'Such sacrifice as all Christian people make': Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner', reasonable sacrifice, and the prophecy of Malachi

In the debate with Cranmer, Gardiner turned to the Lord's Words of Institution and the teaching of Cyprian to support the understanding of the Eucharist as "a sacrifice propitiatory", fulfilling the prophecy of Malachi:

We read in St. Cyprian how Christ offered himself in his supper, fulfilling the figure of Melchisedech, who by the offering of bread and wine, signified that high mystery of Christ's supper, in which Christ under the form of bread and wine, gave his very body and blood to be eaten and drunken ... Now when we have Christ's body thus present in the celebration of the holy Supper, and by Christ's mouth present unto us, saying, This is my body which is betrayed for you; then have we Christ's body recommended unto us as our sacrifice, and a sacrifice propitiatory for all the sins of the world, being the only sacrifice of Christ's Church, the pure and clean sacrifice, whereof the prophet Malachie spake, and whereof the fathers in Christ's Church have since the beginning continually written.

In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), Cranmer rejected such a reading of both the Words of Institution and Cyprian's writings:

And the declaration of Christ at his last supper, that he would suffer death, was not the cause wherefore Cyprian said, that Christ offered himself in his supper; for I read not in any place of Cyprian, to my remembrance, any such words, that Christ offered himself in his supper, but he saith that Christ offered the same thing which Melchisedech offered. And if Cyprian say in any place, that Christ offered himself in his supper, yet he said not that Christ did so for this cause, that in his supper he declared his death. And therefore here you make a deceitful fallax in sophistry, pretending to show that thing to be a cause which is not the true cause in deed. For the cause why Cyprian and other old authors say, that Christ made an oblation and offering of himself in his last supper, was not that he declared there, that he would suffer death, for that he had declared many times before; but the cause was, that there he ordained a perpetual memory of his death, which he would all faithful Christian people to observe from time to time, remembering his death with thanks for his benefits, until his coming again. 

It is because the Sacrament was thus instituted as "a perpetual memory" of the Lord's sacrifice upon the Cross that the "old authors" applied to it the term 'sacrifice' - in the same manner as the Bread and Cup are called the Body and Blood of Christ:

And therefore the memorial of the true sacrifice made upon the cross, as St. Augustine saith, is called by the name of a sacrifice; as a thing that signifieth another thing is called by the name of the thing which it signifieth, although in very deed it be not the same.

As for the prophecy of Malachi, it has a much richer interpretation. Cranmer emphasises that it is fulfilled not merely in the Eucharist, but in all the sacrifices offered by Christians - in prayer, praise, and (to quote Cranmer's liturgy) "all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in":

all the works that Christian people do to the glory of God, be sacrifices of the Church, smelling sweetly before God. And they be also the pure and clean sacrifice whereof the prophet Malachie did speak. For the prophet Malachie spake of no such sacrifices as only priests make, but of such sacrifice as all Christian people make, both day and night, at all times, and in all places.

Cranmer, then, was not denying the sacrifice to be offered to God. He was, in fact, radically expanding the understanding of the Christian sacrifice, in light of the prophecy of Malachi:

Of offering ourselves unto God in all our acts and deeds with lauds and thanksgiving, the Scripture maketh mention in many places: but that Christ himself in the holy communion, or that the priests make any other oblation than all Christian people do ...

This, of course, was inherent to Cranmer's Communion rite, in rich sacrificial language which expressed the understanding that the offering of "all our acts and deeds with lauds and thanksgiving" has a focus in the sacramental remembrance of the Lord's saving sacrifice upon the Cross: 

And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee ...

As Cranmer had declared in his A Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ (1550):

But the humble confession of all penitent hearts, their knowledging of Christ’s benefits, their thanksgiving for the same, their faith and consolation in Christ, their humble submission sacrifice and obedience to God’s will and commandments, is a sacrifice of laud and praise, accepted and allowed of God no less than the sacrifice of the priest. For Almighty God, without respect of person, accepteth the oblation and sacrifice of priest and lay person, of king and subject, of master and servant, of man and woman, of young and old, yea of English, French, Scot, Greek, Latin, Jew, and Gentile; of every man according to his faithful and obedient heart unto him; and that through the sacrifice propitiatory of Jesu Christ.

This is that "reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice" that we all offer - "the oblation and sacrifice of priest and lay person" - in the Lord's Supper and "at all times, and in all places", "from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same".