangely depreciating the sacerdotal function, as if that were concerned only in the external part, the shell and carcase of a sacrifice, and the internal and invisible part (which, strictly, is the sacrifice) were really presented by none but the devout worshippers themselves. In this way, the devout laity (supposing the priests to be unattentive) would be the only sacrificers, and the priests, as such, would not be sacrificers at all. But it is certain that the priests, in this case, are and ought to be considered, as conveying and recommending all the invisible sacrifices, and therefore are properly sacrificers in their sacerdotal capacity, yea, and more than sacrificers, because leaders, conductors, commissioned officers in the public sacrifice, which must be accepted through them, even when they themselves (if unworthy) shall not be accepted. But enough of this.

XV.

I pass on to another very celebrated distinction of Christian sacrifices, into gratulatory and propitiatory: though we have really none of the latter sort but one, and that not properly ours, but our Lord's, performed once upon the cross, but in virtue always abiding P.

• To enforce this consideration, I may add, that the priesthood below will thus correspond the more aptly to the high priesthood above, if Dr. Lightfoot judged rightly in the words here following:

"Christ is a Priest for ever, still offering sacrifice to God; but no more "himself, but his people's sacrifice. And that offering is twofold, viz. offer"ing the persons of his people to God, as an acceptable living sacrifice, "(Isa. viii. 18.) and offering their services as an acceptable spiritual sacrifice "to God, Rev. vii. 3." Lightfoot, tom. ii. p. 1261.

P Singuli Christiani habent duplex sacrificium, propitiatorium et eucharis

The word propitiatory is equivocal, capable of a larger or a stricter sense. In a lax and less proper acceptation, every service well pleasing to God is propitiatory. In this view, Baptism and all our spiritual sacrifices are propitiatory: particularly almsgiving is said to propitiate in this qualified sense of the word. And the Fathers frequently so apply the word, with respect to any good works. Tertullian sometimes, and Cyprian often, speaks of making satisfaction to God by repentance, &c. Nevertheless, in the strict and proper sense of propitiation, expiation, or satisfaction, no service, no sacrifice, nor any thing else, ever did or ever could make it, excepting only the all-prevailing sacrifice of the cross. The sacrifice of Christ from without is the meritorious cause of propitiation: our own qualifying sacrifices from within are the conditional: and the two Sacraments, ordinarily, are the instrumental. As to the material elements, in either Sacrament, they are neither an extrinsic expiation nor an intrinsic qualification, and therefore cannot, with any propriety, be called an expiatory or a propitiatory sacrifice, no not in the lowest sense of propitiatory. Indeed, the religious use of them is propitiatory, in such a sense as Christian services are sos: therefore our so using them, that is,

ticum: sed alterum habent alienum, alterum proprium. Alienum est propitiatorium a Christo oblatum.

Singuli sacerdotes habent duplex sacrificium; propitiatorium et eucharisticum. -Non habent proprium sacrificium propitiatorium, nec placant suo sacrificio, sed alieno. Quod tamen neque ipsi offerunt, sed tantum accipiunt fide fructum alieni sacrificii. Melancth. Opp. tom. iv. p. 514. Unicum est autem re ipsa propitiatorium, videlicet obedientia filii Dei, quæ est λúrgov pro nobis, et meretur nobis reconciliationem. Ibid. p. 603. Conf. Cranmer, Opp. Posth. p. 139-150. Pet. Mart. Loc. Comm. p. 704. Zanchius's Tractat. Posth. p. 421.

Phil. iv. 18. Hebr. xiii. 16. Ecclus. iii. 30. xxxv. 2.

r Verum sacrificium insinuans, quod offerentes propitiabuntur Deum. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 17. p. 248.

Qui fraudibus abstinet, propitiat Deum. Minuc. Fel. sect. xxxii. p. 183. Conf. Origen in Levit. Hom. xiii. p. 255. cited in Review, vol. vii. p. 247.

In this sense, propitiatory sacrifices are allowed by Protestant Divines: Cranmer against Gardiner, p. 437, 438. Gulielm. Forbes. Consider. Modest.

our service, is the sacrifice, and not they; and it is an intrinsic and qualifying sacrifice, not extrinsic or expiatory. Nothing ab intus can properly expiate, as is justly observed by a learned writert: propitiate it may, but still in such a secondary, subordinate sense as has been mentioned. The extrinsic legal expiations reached only to temporals: the intrinsic, under Christ's extrinsic sacrifice, were even then the saving sacrifices, and must for ever be so. Sacraments, as such, (not sacrifices ",) are the rites of application, the means and instruments of conveyance and reception, with respect to the benefits of the great atonement. The Jewish sacrifices, considered as Sacraments, and not otherwise, were such rites. The Eucharist is eminently so now; and Baptism, perhaps, yet more eminently, as it was anciently reckoned the grand absolution, and as life is before nutriment w.

XVI.

There is another distinction of Christian sacrifice, not so commonly observed, but worth the noting; and that is, between sacrifice in a large, general sense, and sacrifice in a more restrained, eminent, or emphatical meaningx. Our

p. 694. Johann. Forbes. Opp. tom. i. p. 619. Spalatens. p. 283. Thorndike's Epil. b. iii. p. 42, 46. Payne on the Sacrif. of the Mass, p. 77. Jackson, vol. iii. p. 299. Morton on the Eucharist, b. vi. p. 60, 72. cum multis aliis.

Johnson's Unbl. Sacrif. part i. p. 299, 300. The use which the learned author intended by that principle, (that nothing ab intus can expiate,) was to introduce another extrinsic, expiatory sacrifice, after Christ's. A very wrong thought; but which shows, however, that he aimed at a very different kind of propitiation and expiation than what Divines allow to intrinsic and spiritual sacrifices.

u How absurd the notion is of applying one expiatory sacrifice by another expiatory sacrifice, as such, has been often shown: particularly by Morton, b. vi. cap. 11. and Sutliff. [adv. Bellarmin. p. 233, 249, 308.] and others; but by none better than by Dean Brevint's Depth and Mystery of the Rom. Mass, p. 31-34.

w See my Review, vol. vii. p. 246, 257–260. and Salmasius (alias Simplicius Verinus) contr. Grot. p. 402.

x N.B. Most of Bellarmine's arguments to prove that spiritual sacrifices are not proper sacrifices, resolve into an equivocation in the word proper; not distinguishing between proper, (that is, special,) as opposed to large, and

Lord's sacrifice, for instance, is eminently the sacrifice, infinitely superior to all other: not that it is more properly a sacrifice than others which equally fall within the same general definition, but it is a more excellent sacrifice: in scholastic terms, non magis sacrificium, sed majus: not more a sacrifice, but a greater sacrifice.

The like may be observed of our spiritual sacrifices, compared one with another. All religious duties, all Christian services, are sacrifices properly so called: but some are more emphatically or more eminently called by that name, because of some eminent circumstances attending them, which give them the greater value and dignity. St. Austin makes every religious act, work, or service, a sacrifice y. Nevertheless, he supposed the work of the Eucharist, the sacrifice there offered, to be emphatically and eminently the sacrifice of the Church: the singular sacrifice2, as being, comparatively, of singular value; and also the universal sacrifice a, as comprehending many sacrifices of the spiritual kind, and taking in the whole redeemed city, the whole city of God.

Baptism, in St. Austin's account, was a sacrifice of a

proper as opposed to metaphorical or figurative. From thence appears the use of the present distinction.

› Verum sacrificium est omne opus quod agitur ut sancta societate inhæremus Deo, relatum scilicet ad illum finem boni, quo veraciter beati esse possimus. Augustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. x. cap. 6. p. 242. See Review, vol. vii. p. 345. and Christian Sacrif. expl. p. 149, 150.

Hæc quippe Ecclesia est Israel secundum spiritum, a quo distinguitur ille Israel secundum carnem, qui serviebat in umbris sacrificiorum, quibus significabatur singulare sacrificium, quod nunc offert Israel secundum spiritum. Augustin. contr. Adversar. Leg. et Prophet. lib. i. cap. 20. p. 570. tom. viii.

Unde et in ipso verissimo et singulari sacrificio, Domino Deo nostro agere gratias admonemur. Augustin. de Spirit. et Lit. cap. xi. p. 94.

tom. x.

a Ut tota ipsa redempta civitas, hoc est, congregatio societasque sanctorum, universale sacrificium offeratur Deo, per sacerdotem magnum, &c. Hoc est sacrificium Christianorum, multi unum corpus in Christo: quod etiam sacramento altaris, fidelibus noto, frequentat Ecclesia; ubi ei demonstratur, quod in ea re quam offert, ipsa offeratur. Augustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. x. cap. 6. p. 243. tom. vii.

single person, or of a few in comparison b: the several single good works of every Christian, were so many sacrifices in his estimation, true sacrifices, not nominal or metaphorical: but still the sacrifice offered in the Eucharist was emphatically the sacrifice of Christians, being a complicated sacrifice, the joint-worship of all, and containing many circumstances which gave it a more eminent right and title to the name of the sacrifice of the Church. The Eucharist therefore was emphatically or peculiarly the sacrificed that is to say, in a peculiar manner, or with peculiar circumstances, but not in a peculiar or different sense of the name sacrifice; for those things ought to be distinguished, though they have been often confounded. All the confusion, in this matter, lies in the equivocalness of terms, and particularly of the word proprie, properly, which is variously used, and is subject to various meanings. It may mean proper, as opposed to improper and metaphorical: or it may mean proper, as opposed to large or general; which is the same with peculiar as to manner and circumstances only, not as to propriety of phrase or diction. All spiritual sacrifices are sacrifices properly so called, falling under the same general reason and definition of sacrificef: nevertheless, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in a

b See my Appendix, p. 223. and compare Ambros. tom, i. p. 214, 215. Origen, tom. ii. p. 405. ed. Bened. Chrysost. in Hebr. x. Hom. 20. p. 186. tom. xii. ed. Bened. Bede, Homil. tom. vii. p. 59.

c Quomodo autem Spiritui Sancto in pane et vino sacrificium Ecclesiæ non offertur, quando ipsam Ecclesiam, et templum et sacrificium ipse Spiritus habere cognoscitur. Fulgentius inter Fragment. p. 641.

d See Review, vol. vii. p. 348, 349. Christian Sacrif. expl. above, p. 153, 154. Appendix, above, p. 223.

• The various meanings are these:

1. Proper, as opposed to aliene: in Latin, proprium et alienum.

2. Proper, as opposed to common: proprium et commune.

3. Proper, as opposed to allusive or metaphorical: in Latin, proprie dictum, et improprie dictum.

4. Proper or peculiar, as opposed to large or general: proprie, et lato modo, or largo modo.

f See Review, vol. vii. p. 346, 347. Christian Sacrif. expl. above, 148, 149. N. B. The old Protestant Divines, for the most part, maintained this