MASS IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Speaking again of the Lambeth Encylical, you said last week that the denunciations of the Mass to be found in the literature of the Reformation do not apply to the doctrine of the Presence in the sacrament at all, but to the corrupt accretions which gathered round that doctrine ; and the whole tone of your article is such as must give to the un- learned the impression that the Reformers accepted "with one voice " the name " Mass," and only differed from the Papists as regarded the thing to which the name was applied, in being lees dogmatic as to its character and significance. Surely you have forgotten Latimer, a typical English Reformer, and the one whose memory is still dearest to those who, in Bishop Ryle's phrase, are against " going behind the Reformation." Latimer distinctly objects to the word " Mass." He says in his second Lenten sermon :—" I chaunced in our communication to name the Lordes supper. Tushe ! sayeth the Byshop. What do ye call the Lordes supper? What newe terme is that? There stode by hym a dubber, one Doctour Dubber he dubbed hym by-and-by, and Bayed that this terms was seldome rede in the doctours. And I made answer, yat I wold rather folowe Paule in using hys termer then them, though they hadde all the doctours on theyr side." And he is equally emphatic as to the thing. In the same sermon, he speaks of his Scala cceli. "The Byshop of Rome," he says, " had a Scala cceli, but his was a Mass matter ;" and then he describes the true ladder, which has these five steps,—sending, preaching, hearing, believing, calling upon the name of the Lord. Where does the Mass come in?
In the fourth sermon he tells us :—" When we pray," he says, "we come in the confidence of Christ's merits, and are heard for his sake, who himself offers up his prayers with ours, as once he offered up himself a sacrifice for us." "This is not the missal sacrifice, the popish sacrifice to stand at the aultare, and offer up Christ agayne. Onte upon it, that ever it was used. I will not saye nave, but that ye shall find in the olde doctoures thys word Sacrificium, but there is one generall solution for all the doctours that S. Augustine sheweth us. The sygne of a thynge bath often tymes the name of ye thing that it signifieth. As the supper of the Lords [not, you will notice, the Mass] is the Sacrament of an other thynge, it is a commemoration of his death whych suffered once for us, and because it is a gigue of Christes offering up, therefore it beares the name thereof. And thys sacrifyce a woman can offer as well as a man. Yea, a poore woman in the belfre hath as good authoritie to offer up thys sacrifyce as hath the Byshop in his ponUficalibus, with his myter on his head, hys ringes on his fyngers, and sandales on hys fete. And whoso- ever commeth asking the father remedy in bye necessity for Christes sake, he offereth up as acceptable a sacryfyce as any Byshop can do, and so to make an ends."
It is clear that the Mass comes in nowhere ; and this was in 1549, the year in which Edward's First Prayer-Book was published, and in which also the proclamation putting down the Mass was issued. Evidently, when we read in the First Prayer-Book of the " Lord's Supper, commonly called the Mass," we are meant to understand that the former term supersedes the latter, just as in Latimer's sermon the com- memorative service is meant to supersede the Popish sacrifice.
Previous page
