Baillie’s Parallel. Chapter IV.
James Dodson
(29)
CHAP. IV.
Concerning the Offertory and Exhortations.
The Offertory.
Having gone through the two first members of the Mass, the Preparation and Instruction, and the twelve portions of the first, with the eight portions of the second, and so the first twenty parts of the Mass as it lies in the old Missal of Sarum, and having shewed how that all the principal of these twenty parts are actually in our Book, and the rest to the very least virtually, we come now to the Offertory, this in the Mass follows the Gospel and the Creed; the reason of the connexion Pope Innocent gives it in these words, Ordo conveniens est ut post prædicationem Evangelij sequatur fides in corde, laus in ore, fructus in opere; fides in symbolo, laus in offertorio, fructus in sacrificio, quapropter offerenda cantatur, quia sacrificium laudis offertur. Mysteriorum missæ [It is a fitting order that after the preaching of the Gospel there should follow faith in the heart, praise in the mouth, and fruit in the work: faith in the Creed, praise in the Offertory, and fruit in the sacrifice. Therefore the Offertory is sung, because the sacrifice of praise is offered], l. 4. c. 53. These words Durand transcribes. This order our Book follows precisely, after the Creed shall follow the Homily, and after it the Presbyter shall earnestly exhort the people to remember the poor, saying or singing these sentences.
This part of the Mass was not in use in the primitive Church, so does Walafridus testify, c. 22. Offertorium quod inter offerendum cantatur, quamvis à prioris populi consuetudine in usum Christianorum venisse dicatur, tamen quis specialiter addiderit officiis nostris aperte non legimus cum vere credamus priscis temporibus patres sanctos silentio obtulisse vel communicasse quod etiam sabbatho Paschæ nos hactenus observamus, sed sicut supra dictum est, diversis modis & partibus per tempora decus processit Ecclesiæ & usus, in finem augeri non desinet [The Offertory, which is sung during the offering, although it is said to have come into Christian use from the custom of the former people, nevertheless we do not read plainly who in particular added it to our offices. For we truly believe that in ancient times the holy fathers offered or communicated in silence, which also we have observed up to now on the Sabbath of Easter. But, as was said above, by diverse modes and parts, through the course of time, the adornment and usage of the Church has advanced, and it will not cease to be increased unto the end]. That this was a part of the Mass which of late times had been put in, wherewith antiquity was not acquainted, Berno confesses in the very same words of Strabo. Honorius gives the invention of this portion to Gregory the father of many more innovations of the Church, Gemma animæ, l. 188. Offertorium Gregorius
E
(30)
Papa composuit, & ad Missam cantari statuit [Pope Gregory composed the Offertory, and appointed it to be sung at Mass]; This is said not only of the singing and music of the Offertory, but of the composition of the very matter of it, we grant long before the custom was to make offerings or public gifts of bread and wine, and yet never before the old Agapæ were abolished, which were in use after Tertullian days, but we say withal, that the Offertory as it is now in the Mass, and as our Book translates it hence, seems to be an invention far later than Gregorius days; for in his days that Canon of the third Council of Carthage, which we see standing in the decret de consecrat. 2. can. in Sacramento, or rather that first of the Canons called Apostolic, enjoining nothing to be brought to the Table but bread and wine, and all other gifts to be brought to the house of the Bishop, these Canons were then in use, no moneys then were set on the Table by the hand of the Priest; that it was so the Roman order puts it out of question, this order is not alleged to be composed before Gregory, yea the barbarisms of it will make it many ages later, and yet even in it no money offered, only bread and wine, out of the which the elements for the Sacrament were taken. The first that seems to have admitted the offering of money at the Altar, expressly against the old Canons and customs, seems to have been that good man Hildebrand, Gregory the 7. for to him does the Canon Law de consecrat. dist. 1. ascribe the Canon, (Omnis Christianus) enjoining all Christians to bring something to offer when they come to the Mass, drawing that which before was only bread and wine to aliquid [something; Baillie doesn’t affirm transubstantiation but he points to their assertion], money, or whatever might be for the use of the poor Priest; but whatever Pope hath been the inventor of this kind of Offertory, which this day stands in the Missal and in our Book, it is one of the Jewish ceremonies, if we will believe Durand, l. 4. fol. 65. Ritus igitur Synagogæ transivit in religionem Ecclesiæ & sacrificia carnalis populi translata sunt in observantiam populi spiritualis [Therefore the rite of the Synagogue passed into the religion of the Church, and the sacrifices of the carnal people were transferred into the observance of the spiritual people].
The first part of the Offertory.
This Offertory may be subdivided in four portions, the first is passages of Scriptures sung or said for the encouragement of the people to contribute: In this por-
(31)
tion our Book seems to go beyond the Missal in corruption in three respects; first, in the needless multiplication of passages to the number of sixteen, recommending in the posterior Rubric the saying not only one of them, but of them all, whereas the Missal eschewing here tediousness, beside its custom, is content with one passage alone, as Durand remarks, l. 4. fol. 62. Secondly, the passages of the Missal do no ways savour, for the far most part of a Legal, Jewish, or any proper Oblation, neither does the English passages look that way, but the passages which our Book here doth use, as may be seen in the first five, set in the forefront, all out of the old Testament, carries directly to a legal oblation. Thirdly, how ever the avarice of the Romish Clergy be notorious, and their purpose in this part of the Mass to draw money from the people to their own purses be well known, yet they are not so impudent as to make a profession in their Book of such a base design, but our men think no shame to avow their design, to intervert [i.e., to turn the use other than the proper one] the people’s oblations, and to spoil the poor of their alms, for all the Scriptures which are said for the Offertory, where one is for an alms to the poor, three are expressly directed for a gift to the Church and the Priest, however some of the same Scriptures be used in the English, yet all their Rubrics hinder this abuse and misapplication, and do not permit the Clergy to take up for themselves what was given only for the poor, but our Rubric is express for the giving of the one half to the Presbyter, and the other half to any pious or charitable use that the Priest thinks meetest, the Church fabric, or what else, though the poor should starve.
The second part of the Offertory.
The second portion of the Offertory, is the offering up to God the money given by the people, this I think is the daily practice of the Mass Priest, yet I find not any thing in the Missals, or Expositors of it old or new except some thing in Durand, which looks that way, the English Book hath nothing of this, but all which is given is directed as a simple alms to be put in the poor man’s box, and without further ceremony for the poor’s
(32)
use alone, but our Book here hath a fair and clear Jewish peace offering; for as the people under the Law did give their offering not to God directly, but first to the Priest, and he did not offer it to God but upon the Altar, so here the Deacon having taken the Oblations from the people gives them in their name to the Priest, and he sets them upon the Altar or Table there to be presented before God, this ceremony is borrowed from the Missal by way of analogy, for there the plate with the offering of the bread must be presented by the Deacon to the Priest, and he must place it before God on the Altar. Take it in Durand’s words, l. 4. fol. 64. Subsequenter Diaconus ipse patinam cum hostia Pontifici representat, & Pontifex seu Sacerdos hostiam collocat super altare [Thereafter the deacon himself presents the paten with the host to the Pontiff, and the Pontiff or priest places the host upon the altar]. The mysteries hid in these actions see in the place, only he shews a reason why it is necessary that the Deacon must put these oblations in the holy hands of the Presbyter, fol. 66. Sacerdos oblationes manu tangit representans illud Levit. 1. & 4. ponetque manus super caput hostiæ & acceptabilis erit & in expiationem proficiens [The priest touches the oblations with his hand, representing that passage in Leviticus 1 and 4: “And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the victim, and it shall be acceptable and effectual for expiation”].
The third part of the Offertory.
The third and main portion of the Offertory, is the placing of the bread and wine upon the Altar, the offering of them up to God, even before the consecration with certain prayers to be a peace offering, that so they may be fitted for the matter of the propitiatory sacrifice following; of this oblation thus speaks Heigam, p. 175. [The Priest having placed the bread and wine in a readiness to be consecrate, he requireth the holy Trinity to accept his oblation] and Bellarmine de Missa, l. 2. c. 17. Illa prior oblatio præparatio fuit ad posteriorem oblationem in qua proprie sacrificium consistit, quapropter rectè dicitur præparatum sacrificium quando materia sacranda Deo per quandam oblationem est dedicata [That former oblation was a preparation for the later oblation, in which the sacrifice properly consists; wherefore it is rightly called a prepared sacrifice, when the matter to be consecrated to God has been dedicated by a certain oblation].
To this offering of the bread and wine on the Altar the Romish Church in the late and worst times detorted all what was said in a good sense of the people’s offerings, in this they put the main part of their Offertory, almost neglecting all other things to which the term of offering was wont to be applied, and by this offering made
(33)
way for that more wicked oblation which follows in the Canon; the Church of England detesting this abuse plucked it up by the root and put it far away from their Book, but our men have put it on us in express terms and in such a place that the subsequent prayer for the Church must mainly be applied to it [and the Presbyter shall then offer up and place the bread and wine upon the Lord’s Table that it may be ready for this service (or on the Altar that it may be ready for that sacrifice, this is now the more ordinary style of our Book-makers) and then he shall say let us pray.]
The fourth part of the Offertory.
The fourth part of the offertory is a number of prayers said upon the bread and wine, not for consecration not oblation, but for acceptation of God to be the matter of that following sacrifice: of these prayers there are five public. suscipe sancte Pater [Receive, O holy Father], &c. pronounced on the bread that God would take it for a sacrifice, which the Priest offereth for himself, for all Christians dead and living that it may profit them. The next is offerimus tibi Domine [We offer unto thee, O Lord] an offering of the Cup with a desire that it may go up in a sweet smelling sacrifice for the sins of the world. The third is suscipe sancta Trinitas [Receive, O holy Trinity] a request for both the bread and wine conjunctly, that they may be a sacrifice for the memory of Christ’s resurrection, and for the honour of the blessed Virgin and all the Saints that have pleased God from the beginning of the World. The fourth veni sanctificator [Come, O Sanctifier] a request to the holy Spirit to come and fill with his fire the hearts of the faithful: The fifth in spiritu humilitatis [In the spirit of humility] a desire in the spirit of humility and contrition to be accepted with the sacrifice they are preparing for God.
The secret prayers are diverse at the Priest’s discretion, the most common is this short shred for the Church, Ecclesiæ tuæ quæsumus Domine unitatis & pacis dona concede, quæ sub oblatis muneribus mystice designantur [We beseech thee, O Lord, grant to thy Church the gifts of unity and peace, which are mystically signified under the offered gifts]. I find also in Sarum joined to these prayers, this short preface, fol. 144. Hostias & preces tibi Domine offerimus [We offer unto thee, O Lord, sacrifices and prayers]. These secrets or this Secreta as Durand styles it, are the principal and chief prayers of the offertory and the only
F
(34)
prayers, which were in use of old in the Mass, these we see put in the bosom of our offertory prayers word by word with the forenamed preface, whereof Sarum’s Rubric says Notandum quod in omnibus Missis pro corpore presenti & in anniversariis cujuscunque fuerint & in trigintalibus dicitur hostias & preces [It is to be noted that in all Masses for a body presently lying there, and in anniversaries, of whatever sort they may be, and in trentals, one says: “sacrifices and prayers”], fol. 144. So we begin our prayer [we humbly beseech thee to accept our alms (called immediately before oblations) and to receive these our Prayers which we offer unto thy divine Majesty, beseeching thee to inspire the universal Church with the Spirit of truth, unity, and concord, &c.] As for the first five public prayers, they may be well left out of our Book, for they are not in the old Missals, Bellarmine grants they were all invented of late, and are not to be found in any of the old expositors of the Mass, quinque autem illæ orationes suscipe sancte Pater, &c. neque antiquæ admodum sunt neque in Romana Ecclesia ante quingentos annos legebantur, unde etiam Walafridus, Rupertus, Amalarius, Alcuinus imo etiam Innocentius tertius & alij veteres non meminerunt illarum orationum, sed transeunt ab offertorio ad secreta [But those five prayers—“Receive, O holy Father,” etc.—are neither very ancient nor were they read in the Roman Church before five hundred years ago. Hence even Walafrid, Rupert, Amalarius, Alcuin, indeed also Innocent III and other ancients, make no mention of those prayers, but pass from the Offertory to the Secrets]; yea they are of so little consequence, that the present Missals take one or two of them as they please at the Printers discretion. Sarum printed in a fair edition at Paris 1555. hath only two of them, suscipe sancta Trinitas & in spiritu humilitatis [Receive, O holy Trinity; and in the spirit of humility]; so though we should have omitted them in our Book it would have been no sacrilege against the Mass, albeit no necessity obliges our Book-men to omit any of them, three of them for their matter contain no scruple for them to stick on, what inconvenience ariseth from the matter of the other two concerning the honour of the Saints and Prayers for the dead we will see hereafter when we come to the Canon, that they make no bones of such things, but swallow them all down, being a little sweetened and mollified with their commodious interpretations.
We make a sacrifice in honour of the Saints, and for benefit of the dead.
Yea in the same very place they seem to make direct way for the worst absurdities in the Mass prayers, to wit, the offering of the sacrifice of Bread and Wine in honour of the Saints, and for benefit of the dead, for in that
(35)
our Offertory prayer longer alone than all the six prayers in the Roman Offertory, after the hostias and preces which Sarum commands never to be here omitted, and the secreta, Ecclesiæ tuæ quæsumus [We beseech thee for thy Church], the only offertory prayer in the Elder Missals, and after the petitions for the King, his officers, the Clergy, and their flocks, & for those in afflictions taken all for their matter out of the Litany as ye may read it in the Sarum office of the Virgin Mary, fol. 124. after all this our Book subjoins these new additions to the English Liturgy, showing that in this same offertory they will have the Saints highly honored, the wonderful grace and virtue which hath appeared, and been declared in these Saints who in their several generations have been the lights of the world, proclaimed here to God’s praise: What say the Papists more for the honour of the Saints in their offertory, the specifying of this general with the particular names of the Virgin Mary, of the Prophets, or Patriarchs, Apostles, or Fathers, or any men or women who were known to have been the lights of the world in their several generations will be nought against the grounds of our Book-men, who now are heard oft in their public prayers and thanksgiving to particularize these names with great disdain and contempt of the scandal which they know the simple takes at this their practise.
As for the other point, the offering of these oblations and prayers for the benefit, not only of the quick but of the dead; we see that after they have commended their oblations to be mercifully received of God, and put to their back, prayers for the good of the living in all degrees and callings, they immediately subjoin not only their thanksgiving, but their prayers and supplications for the dead, even for the salvation of their Soul [that we and all they may be set at the right hand of thy Son] and the dead (for which amongst the rest of the mystical body of Christ this salvation is sought) are distinguished expressly in two ranks, one are styled Saints who had wonderful grace, and were the
(36)
lights of the world in their several generations, others of far inferior quality, only God’s servants who are dead in faith, and now rest from their labour, the meetest description that can be of the faithful in Purgatory as they are distinguished from the canonized Saints in heaven if we will believe Bellarmine: As then the Mass referred their oblation of bread and wine, and their offertory prayers upon it to the honour of the Saints in heaven, to the benefit of the living and good of the faithful who are dead in what ever place they be, whether in heaven, or else where, so does our Book, but no ways the English, for in this place they passe the honour of the Saints, they speak not of the benefit of the dead, and the blessings they crave to the living have no reference at all to the oblation of bread and wine, for they have plucked up by the root that pestiferous wed, which yet our men have planted again in the old place, and put to the back of it our offertory prayer after the manner of the Mass, so that these benefits craved in that prayer either for quick or dead ought not to be excluded from a relation yea dependance from the preceding offering of bread and wine to which they are annexed. See B[ishop]. Forbes in the self conviction, taxing the Church of England who by Bucer’s advice did put out the words which import prayer for the dead, which he most earnestly labours to have again restored as they were in the old Missal.
We make any offertory without a Communion.
There is a Marginal Rubric added also to our offertory prayer which is most strange [when there is no communion these words say they shall be left out] remember not that such grossness in the Missal is expressed, it is I grant their doctrine and daily practise to offer the sacrifice of their Mass for the present and absent, for the quick and the dead without any Communion, for the presence of a congregation to celebrate the Sacrament, or to offer the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, they do no ways require, and far less any communion, the presence of the congregation they think merely accidental and needless to the perfecting of the Mass
(37)
Mass and their communicating much more, for the Priest’s consumption to them is all, yet they say not so much in their book, but contrary ways in all their Masses there are expressly Rubrics for a Communion and postcommunion as we shall hear: so it is very strange that our men here were not content to have made so many additions except this capital one had been put on, that all the former service that the oblation of the bread and wine by the Presbyter on the Altar may well be done without a communion, yea without any congregation assembled for such an end, charity it self cannot be offended by imputing to these men’s senses which their words do so clearly bear, that hardly can any other exposition be put on them.
Our exhortations are needless.
After the offertory are subjoined in our book 3 large exhortations, which are not in the Mass, but in the Mass there are sundry exhortations & prayers which will be found meeter [.e., more fit] for this place then any of these three, the first seems to be altogether needless and scornful, it is spent in a multitude of words, obtesting [beseeching] all to communicate, at that time there is none present who ministers any such attestations, non-communicants are put to the door at least in the end of Missa Catechumenorum before the offertory, the Curate in the morning or night before took up the names of all Communicants as it is in the first Rubric of the Communion, & before this exhortation he did see in the offertory the faces of all Communicants, these who gave up their names in the morning, and presently did contribute their offering as Communicants, need not be earnestly obtested [besought] to come to the Table, and others they are none present, or if they were any according to the custom of the Church and command of the former Rubrics, they might not be admitted.
The next exhortation is as unreasonable to wit, to be reconciled with their neighbours, to make satisfaction for wrongs, to come to a Minister to disburden their conscience, or as they do now directly expound that passage to make their auricular confession in the ear of the Priest; these things at that time and place are not
(38)
possible to be done without marring the whole action, and so ought not then to be exhorted unto: As for the third, how good and pertinent so ever, yet may it not well be omitted, that in it alone we should not break our uniformity with the Roman Catholic Church, which in all the rest of our book we have so carefully kept, and if we will in this be stubborn, the Papists will easily dispense with it, for in it nought is contrary to the tenets of their Church.
After the exhortations follows the invitation to repentance, the general confession and absolution with the grounds of comfort, this is nought but that second confession of the people and their absolution which the Mass puts at the back of the Priest’s confession in the introitus as we before noted.