Note 156 — LETTER VI.

With all respect for Pascal and his good intention, it is plain that there is a wide difference between the duty, illustrated by the apostle from the ancient law, of supporting those who minister in holy things in and for their ministrations, and the practice introduced by the Church of Rome, of putting a price on the holy things themselves. In the one case, it was simply a recognition of the general principle that “the laborer is worthy of his hire.” In the other, it was converting the minister into a shopman who was allowed to “barter” his sacred wares at the market price, or any price he pleased. To this mercenary principle most of the superstitions of Rome may be traced. The popish doctrine of the mass is founded on transubstantiation, or the superstition broached in the ninth century, that the bread and wine are converted by the priest into the real body and blood of Christ. It was never settled in the Romish Church to be a proper propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead till the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century; so that it is comparatively a modern invention. The mass proceeds on the absurd assumption that our blessed Lord offered up his body and blood in the institution of the supper, before offering them on the cross, and partook of them himself; and it involves the blasphemy of supposing that a sinful mortal may, whenever he pleases, offer up the great sacrifice of that body and blood, which could only be offered by the Son of God and offered by him only once. This, however, is the great Diana of the popish priests—by this craft they have their wealth—and the whole of its history proves that it was invented for no other purposes than imposture and extortion.