dministered to the people.
What the Romanists considered as the essential doctrine of the mass,
viz., its being a sacrifice of Christ, offered by the priest, and its
being offered by him for others than himself, either living or dead,
and its being performed at any other time, or for any other purpose
than as a preparative for Sacramental Communion, the Confession
rejects, but the _outward_ rite itself, on public sacramental occasions,
it professes to retain: and this being the only charge made in the
_Platform_ on this subject, we appeal to every candid reader to decide,
whether it has not been fully established.

Whether Melancthon and the princes had yielded more in this Confession
than Luther approved, and whether any of the alterations confessedly
made in the Confession after Luther had approved it, related to this
Article, is quite a different question, and cannot affect the meaning
of the Article itself. It is not improbable that such was the case;
but even the ritual, which Luther prepared in 1523, contained the
greater part of the Romish mass, such as the _Introitus_, the _Kyrie
Eleison_, the _Collecta_, or prayer and _epistles, Singing of the
Gradual_, a _Short Sequens_, the _Gospel_, the _Nicene Creed_, and a
number of other matters, not excepting even the _elevation_ of the host,
but not for adoration, which latter he retained till [sic]
_till twelve years after the Diet at Augsburg!_ Yet, even at that time,
he had rejected the greater part of the most objectionable portions of
the mass. Hence, as the Platform charges the Confession only with
favoring the _Ceremonies of the Mass_, the charge is not only sustained,
but falls short, of what we have established in the preceding pages: and
all the vituperation aimed at us by different individuals, who have
studied the subject imperfectly, or not at all, we cheerfully forgive,
conscious that the aim of all we have published on this subject has been
the prosperity of the church, and assured that it will be blessed by the
Master to this glorious end.

_Reference to the author's former works containing representations_ of
this subject.

In view of these indisputable results of a careful investigation of the
original sources, it may not be amiss to cast a glance at the
representations of this subject in our former publications during the
last quarter of a century, as we have frequently been charged, not
indeed by the author of the Plea, but by superficial writers