fended themselves by saying they had a sacrifice in the propitiatory sense in the Eucharist. It was frequently called "a pure and unbloody sacrifice," and was thus distinguished from the bloody sacrifices of the Jews. It thus appears that the Eucharist was, by the fathers, considered a representation of the great sacrifice made by Christ once for all.

Augustine says: "The Hebrews, in their animal sacrifices which they offered to God, typified the sacrifice offered by Christ. This sacrifice is also commemorated by Christians in the sacred offering and participation of the body and blood of Christ."

The early Church fathers frequently spoke of the Eucharist as an offering or sacrifice, but only in the sense that praise and thanksgiving are called sacrifices. All proper sacrifices are offerings made to God, but they differ in nature. Prayer, praise, thanksgiving, repentance, and acts of charity are all called sacrifices in the Scriptures. This is recognized in the order for the administration of the Lord's Supper as used by Episcopalians and Methodists: "We thy humble servants desire thy Fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving."

In the Eucharist there is an offering made of bread and wine, sometimes called oblations, and of alms; there is also the reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice of ourselves, our bodies and our souls, to God.

The dominant idea among Methodists has been that of a real and necessary atonement in Christ, while the idea of its nature has not been so definitely presented. It is all that is required by God, and is coextensive with the wants of mankind. "Wesleyan Arminianism has ever been true to the fact of an atonement in Christ. In her 1 Reply to Faustus, book xx, chap. xviii.

hymns and prayers, in her utterances of a living Christian experience, in her sermons and exhortations, this great fact ever receives the fullest recognition. In her soteriology 'Christ is all and in all.' "1

Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit.

The truth of the first paragraph of the Article being established, this is a logical conclusion. This condemnation is severe, but not more so than the offense deserves. The doctrine condemned is a fiction, a fabrication, it has no foundation in Scripture. It is blasphemous because it contradicts the plain teaching of the Word of God, which teaches that Christ was offered as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

Romanists claim that the mass may be offered for the sins of the living and the dead, and remission of guilt and pain be thus obtained; but Scripture declares, "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9. 22). They define it as "a sacrifice without the effusion of blood." It cannot, therefore, be an expiatory sacrifice. It dishonors Christ by denying the sufficiency of the sacrifice which he offered of himself on the cross "once for all," and providing another supplementary to it.

The Roman Church strengthened and deepened its error ten years after the framing of this Article in a series of decrees formulated by the Council of Trent (1563) and published in nine chapters. It declared: "As the same Jesus Christ who once offered himself upon the cross with the shedding of his blood is contained and immolated without the effusion of blood in the holy sacrifice of the mass, this latter sacrifice is truly

1 Miley on Atonement, p. 209.

propitiatory, and by it all obtain mercy and forgiveness; since it is the same Jesus Christ who was offered upon the cross who is still offered by the ministry of his priests, the only difference being in the manner of offering. And the mass may be offered, not only for the sins and wants of the faithful, who are alive, but also for those who, being dead, are not yet made pure." Anathemas were pronounced against all who affirmed the opposite of the decrees. "Whosoever shall affirm that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice made on the cross, and not a propitiatory offering; or that it only benefits him who receives it, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be accursed."

This is a dangerous deceit, inasmuch as it holds out an easy method of obtaining pardon and leads men to place their hope of salvation upon a false foundation.

1 Sess. XXII.

ARTICLE XXI

OF THE MARRIAGE OF MINISTERS

The Ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness.

I. THE ORIGIN

The first part of this Article, which was composed by the English Reformers, appeared in 1553, as follows: "Bishops, priests, and deacons are not commanded to vow the estate of single life without marriage, neither by God's law are they compelled to abstain from matrimony." In 1562 this was recast and the second part was added. As the Reformation advanced the conviction that the marriage of the clergy was lawful had become stronger. The Article of 1553 had merely stated negatively that no divine command could be urged against it; the addition declared positively that it is lawful. In 1571 it passed into the Book of Common Prayer, and with a few verbal changes was adopted by Wesley.

II. THE AIM

A disparaging view of the married relation by men who aspired to or professed peculiar sanctity is more ancient than Christianity. The Essenes, a Jewish sect, well known in the time of Christ, were celibates. Their doctrines and practices are described by Hippolytus (170236 A. D.), who says: "These practice a more devotional life, being filled with mutual love, and being temperate.

And they turn away from every act of inordinate desire, being averse even to hearing of things of the sort. And they renounce matrimony, but they take the boys of others and thus have an offspring begotten for them."1

It is possible, or even probable, that the tenets and practices of the Essenes influenced the early Christians, by whom, almost from the beginning, the estate of celibacy was held in high esteem. Widows, monks, and nuns who took the vows of celibacy were considered to be embracing a higher mode of life, but for the first three centuries of the Christian era there was no enforced celibacy known in the Church of Christ. In the fourth century, however, the Church adopted the doctrine of devils spoken of by Saint Paul as "forbidding to marry” (1 Tim. 4. 3). The earliest ecclesiastical legislation on the subject was at the Spanish Council of Elvira (A. D. 305), which commanded ecclesiastics who were married to separate from their wives, thus ruthlessly putting asunder those whom God had joined. The Synod of Ancyra, held a few years later, reversed this decree, and the sixth apostolic canon says, "Let not a bishop, a priest, or a deacon cast off his own wife under pretense of piety; but if he does cast her off, let him be suspended. If he go on in it, let him be deprived."

The conflict of opinions can be traced in the writings of the fathers and the enactments of the Councils. Not all at once did this pernicious ascetic principle prevail, but it steadily gained. The Council of Neo-Cæsarea (A. D. 314), held immediately after that of Ancyra, enjoined in its first canon the degradation of priests who marry after ordination. So the great Council of Nice (A. D. 325) proposed a canon enjoining continence upon the married clergy. The aged Bishop Paphnutius, how

1 Refutation of Heresies, book ix, chap. xiii.