IN our two previous numbers we took a brief glance at Wiclif and his times, and at his great work of giving to the English people the word of God in their mother tongue. The Bible taught Wiclif how evil is Rome’s doctrine of Transubstantiation; and we saw how his rejection of that teaching brought him under the condemnation of the Pope, and how that the powers of the Church at last commanded the burning of his bones. The doctrine of Transubstantiation is the very stronghold of the priests. Demolish this belief and the whole system of the Romish priesthood perishes; and such being the case, we shall do well to learn a little about it.
The true Christian assuredly confesses that his faith stands on the word of God, and his attitude towards that word should be such as to ensure for him, a like commendation to that bestowed by the apostle upon the Thessalonians, on whose behalf he ceaselessly thanked God, because when they received the word of God, which they had heard of him and those with him, they “received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.” (See 1 Thess. 2:1313For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13)).
The apostles, who were inspired by the Holy Ghost, communicated the word of God to men in early days, and those men received that word not as the word of apostles, “but as it is in truth—the word of God.” Two test questions for us in our day are: “Do we receive that word as the word of God?” “Do we refuse to receive as of divine authority any other word?”
Now the Church of Rome teaches regarding the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, that after the priest has pronounced the words of consecration, the bread and the wine cease to exist, and that in their place comes the true body, blood, and bones, and also the soul—yes, and the divinity of Christ. This Church affirms that the very same body which was crucified, buried, rose again, and ascended into heaven, is there, but under the appearance of bread and wine. “Are we to believe, that the God of all glory is under the appearance of our corporeal food?” “Yes,” is the answer; “as we must also believe that the same God of all glory suffered death under the appearance of a criminal on the cross.” “What is the mass?” The answer is— “The sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, which are really present under the appearance of bread and wine; and are offered to God, by the priest for the living and the dead.” “Is the mass a different sacrifice from that of the cross?” “No,” runs the reply; “because the same Christ, who once offered Himself a bleeding victim to His heavenly Father on the cross, continues to offer Himself, in an unbloody manner by the hands of the priests on our altars.”
The catechism, from which these questions and answers are quoted, puts in a popular way the terms of the belief expressed by the Council of Trent, held in 1545-7 which terms are as follows; “This holy Synod doth now declare it anew, that by the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation.”
Thus it is claimed that the Romish priest has the power to convert, or change, natural bread and wine by consecration into the very body and blood of Christ Himself.
Numbers of our forefathers were burned, or otherwise martyred, in defense of the truth of the Scriptures as opposed to this doctrine, and since in our day the priests, and the doctrines of Rome are spreading in this country, we should be thoroughly alive to the real root of the matter. Probably at our very doors are those who ring the error into our families, and to the hearts of our children, though they do so by subtle means, and under cover of a name which is Protestant.
Our readers have the Scriptures in their hands, and if they have read them, they know hat there is not one single word which can by any means be interpreted to show that any priest at any time has power to turn any bread and wine into God or Christ. “It cannot be proved by Scripture,” says a Romish bishop, and quoting from a cardinal we get the acknowledgment that “that part which the gospel hath not expressed—namely, the conversion of the bread into the body and blood of Christ—we have expressly received from the Church.”
However, there are words of Scripture which are used by Rome, and by others who do not call themselves Papists, to prove the doctrine, and they are these— “This is My body” (Matt. 26:2828For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:28); Mark 14:2222And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. (Mark 14:22); Luke 22:1919And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. (Luke 22:19); 1 Cor. 11:2626For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. (1 Corinthians 11:26)), words which, we know, Jesus spake at the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It is taught that the Lord by these words actually changed the bread and the wine of the Passover into Himself on that occasion; and further, that when He said to His apostles, “This do in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:1919And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. (Luke 22:19)), He made them priests in order to do what He had done!
We may well stand amazed at the boldness which thus wrests the plain meaning of our Lord’s words, turning them into a denial of His atonement on the cross. and into a rejection of the truth, that He offered up Himself once for all to God, And we may, indeed, mourn how that the loving appeal of Jesus to His own to remember Him, in the partaking of the emblems of His body broken and His blood shed, has become forced into an authority to constitute His apostles able to change bread and wine into His very body.
“We are sanctified,” says the Scripture, “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”; and again, “This Man [Jesus] after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.... For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” The work of Christ effected on the cross, being a perfect work, was effected once for all, and the results of that gracious work are perpetual—He sat down forever, because He had perfected forever, those who are sanctified. Therefore, those for whom He died are secure forever; and further, since the sins of His people are forgiven, there can be no more offering for sin, for “where remission of these is [sins and iniquities], there is no more offering for sin.” (Heb. 10:12, 14, 17, 1812But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (Hebrews 10:12)
14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)
17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. (Hebrews 10:17‑18)).
There are many of the true people of God in the Romish faith, and such are secured for eternity by Christ’s work for them on the cross, and it should make us mourn to think of God’s own people living apart from the peace and joy in Christ, which is their potion in Him; but far, far more sad is it to consider the terrible wrong this doctrine does to Christ Himself! Thereby the minds of millions are taken off from Christ’s cross to consider the sacrifice of the mass, and instead of believing on Jesus, who has finished the work His Father gave Him to do, they believe that their priests are making God favorable to them, by sacrificing to God the bread and wine of the Lord’s supper, which they assert they change into Christ, or into God Himself.
How did such doctrines find their entrance into Christendom? By degrees! Nothing is said respecting priests in connection with the breaking of bread in the Bible. In the history of the Acts of the Apostles we find that the early Christians broke bread from house to house, and that their custom was to come together to break bread as disciples. (Acts 2:41-47; 20:741Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. 42And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. 44And all that believed were together, and had all things common; 45And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. 46And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 47Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. (Acts 2:41‑47)
7And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. (Acts 20:7)). The church in Corinth so far forgot the solemnity of the feast that they were rebuked by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 11)., who reminded them that he had told them what the Lord’s Supper really was —the remembrance of Christ in His death.
We may form an idea of how simple the worship of early Christians was from the words of the heathen historian Pliny, who says, “The disciples held their meetings on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, and sang praises to Christ, and after this they met again to partake together of a simple and innocent meal.” But, as time went on, instead of the disciples meeting together to break bread, as we read was the case in Troas, “the ministers alone, instead of the congregation, took the charge of distributing the elements” (Dean Stanley). About a hundred years after Christ’s death, we read of the innovation of water being brought in, together with the bread and wine, and also of a president. Justin Martyr thus speaks of these presidents: “The tried men of our elders preside over us, who have obtained that honor, not by purchase, but by character,” which statement proves they were not at that time looked on as a priestly class. Some years later it had become the rule, in the place of mutual participation round one common table, to have the distribution of the bread and wine “from no other hands but those of the presidents.” (Tertullian).
But though this was so, the idea of the priestly class had not in those times prevailed in Christendom.
Some time after the removal of the apostles, a sanctity became attached to the actual bread and the wine used at the Lord’s Supper. “We invoke the Holy Spirit,” writes Irenæus (A.D. 178), “that He would make the sacrifice (the bread and the cup of blessing) both the bread, the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ, in order that they who partake of these antitypes may obtain remission of their sins and life eternal.” Here is a great advance, or descent—a great advance towards Transubstantiation, a great descent from the loving memory of Jesus by such as rejoiced in His love and salvation. However, coming so far on as A.D. 405, we hear it said by Chrysostom, “The nature of bread still remains in it.”
These quotations will suffice to indicate that it was by degrees only that the early simplicity and teaching of the Christian faith were departed from. We have seen the president arise, and then the president become a priest; the plain bread of the Lord’s Supper regarded as so unlike bread, that it was necessary to say of it, “the nature of bread still remains in it,” and the act of breaking the bread and drinking the wine in remembrance of the Lord termed a sacrifice.
Had we space to add more, we could show how that, as ages passed on, it came to be accepted and believed that he who distributed the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper, was not an ordinary Christian man, but a priest, and that that the priest changed the bread into the body of Christ, and offered that body a sacrifice to God.
Now it was in defense of the truth of God, and in opposition to the errors “received from the church” in reference to the Lord’s Supper, that so many of our forefathers were burned or otherwise destroyed.
“Touching the mass, what say you?” inquired the learned doctor who was examining one: “Believe you, that when the priest hath consecrated the host, our Lord is there as well, and in as ample sort, as He was, hanging on the cross?”
The martyr replied: “No, verily; but I believe that Jesus Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, as appeareth in Heb. 10. I hold your mass for none other but a false and counterfeited service, set up by Satan, and retained by his ministers, by which you do annihilate the precious blood of Christ, and His oblation once made of His own body.” This brave soldier of Christ was so terribly punished on the rack, before he was put to death, that one of his shoulders was drawn higher than the other, and his neck was so wrenched on one side that he could not move himself. In this state of suffering he was laid upon a bed, and then wrote out his confession, from which we have taken the words quoted.
With others he was condemned to be tied to a post, and to he afterward strangled, a ball being placed in his mouth to prevent the people hearing his words. Thus these men were led to their death, crying aloud to the people as best they could, that they died for Christ.
We have space only to make a reference to the deaths of Frankesh, vicar of Rolvenden; Bland, parson of Adisham, and two others, Sherterden and Middleton, who were burned together at Canterbury in 1555.
Bland, when before his judges, who had made an appeal that he should not stick to his own judgment, but humble himself to the holy church, which, said they, “hath determined that after consecration there remaineth no bread, but the natural body and blood of Christ,” answered, “Master doctor, if we take to humbling ourselves, then must we know by the Scriptures, that the same church determined nothing but according to the Scriptures; as this is not, therefore I do not believe any such transubstantiation, nor ever will, God willing!”
On another occasion an examiner, speaking of the probable mouse eating the consecrated bread, said, “The substance of Christ’s body doth not fill the mouse’s belly; for although it doth receive the outward forms of bread and wine, yet it doth not receive the substance inwardly, but without violation. And a mouse doth not eat the body of Christ, to speak properly; for it doth not feed it spiritually, or corporally, as it doth man, because the mouse doth not receive it to any inducement of immortality to the flesh.” To this Bland answered that the mouse will live with consecrated bread, and that, according to the argument, both the unworthy receive and the mouse eat of it to the same effect!
Bland knew that his death was settled on, and he said, “If I thought not my death to be at hand, I would answer you all the rest..... I submit myself to our Saviour Jesus Christ, and His holy word, desiring you in the bowels of Christ to do the same.”
He, with the other three, was condemned “As guilty of most detestable heresies, and as an obstinate, impenitent sinner, refusing penitently to return to the lap and unity of the holy mother Church.” This condemnation carried with it deliverance to the secular power, which meant death. So these four men were tied to two stakes, and were burned for Christ’s sake, and for the defense of the truth of God’s word.
The following sentences are taken from Bland’s prayer before his death: “Thou seest, O Lord, that whereas I might live in worldly wealth to worship false gods and honor Thy enemy, I chose rather the torments of this body, and loss of this my life, and have counted all things but vile dust and dung, that I might win Thee; which death is more dear to me than thousands of gold and silver.. Thou rememberest, O Lord, that I am dust, and not able to do anything that is good.... give me strength against this element, that as it is to my sight most irksome and terrible, so to my mind it may be, at Thy commandment, as an obedient servant sweet and pleasant; and through the strength of Thy Holy Spirit I may pass through the strength of this fire into Thy bosom.... O sweet Saviour, spread Thy wings over me... conduct me unto everlasting life. Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit; Lord Jesus, receive my soul. So be it.”