In their reply to Article XXIV. of the Confession, (or the III. of the Abuses Corrected) they state:  “For the mass is celebrated, in order that the holy eucharist may be offered in memory of the passion of Christ.” [Note 28] “In those churches, (which apostatize in the latter times) no more masses will be celebrated, no more sacrament distributed, no more altars, nor images of the saints, &c.” [Note 29] Finally, near the close of their pretended refutation of this Article of the Augsburg Confession, (XXIV.) the papist Refutation says, “It is therefore not rejected or regarded as wrong that the (Protestant) Princes and cities (according to their Confession, Article XXIV.,) celebrate one common (public) mass in their churches; if they only performed it properly, according to the holy rule and canonical regulations, as all Catholics perform it.  But that they (the Protestants, in their Confession) reject all other masses, can neither be tolerated nor suffered by the christian faith and Catholic profession, (that is, cannot be allowed by us, who profess the Roman Catholic faith.) [Note 30]

Here then, in view of all this mass of evidence, we appeal to every candid and conscientious reader, whether it is not impossible, fairly, to resist the conviction, that the Reformers did, at and before the diet at Augsburg in 1530, ordinarily observe the distinction to which they had been trained in the Romish church, between the words mass and eucharist, or Lord’s supper, so that in all cases where precision was necessary, and especially where both were spoken of, each was called by its appropriate name?  We say “ordinarily,” because we freely admit that sometimes they did use the word mass in a more general sense, as a part for the whole, to include both the eucharist and the mass proper, just as we now use the term preaching for the whole of the public service, in the inquiry, “Will you go to preaching to day?” whilst in its proper meaning, preaching has reference only to the sermon.  Our chain of argument is therefore not complete until we add another link, and prove that the Reformers employed the word mass in its specific and proper signification, in the disputed passages of the Augsburg Confession, as they did in the numerous passages above cited, and as the Papists themselves understood them to do.

Second Inquiry.

Let us now, in the second place, inquire, Whether the Reformers employed the word mass in its proper and specific meaning in the disputed passages of the Augsburg Confession.

The affirmative of this question is, we think, certain, from a variety of evidences.