Bingham supposes that the reasons for this mysterious concealment were, that the plainness and simplicity of the religious rites of the church might not give needless offence. It was often objected to the Christians that they had no temples nor altars, not impressive rites. They accordingly withdrew their rites from public view as much as possible. Many of the tenets of the church, like that of the Trinity and the incarnation of the Son of God, might have been concealed because very obnoxious to the enemies of religion. This mystery quickened the curiosity of the inquirer also, as man is ever curious to pry into forbidden secrets. It was a part of that long process of preparation by which candidates for admission to the church gradually attained to this degree of advancement, styled by them TEλETV-perfection—the perfection of mysteries. Many pagans in the age of Constantine pressed into the church with all their partialities for their Eleusinian mysteries. For admission to these, a certain preparatory probation was requisite. The admission was solemnized by imposing formalities, and it was the height of impiety to disclose any of those hidden mysteries.* So the Constitutions direct that if one, by any means, has been an observer of the Christian mysteries, he should be immediately received into the church, that he may thus be laid under bans not to divulge the secret. No one can fail to notice the analogy between these profane mysteries and those mysterious solemnities of the church which were connected with her secret discipline. λομένῳ, οὐκ ἔστιν ἔδος ἐθνικοῖς διηγεῖσθαι. οὐ γὰρ ἐθνικῷ τὰ περὶ πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ καὶ ἁγίου πνεύματος διηγούμενα μυστήρια. οὐδὲ τὰ περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων ἐπὶ κατηχουμένων λευκῶς λαλοῦμεν, ἀλλὰ πολλὰ πολλάκις λέγομεν ἐπικεκαλυμμένως, ἵνα οἱ εἰδότες πιστοὶ νοήσωσι, καὶ οἱ μὴ εἰδότες μὴ βλαβῶσι.—CYRILL. Hieros. Catech. 6, § 29. Βούλομαι σαφῶς τοῦτο εἰπεῖν, οὐ τολμῶ δὲ διὰ τοὺς ἀμνήτους· οὗτοι γὰρ δυςκολωτέραν ἡμῖν ποιοῦσι τὴν ἐξήγησιν, ἀναγκάζοντες, ἢ μὴ λέγειν σαφῶς, ἢ εἰς αὐτοὺς ἐκφέρειν τὰ ἀπόβλητα.-CHRYSOSTOM. hom. 40, in 1 Cor. Ισασιν οἱ μεμνημένοι του ποτηρίου τούτου τὴν ἰσχύν. εἴσεσθε δὲ καὶ ὑμεῖς μικρὸν ὕστερον.-Catech. i. ad illuminand. (t. ii. p. 226.) Ασήμως διὰ τοὺς ἀμυήτους περὶ τῶν θείων διαλεγόμερα μυστηρίων, τούτων δὲ χωριζομένων, σαφῶς τους μεμνημένους διδάσκομεν.—THEODORET. quaest. in Num. 15, (Opp. t. i.) Nunc de mysteriis dicere tempus admonet, atque ipsam sacramentorum rationem edere, quam ante baptismum si putassemus insinuandam nondum initiatis, prodidisse potius quam edidisse aestimaremur.-AMBROSIUS, De Mysteris, c. 1. *Vetabo, qui cereris sacrum Vulgarit arcanæ, sub iisdem The clergy also favoured this system as a means of self-aggrandizement. Ever watchful to promote the dignity and influence of their order, they readily saw the advantage to be gained by making themselves the ministers of mysterious rites, to be essayed only by consecrated hands, and the guardians and instructors of ordinances and doctrines too sacred for vulgar minds. How long this system was continued is not known. Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazian, Basil, Chrysostom, Augustine, and the fathers of the fourth and fifth century, make frequent mention of it; but it disappears from the writings of authors in the eastern churches after the sixth century. Cardinal Bona has shown that the catechetical system was discontinued in the western churches about the year 700; and with this doubtless ceased this secret discipline. Cessante causa, cessat effectus. The influence of the system under consideration was decidedly injurious to the church, in corrupting the simplicity and purity of its worship. Indeed, it had no small influence in introducing the corruptions and formalities which subsequently dishonoured the Christian church. It gave a mysterious importance to the rites of baptism and the Lord's supper. The doctrine of the efficacy of baptism to wash away all sin, of the grace communicated in the sacramental supper, and of actual presence in the bread and wine, are supposed by some to have had their origin in these mysteries.1 § 3. OF LITURGIES. 1. Liturgies unknown to the Primitive Churches.-Much learning and historical research have been expended in a vain attempt to trace the use of liturgy far back to the earliest ages of the primitive church, and even to wrest the usage and authority of the apostles into an argument for the use of a prescribed form of prayer; but in addition to what has already been said respecting the spirit and manner of primitive worship, and the attitude of the worshippers as incompatible with the use of a prayer-book, the survey of the religious rites as described in the preceding article, may fairly be alleged as an argument against the early use of a liturgy. Prematurely to disclose these mysteries, even to Christians themselves, directly or indirectly, was sacrilege.* Procul! oh, procul este profani! was the stern and sanctimonious cry of the Christian, in * Οσον γὰρ ἡ ἱηροσυλία κακὺν, οὐδὲ εστιν ειπείν.—CHRYSOSTOM, in Tim. ii. imitation of the pagan priest; neither would commit their mysteries to writing. Basil the Great, when writing a confidential letter to his friend Meletius, would not venture to write on this awful subject, but refers him to Theophrastus, a friend, for a verbal explanation.' What they might not explain, they feared to commit to writing.* Basil, in justification of his extreme caution, appealed to the famous maxim of Origen, "Mysteries must not be committed to writing." 2. Silence of the ancients respecting them. The profound silence, both of friends and enemies, in the early ages of the church, respecting liturgies and forms of prayer, is urged as a valid argument against the liturgical worship of the primitive church. Socrates relates that Macarius, a disorderly presbyter in Egypt, A. D. 332, leaped upon the altar, overturned the table, broke the mystical cup, and burned the sacred books-ta iɛpa Biß2ia-the Bible. About the same time Gorgius, an Arian bishop who succeeded Athanasius, entered a church by force, and offered indignities to the holy table, the sacred volumes of the Scriptures-Tas Oεías Tav ypapav Biß2ovs-the Bible, the holy font, the wine, the oil, the doors, the latticed partitions on the chancel, the candlesticks, the tapers. In this minute enumeration, no mention is made of the prayer-book, which, if such there had been, must more than all else have inflamed the exterminating zeal of this Arian bishop against his orthodox predecessor. 3. Not included in the sacred books of Christians.-In the relentless and bloody persecution of Dioclisean, A. D. 303, Christians under pain of death were, by the edict of the Emperor, required to deliver up the Bible and their sacred books to be burned. Magistrates were required to enter churches and private houses in an exterminating search for these books; many were brought forth and burned; many Christians, known as traditores, under the form of these terrible trials, gave up their books, but many more suffered torture and death in steadfast refusal of obedience to the decree. But in all the records of this terrible persecution, though the Scriptures and other books of the Christians are mentioned, no intimation is given of a liturgy or prayer-book, as either discovered, delivered up, or concealed and withheld. The inference is, that nothing of the kind was at this time known or preserved among the sacred books of these persecuted Christians. * Φοβούμενος γράφειν ἅ καὶ λέγειν ἐφυλαξάμην.—CLEM. Aber. Strom. ii. 4. Providential omissions. Indeed, Archbishop Whately regards the omission of all liturgical forms in the Scriptures, as a miraculous intervention to save the church from the superstitious adherence to which men are so much inclined. "No such thing is to be found in our Scriptures as a catechism, or regular elementary introduction to the Christian religion; neither do they furnish us with any thing of the nature of a systematic creed, set of articles, confession of faith, or by whatever other name one may designate a regular, complete compendium of Christian doctrines; nor again, do they supply us with a liturgy for ordinary public worship, or with forms for administering the sacraments, or for conferring holy orders; nor do they even give any precise directions as to these and other ecclesiastical matters;-any thing that at all corresponds to a rubric or set of canons. "Now these omissions present a complete moral demonstration that the apostles and their followers must have been supernaturally withheld from recording a great part of the institutions and regulations, which must, in point of fact, have proceeded from them; withheld on purpose that other churches, in other ages and regions, might not be led to consider themselves bound to adhere to certain formularies, customs, and rules, that were of local and temporary appointment; but might be left to their own discretion in matters in which it seemed best to Divine wisdom that they should be so left."3 No form of prayer, liturgy, or ritual, was recorded or preserved by the cotemporaries, inspired or uninspired, of the apostles, or by their immediate successors. This consideration is nearly allied to the former, and is so forcibly urged by Archbishop Whately, that we shall again present the argument in his own words:"It was, indeed, not at all to be expected that the Gospels, the Acts, and those Epistles which have come down to us, should have been, considering the circumstances in which they were written, any thing different from what they are: but the question still recurs, why should not the apostles or their followers have also committed to paper, what, we are sure, must have been perpetually in their mouths, regular instructions to catechumens, articles of faith, prayers, and directions as to public worship, and administration of the sacraments? Why did none of them record any of the prayers, of which they must have heard so many from an apostle's mouth, both in the ordinary devotional assemblies, in the administration of the sacraments, and in the 'laying on of hands,' by which they themselves had been ordained?4 "Such a systematic course of instruction, carrying with it Divine authority, would have superseded the framing of any others-nay, would have made even the alteration of a single word, of what would on this supposition have been Scripture, appear an improper presumption. . . . . So that there would have been an almost inevitable danger, that such an authoritative list of credenda would have been regarded by a large proportion of Christians with a blind, unthinking reverence, which would have exerted no influence on the character. They would have had a form of godliness; but, denying the power thereof, the form itself would have remained with them only the corpse of a departed religion."5 The superstitious reverence of the early Christians, for such productions as had been obtained from the apostles and their cotemporaries, is apparent from the numerous forgeries of epistles, liturgies, etc., which were published under their name. Had any genuine liturgies of the apostolical churches been written, it is inconceivable that they should all have been lost, and such miserable forgeries as those of James, Peter, Andrew, and Mark, have been substituted in their place. Some discoveries must have been made of these among other religious books and sacred things of the Christians, which in times of persecution were diligently sought out and burned. Strict inquiry was made after such, and their sacred books, and sacramental utensils, their cups, lamps, torches, vestments, and other apparatus of the church were often delivered up, and burnt or destroyed. But there is no instance on record of any form of prayer, liturgy, or book of Divine service having been discovered in the early persecutions of the church. This fact is so extraordinary, that Bingham, who earnestly contends for the use of liturgies from the beginning, is constrained to admit, that they could not have been committed to writing in the early periods of the church, but must have been preserved by oral tradition, and used "by memory, and made familiar by known and constant practice." The reader has his alternative between this supposition and that of no liturgy, or prescribed form of prayer in those days of primitive simplicity. Constantine took special care to have fifty copies of the Bible prepared for the use of the churches of Constantinople, and by a royal commission, entrusted Eusebius, the historian, with the duty of procuring them. How is it, that the service book was entirely omitted in this provision for the worship of God? Plainly because they then used none. 5. Traditions of the churches.-The strong propensity of the |