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LETTER III

Rev. A. M. S.

My Dear Sir:According to promise, I shall now endeavor to put before you what seems to me to be the unscriptural teaching of the Church of Rome as to the so-called sacrifice of the Mass. This you hold, as I understand, to be a continual unbloody sacrifice for the sins of the living- and the dead, and you are very insistent that it was ever offered throughout the Church's history by anointed priests on literal altars, "as early, at least," you say, " as the second century." And you ask:"Had the Church of Jesus Christ erred so early as this, on her chief doctrine, the doctrine on which her whole system centered ? Or did the infallible God produce, in His masterpiece, only the crazy institution that could not be kept within the bounds of truth, even for half a century after the death of the last of the apostles? What became of His promise:'The gates of hell shall not prevail against her,' and ' I am with you all the days, even unto the consummation of the age,'and again, 'The Spirit of Truth will remain with you,' etc. ? "

As to this, I am not at all perplexed to find the answer. It is undoubtedly the fact that while Christ's promises abide, and the Spirit of Truth dwells in His own and guides each subject soul into the truth; and that Christ does and will remain with His chosen to the end whatever the vicissitudes they are called to pass through; and while eventually it will be manifested that the gates of hell have not prevailed against what was really of God; nevertheless, even in the apostles' own days- let alone fifty years afterwards-error had come in like a flood. Witness the stirring letter of St. Paul to the Galatians. The Galatian heresy was the adding of legal works to the covenant of grace, and abides with us to this present day in spite of the apostle's strong protest against it. In fact, as one has well said:" The heterodoxy of the first century has become the orthodoxy of the present." Where to-day is the religious communion found in which this Galatian error has not gained headway ? What church is free from it ? Certainly not the Church of Rome. For there, as nowhere else, Galatianism has swept all before it; so that the doctrine of justification by faith, which is the keynote of the epistle of which we are speaking, came as a new discovery in the stormy days of the Reformation, and has been opposed strenuously ever since.

Then, again, note the errors creeping in at Colosse. In the second chapter three grave departures from the truth of God are noticed, and it is evident that each one of these had already gained sway over the minds of many professed Christians, and this during the life-time of the apostles. I refer to rationalistic philosophizing beginning to supplant divine revelation; of legality, supplanting the truth of grace; and, even more striking, of a vast ritualistic system involving the worship of angels and the humiliation of the body by self-imposed penance in place of holding fast the Head:and I ask you, as an honest man, can you deny the presence of every one of those systems of error in the Roman Church today ?

But the first and second letters to Timothy likewise witness the rapid growth of error; and it is noteworthy that before the death of St. Paul, he has to sorrowfully exclaim :"All that be in Asia have turned away from me." So even supposing the Christian churches elsewhere were still holding fast the faith, those in Asia, where the oldest assemblies had been established, had in a measure at least apostatized from the truth. The seven apocalyptic letters make this very evident.

We need not be surprised, therefore, to find an altar and sacrifice at a very early day in many churches, taking the place of the Lord's table and its simple memorial feast. But this by no means proves it to be either scriptural or apostolic, nor in any true sense Catholic.

But on the other hand, we find no evidence of a reliable character to show that as early as the second century the altar had succeeded the table, and the sacrifice of the Mass usurped the place of the Lord's Supper. Certainly the pre – Nicene Fathers, who have written on the subject, would leave no such impression on the mind. Justin Martyr describes the weekly meeting of Christians on the Lord's day more fully perhaps than any other; and, as you know, he makes it very clear that the early Christians partook together of a simple meal of bread and wine in commemoration of the Saviour's death. While the well-known letter of Pliny, addressed to the Emperor Trajan, affords proof positive that such was still the case in his day. He assures his. patron that he could find no evil against the Christians ; no evidence whatever of sacrilegious or criminal proceedings. His spies only found that the Christians met together to read the holy Scriptures, to pray, to sing a hymn to Christ as God, and to partake of a very simple meal consisting only of bread and wine.

It was in a later day that the departure from early simplicity came in, when the truth as to Christ's one offering and His finished work had been largely lost sight of:when in accordance with the solemn prophecy of St. Paul, grievous wolves had entered in among the sheep of Christ, not sparing the flock, and even of their own selves had men arisen, "speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them." The only resource upon which he casts the faithful is "God and the word of His grace; " not the church's authority, nor the voice of councils, nor the infallibility of the Pope. To that holy Word of God therefore let us turn, and inquire whether, according to Scripture, it is still possible to offer to God an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of either the living or the dead ?

As to this we need do nothing more than carefully consult the 9th and l0th chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews. There the one offering of the Lord Jesus Christ, never to be repeated, is placed in vivid contrast with all the many sacrifices under the law (which were but a figure) when gifts and sacrifices were offered "that could not perfect him that worshiped, as pertaining to the conscience." In these there was a continual calling of sins to mind, as indeed is the case in every Roman church where the sacrament is offered up daily, and sins are never really put away. " But Christ having come as High Priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands (that is to say, not of, this creation), neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood life entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." And so great is the efficacy of that one offering, that through it the believer's conscience is "purged from dead works to worship the living God."

Now you insist that there is nothing incompatible with all this and the continual sacrifice of the Mass. For in your letter you say that " the Victim of the Sacrifice is the body and blood of Jesus Christ; the same body that was nailed to the cross; the same blood that was shed on Calvary. In other words, the same Jesus Christ who was crucified for us is the same that we offer on our altars." And you add, "The sacrifice of the Mass is offered to God alone, to acknowledge His sovereign greatness and our dependence. It is true, that we offer the Mass in memory of the saints, but we never offer the sacrifice to them. The sacrifice of the Mass is offered on our altars by the ministry of priests who receive in their ordination the power to offer it. But Jesus Christ is the principal Offerer. It is He who presents Himself to the Father, by the hands of priests; it is He who changes the bread and wine into the body and the blood." But, observe, this is the very thing that is denied in the epistle to the Hebrews. Note carefully chapter 10 :11-14:"And every priest [that is, Jewish priest] standeth daily ministering and offering often the same sacrifices [as Roman Catholic priests do today], which can never take away sins; but He, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool." And again, in the previous chapter, verses 24-26 are absolutely conclusive:"For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us :nor yet that He should offer Himself often [the very thing which you insist He does], as the high priest entereth into the holy places every year with other blood than His own; but now, once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

Language could not be stronger to declare the abiding efficacy of the one irrepeatable sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ-so perfect, so complete, so fully satisfying to God, is that one blessed, finished work of His that He will never offer again. He has sat down as token that His work is finished; and because He has made purgation for sins, the seat He has taken is at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. Depend upon it, He never descends from that exalted place to offer on Rome's altars, or any other; for of such sacrifice there is no need. The sins and iniquities of all who believe in Him are eternally remitted, on the basis of that one all-sufficient work, and "where remission of these is, there is no longer an offering for sin " (Heb. 10 :18). And were this otherwise, an unbloody offering could be of no avail, for "without shedding of blood is no remission."

All the reasoning in the world could not change the force of this. Christ's one offering is all that is
needed for the purgation of sin, or it never will be. Scripture distinctly declares it is. Rome, tacitly at least, declares it is not. Which am I to believe ? Which do you accept ? You cannot acknowledge both, for one destroys the other.

I observe, in looking over your letter again, that you deny the term "the Lord's Supper," as having reference to the sacrament at all. You say it referred alone to the love-feasts of the early Christians-a common meal, where they met together in Christian fellowship. But you evidently have forgotten that the apostle Paul in the very passage in question, after rebuking the Corinthians for their abuse of the Lord's Supper, immediately gives them clear instructions as to how that Supper should be observed; while in the previous chapter, 1st Corinthians 10, he makes it plain that it is at the Lord's table we partake of the cup of blessing, even the communion of the blood of Christ, and the broken bread, the communion of the body of Christ. Surely it is the Lord's Supper which is partaken of from the Lord's table. But if you insist that both of these are very different to your sacrifice of the Mass, then I grant you are indeed correct. The Lord's Supper is not to be confounded with the Romish Mass, nor the Lord's table with the Roman altar. One speaks of Christianity, and the other of a mysterious mixture of Judaism and Paganism, and a perversion of apostolic teaching. For of the Mass, as such, there is not one line in Holy Scripture.

I do not wish to prolong the discussion of this solemn theme. If what I have already written has no real weight, I can only suppose that a further attempt to elucidate what seems to me so clear, would only leave us where we began-you looking at everything from the standpoint of Roman Catholic theologians, and I, from that of one desiring alone to be taught by the word of God. And so I bring this letter to a close, beseeching you to search the Scriptures daily whether these things are so, and praying that God in His rich grace may give you such a sight of the perfection of the one offering of His blessed Son, that your soul set free through faith in Christ alone, will never more feel the need of any additions to the work of His cross. Very sincerely yours, H. A. Ironside