Knox said, that the ceremonies of the mass, and the opinion entertained of it, (as procuring remission of sins to the quick and the dead,) were viewed as important parts of it, and, having a strong hold of the consciences of the people, ought to be taken into the argument; but as the abbot declared himself willing to defend these afterwards, he would proceed to the substance, and proposed, in the first place, to fix the sense in which the word sacrifice or oblation was used in this question. There were sacrifices _propitiatoriæ_, for expiation, and _eucharisticæ_, for thanksgiving; in which last sense the mortification of the body, prayer, {69} and almsgiving were called sacrifices in scripture. He wished, therefore, to know whether the abbot understood the word in the first or second of these senses in this dispute. The abbot said, that he would not at present enquire what his opponent meant by a sacrifice _propitiatorium_; but he held the sacrifice on the cross to be the only sacrifice of redemption, and that of the mass to be the sacrifice of commemoration of the death and passion of Christ. Knox replied, that the chief head which he intended to impugn, seemed to be yielded by the abbot; and he, for his part, cheerfully granted, that there was a commemoration of Christ’s death in the right use of the ordinance of the supper. The abbot insisted that Knox should proceed to impugn the warrant which he had taken from scripture for his article. “Protesting,” said the Reformer, “that this mekle is win, that the sacrifice of the messe being denied by me to be a sacrifice propitiatorie for the sins of the quick and the dead (according to the opinion thereof before conceaved), hath no patron at the present, I am content to procede.”――“I protest he hes win nothing of me as yit, and referres it to black and white contened in our writing.”――“I have openlie denied the masse to be an sacrifice propitiatorie for the quick, &c., and the defence thereof is denied. And, therefore, I referre me unto the same judges that my lord hath clamed.”――“Ye may denie what ye pleis; for all that ye denie I tak not presentlie to impung; but whair I began, there will I end, that is, to defend the messe conform to my artickle.”――“Your lordship’s ground,” said Knox, after some altercation, “is, that {70} Melchizedeck is the figure of Christe in that he did offer unto God bread and wine, and that it behoved Jesus Christ to offer, in his latter supper, his body and blude under the forms of bread and wine. I answer to your ground yet againe, that Melchizedeck offered neither bread nor wine unto God; and, therefore, it that ye would thereupon conclude hath no assurance of your ground.”――“Preve that,” said the abbot. Knox replied, that according to the rules of just reasoning, he could not be bound to prove a negative; that it was incumbent on his opponent to bring forward some proof for his affirmation, concerning