15.
But the discipline of all religion and truth is overturned, unless what is spiritually prescribed be faithfully observed; unless indeed any one should fear in the morning sacrifices, 1 lest by the taste of wine he should be redolent of the blood of Christ. Therefore thus the brotherhood is beginning even to be kept back from the passion of Christ in persecutions, by learning in the offerings to be disturbed concerning His blood and His blood-shedding. Moreover, however, the Lord says in the Gospel, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed." 2 And the apostle also speaks, saying, "If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." 3 But how can we shed our blood for Christ, who blush to drink the blood of Christ?
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According to some texts is read here, "to offer wine, lest in the morning hours, through the flavour of the wine, its smell should be recognised by its fragrant odour by the perception of unbelievers, and he should be known to be a Christian, since we commemorate the blood of Christ in the oblation of wine." [The heathen detected Christians by this token when searching victims for the persecutor. ↩
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Mark viii. 38. [Bingham, book xv. cap. ii. sec. 7.] ↩
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Gal. i. 10. ↩
