28.

'What shall I render to the Lord for all he rendered to me? The cup of salvation I will take, and call on the Lord's name.' The 'cup of salvation' in the Psalms is the martyr's death — which is why 'I will take the cup of salvation' is followed by 'Precious before the Lord is the death of his holy ones.' Precious then comes death to us, God's holy ones — not the common, as it were idle death of godliness, but a choice one: through Christianity and godliness and holiness. 'Can ye drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?' And elsewhere: 'I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!' Consider whether the baptism after martyrdom, as the Savior's cleansing came to be for the world, itself comes to be for many unto healing. For as those who served the Mosaic altar were deemed to minister forgiveness of sins through blood of goats and bulls, so the souls of the beheaded for Jesus' testimony, not idly attending the heavenly altar, minister to prayers forgiveness of sins. And as Jesus Christ the High Priest offered himself a sacrifice, so the priests whose High Priest he is offer themselves a sacrifice — seen by their own place at the altar. But of priests, the blameless offering blameless sacrifices healed the Divine; those stained with blemishes, which Moses recorded in Leviticus, were fenced from the altar. Who is the blameless priest offering a blameless victim but he who holds the confession and fills every number the martyrdom-word requires?