Explanation
“When the priest strikes his breast, and says the Agnus Dei , (that is, O Lamb of God, &c.) he reminds us of the Centurion and many others striking their breasts with sorrow, and bewailing their offences, when they beheld Christ expiring on the cross, and were eye-witnesses of the prodigies which happened at his death. The Prayer for Peace, before the communion of the priest, signifies, that to communicate worthily, we must be in peace with God and our neighbour, and approach with a clean heart and pure conscience. The priest’s communion is a sign of the burial of Christ’s body, which was taken down from the cross, wrapped up in clean linen, and laid in a new monument, cut out of a rock, near Mount Calvary. The purifying and covering of the chalice represents Christ’s sepulchre, shut and covered with a stone. The resurrection of Christ from the dead is represented by the priest going to the corner of the Epistle, and reading the Post Communion, the mass-book being brought back to the right side of the altar, to signify that the Jews are to be converted to the Christian faith at the end of the world. Dominus vobiscum represents Christ appearing to his disciples, and giving them his peace. The last Collect represents Christ conversing forty days with his disciples, and speaking to them of the kingdom of God. The last Dominus vobiscum , represents Christ’s last apparition to his disciples; and the blessing given by the priest to the people, denotes that Christ lifted up both his hands, and blessed his apostles and other disciples before he left them, and in their sight ascended into heaven. The Ite Missa est , and the reading of the Gospel at the left corner of the altar, denote that Christ came not to call the just, but sinners, to repentance: and sent his apostles to teach all nations; and that they preached the gospel with amazing success in all parts of the known world, after the descent of the Holy Ghost.”