d predicted the rejection of the Jews, the call
of the Gentiles and the sacrifice of the evangelical law: "I have no
pleasure in you, he saith, neither will I accept an offering at your
hand. For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the
same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place
incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering." Mal 1:10,
11. But no pure offering has already been offered to God in every place,
except in the sacrifice of the altar of the most pure Eucharist. This
authority St. Augustine and other Catholics have used in favor of the
mass against faithless Jews, and certainly with Catholic princes it
should have greater influence than all objections of the adversaries.
Besides, in speaking of the advent of the Messiah the same prophet
says: "And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and
silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the
Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years," Mal. 3:3, 4. Here
in the spirit the prophet foresaw the sons of Levi--i.e. evangelical
priests, says Jerome--about to offer sacrifices, not in the blood of
goats, but in righteousness, as in the days of old. Hence these words
are repeated by the Church in the canon of the mass under the influence
of the same Spirit under whose influence they were written by the
prophet. The angel also said to Daniel: "Many shall be purified and
made white and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the
wicked shall understand." And again: "The wise shall understand; and
from the time that the daily sacrifices shall be taken away, and the
abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two
hundred and ninety days," Dan. 12:10, 11. Christ testifies that this
prophecy is to be fulfilled, but that it has not been as yet fulfilled,
Matt. 24:15. Therefore the daily sacrifice of Christ will cease
universally at the advent of the abomination--i.e. of Antichrist--just
as it has already ceased, particularly in some churches, and thus will
be unemployed in the place of desolation--viz. when the churches will
be desolated, in which the canonical hours will not be chanted or the
masses celebrated or the sacraments administered, and there will be no
altars, no images of saints, no candles, no furniture. Therefore all
princes and faithful subjects of the Roman Empir