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Sacrifice in the written and unwritten law, the Jewish and Heathen rituals. The second exhibits the perfect fulfilment of the sacrificial idea in the life and death of Christ. In the third is considered its perpetuation, for communicating its effects to us, in the Mass, considered chiefly as the centre of Christian worship. The fourth part insists on the reproduction of the idea in all members of the mystical body through selfsacrifice and imitation of the virtues of their Head, while the fifth carries on the idea to its final consummation in the offering up of the entire body of the elect reunited with their Head in heaven. Of the three last parts no more need be said here. In the first, the interior sacrifice of the heart, and the outward sacrifice which is its proper expression, are contrasted and explained, with constant reference to St. Augustine's City of God. The outward expression was needed for men composed of body and soul and having to live in society, even during the state of innocence; still more after the Fall, when the idea of expiation was added to that of homage, and hence animal sacrifices came into use. Those of the Jewish In the second part the

ritual are examined in detail. immense superiority of Christ's sacrifice to all others is dwelt upon. It consists of the oblation of His Body, Soul, and will, that is of His whole Being, together with those of His members; of His prayers and other acts, together with theirs; and of His sufferings and death, and theirs united with His.

It will at once be seen, that with these writers-and

they are but a specimen of many more-the dominant idea, as with the Fathers, is that of Sacrifice, which comprehends more than the notion of satisfaction only, or of the payment of a debt. It includes and exhausts them, but it includes a great deal more. We may further observe that this idea is habitually viewed in connection with its perpetuation in the Eucharist. And this suggests an aspect of the doctrine of the Atonement already more than once referred to, in the chapters on patristic teaching, and which requires distinct recognition, though a separate volume would be required for its adequate treatment. A few words must suffice here, not to prove but to indicate the inseparable union between the sacrifice of the altar and the sacrifice of the Cross.

On the last night of His earthly ministry, when the shadows of death were closing in upon the chosen few, and the dark designs of the conspirators were even now shaping themselves into act within the walls of the apostate city, Jesus, having loved His own, loved them unto the end. He was about to die. And therefore He gathered His disciples around Him in that upper room at Jerusalem, for a last farewell. "When the evening was come, He sat down with the Twelve." He had washed their feet; He had addressed to them those words of thrilling import, which run through four chapters in the narrative of the last Evangelist; He had eaten the Paschal supper. And then, as at a marriage feast He had begun His ministry by changing water into wine, so at the feast which closed it He

transmuted, by a signal miracle, the shadow to the substance, the figures of the law into the realities of the Atoning Sacrifice. He sanctified Himself. He offered the great Eucharistic intercession (John xvii.), which embraced all future ages and contained in germ all possible liturgies of Christendom. He rehearsed before the Twelve in mystery that Sacrifice which on the morrow was to be offered in tears and blood. He took of the pure wheat flour which is given for man's nourishment, and the fruit of the vine which maketh glad his heart, and consecrated them to be for all time the symbols, the vehicle, the transparent veils, of that sacred Flesh and that redeeming Blood which He had assumed in the Conception and was to offer on the Cross. What He did then His Church was to continue always, till He should return again, for a memorial of Him. As every Christian prayer must be offered in His Name, so all Christian worship must be centred in the one great act which perpetuates for ever the 'new rite' of that last Paschal Supper, not in empty sign but in spirit and in truth. From the rising to the setting sun, wherever His Name is known among the Gentiles, He has bidden that pure oblation to be laid continually on His altar. The Incarnation and the Passion are no mere incidents of bygone history, but a presence of abiding power. The Blood that flowed on Calvary flows indeed no more, but the Lamb slain before the worlds were made is offered still, Himself the Victim, Priest, and Shrine. And through the might of that Atonement, the Sacrifice

one and indivisible pleaded on ten thousand altars, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, is the Church's prayer fulfilled; Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.1

I proceed to give some notice of German Catholic divines in the present century, who are now stepping into the place occupied before the French Revolution by the doctors of the Sorbonne. In 1807, Klüpfel

2

and Dobmayer published dogmatic works in Latin. They agree in regarding the Atonement as a mystery, which we cannot explain on antecedent grounds of reason and must therefore be content to accept as a revealed fact: Consultius igitur ducimus rem arguere ex eventu. The Son of God has made satisfaction, inasmuch as He has done all that was necessary for our eternal welfare, for removing sin and its consequences, and re-establishing the kingdom of God. In what sense this satisfaction was necessary we cannot know, but we must infer from the event that there are reasons why it was so. Dobmayer adds, that the Atonement must not be regarded as a punishment inflicted on Christ, but as an act done by Him for the benefit of the human race; not as a substitute for our personal service, but as a supplement of our weakness and encouragement to our energy. A more famous name is that of Klee, who wrote thirty years later, in German,

See Note I. at the end of the Chapter, "On the Connection between the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Eucharist."

2

Klüpfel, Instit. Theol. Dogmat. Wien, 1807. Dobmayer, Systema Theol. Cathol. Sulsbach, 1807.

on Catholic doctrine.' He understands by the satisfaction of Christ, that, through His bodily death, He has removed the grounds of our spiritual death and softened (gemildert) its consequences, as to intention and efficacy for all, and actually for those who are so united with Him as to be able to appropriate His sufferings. We cannot say that He has formally endured our punishment, as such, for it is impossible for the innocent to be justly punished; nor materially, for He was not made subject to spiritual death, as neither to ignorance or evil desire. Neither, again, has He in such sense suffered in our place, and by substitution, as that by His satisfaction all our debt and sin is in fact remitted. Bodily death, the sorrows of life, ignorance and concupiscence remain, and we are then first released from our debt, when we have fulfilled all the conditions requisite for partaking of the benefits of the redemption wrought for us. This satisfaction of Christ is in itself superabundant, for, while sin is finite, the acts of the God-Man, as proceeding from His Person, not from His finite human nature, are infinite. Another Catholic writer of the same date, Brenner, also protests against the notion of substituted punishment, as hard and unreasonable and inconsistent with the nature of God.' We cannot pass over in silence a still greater name, that of Günther; but with his philosophical system, which is said to be very obscurely expressed, I have no acquaintance, nor indeed would this be the place for examining it if I

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