“That Tertullian, in the beginning of the third century, calls the bishop ‘chief priest,’ (_summus sacerdos_); that before his time, in the second century, Irenæus calls the gifts made at the Holy Eucharist, ‘oblations,’ (_oblata_,) and when consecrated by the prayer of the bishop, ‘a sacrifice,’ (_sacrificium_); and that in Justin Martyr, a still more ancient writer, the gifts are called ‘offerings,’ (_προσφοραὶ_); are facts so certainly known to the learned, that it is needless to speak of them at greater length. In the subsequent writings of the Fathers, the terms ‘priesthood,’ ‘Priest,’ ‘Levites,’ ‘altars,’ ‘offertories,’ ‘sacrifices,’ ‘oblations,’ used in reference to the Church of the New Testament, are so obvious and frequent that it can escape no one who has even cursorily examined their writings. In Eusebius, moreover, and the rest of the ecclesiastical historians, and the canons of Councils, such frequent mention occurs of these phrases, that it is evident they must have struck deep root into the minds of men in those ages.” {70} So much is the testimony of a very learned man, and a most unsuspicious witness. But there is a separate line of evidence to be drawn from another and perhaps even still more convincing source: I mean the ancient liturgies of the Church which have come down to us, and tell us in what way the early Christians worshipped God; the place which they assigned to the Holy Eucharist, and the light in which they regarded it in connection with sacrifice, altar, and priesthood. There are four liturgies, (and we are to remember, the word in all ancient writings means merely and simply the Eucharistic service,) which have been shewn to have been reduced to writing in the course of the fourth century, and one of them in the earliest part of it. They bear their witness to the Church’s faith and hope and teaching in those days, and even earlier, because it is generally conceded that they were in use long before they were put into writing, the days of persecution rendering it unsafe for the Christians to have documents which might be seized, and turned against them; or perhaps still more, the desire to preserve the mysteries of their faith, and especially of the Holy Eucharist, from the inquisition of heathen scoffing, indisposing them to keep any records which could be thus profanely used. Of course, after the Empire became Christian, under Constantine, this reason ceased, and it was only what was natural that the services which had been orally in use for years should now be reduced to writing. Now, these four liturgies were used at the four great central sees of Christendom, and their subordinate branches, and so pervaded the whole Catholic world. “The first,” to use the words of a learned writer, Mr. Palmer, the author of the _Origines Liturgicæ_, “is the great Oriental liturgy, as it seems to have prevailed in all the Christian Churches, from the Euphrates to the Hellespont, and from the