" The question is
referred to "whether a mass performed for a number of persons
collectively, was as efficacious as a separate mass for each
individual;" but who ever heard of christians receiving one Lord's
Supper collectively, for a number of other persons, or for an
individual? And if the thing is done by the priest, then it is what is
specifically called mass. So also, who ever heard of the Lord's Supper
being received "for the dead;" but it is very common for the priest to
say _mass_ for the dead. Thus, might we add additional sentences from
this Article XXIV., which applied to the Lord's Supper, make no sense,
but are appropriately and historically true of the mass in its specific
sense. Since then almost the whole article treats of the mass proper,
does not common sense, as well as the legitimate principles of
interpretation, require us so to interpret the word mass in the caption
and passages cited from this article? The same reason would apply to a
comparison of the caption of Article XXII., or I, of the Abuses
Corrected, namely, "Of Communion in both kinds," compared with the word
mass; but we deem it unnecessary.
2. That the word mass is here used in its appropriate sense, is evident,
_because Melancthon himself, in translating the Latin original into
German_, always renders the Latin term for mass (missa) by the German
term messe (mass); whereas if he had used the Latin term in its more
general sense in Article XXIV.
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