From the beginning of the world, the servants of God, were always accustomed to offer sacrifice to him, by way of acknowledging his sovereignty, and paying their homage to him. In the law of nature, and in the law of Moses, there was a great variety of sacrifices; some _bloody_, others _unbloody_; some were called _Holocausts_, or Whole-burnt Offerings; others, _Sin Offerings;_ others, _Offerings of Thanksgiving;_ others, _Pacific_ or _Peace Offerings_. All these sacrifices of the law of nature and the law of Moses, were of themselves but _weak and feeble elements_, and figures of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, offered afterwards on the altar of the cross for the sins of the whole world. It was to renew the memory of this great sacrifice of the cross, and to apply the fruits of it to our souls, that Christ our Lord instituted the Eucharist and commemorative sacrifice of the Mass; for as the ancient sacrifices were required to represent the sacrifice of the cross, and to prefigure the death of Christ, then to come; so, in like manner, a commemorative sacrifice was required in the new law, to be a standing memorial of the sacrifice of the cross, and to represent the death of Christ, already past. This is the solemn liturgy of the Catholic Church, and the pure offering that is made to God in every place among the Gentiles, according to the prophecy of Malachy, chap. i. ver. 10, 11. By it Christ is a _priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech_, (Psalm 109,) whose sacrifice was bread and wine. (Gen. 15.) It is the same in substance with the sacrifice of the cross, because both the victim offered, and the priest, or _principal offerer,_ is the same Jesus Christ. {337} The difference is only in the manner of offering: in the sacrifice of the cross, Christ offered himself in a bloody manner, and actually died; in the sacrifice of the Mass, he offers himself on our altars in an unbloody manner, by the ministry of the priests of his church, under appearances that mystically represent and show forth his death.