as of

Mosaical sacrifices pointed; and by nothing were they more directly vitiated than by physical imperfection. Hence St. Peter speaks of the sacrifice of Christ, “ a lamb without blemish and without spot." "The reference here is primarily of course to that passible nature, which, strictly speaking, was the antitype of the Levitical oblations.

But when, as in the present case, the priesthood of our Lord is considered personally, it is to the higher nature that our attention is specially directed, that nature in respect of which he was the Son of God; and this is wholly unsymbolized in any of the Judaical institutions. Its type is separate from all that is ordinary and earthly, and does not extend beyond the mysterious individual whose character we have now considered. Hence, in a subsequent part of this epistle, it is argued, "If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, [the true divine nature,] offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?"† Here the distinction is clearly maintained. The sacrifice was of an immaculate though passible and mortal nature; the Priest was the eternal spiritual substance of his divinity, and in the Seάvpwоs, the complex person, the one Christ, was the hypostatical union of both functionary and victim.

In the discourse before us, much is said of the humanity, the infirmity, and the mortality of the Aaronic Priests. Hence the recurrence of such phrases as,—“ Every High Priest taken from among men :-he himself is compassed by infirmity:-here men that die receive tithes :-they were not suffered to continue by

1 Pet. i. 19.

Heb. ix, 13, 14. See note (Q).

offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared:-Though he were THE SON, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;" eventually becoming "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; and thus, by a series of unexampled sorrows, he ascertained to himself and to the universe the nature of the costly serIvice to which he had submitted.* And thus "being made perfect;" his oblation being finished, and his character, personal and public, being consummated by endurance so terrible; "he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him," and was now announced by God in his complete dignity, as he had before been declared in the prophetic oracle, "an High Priest after the order of Melchisedec."+

Thus does every consideration serve to exalt the priesthood of our Redeemer. Infinitely august in himself, and as far transcending the dignity of other Priests

*"Christ, considered as a man, was under a natural law to God; and if the will of God demanded that he should submit to death, that will was as imperative upon him as upon the Apostles. The circumstance of the miraculous conception of Christ makes no difference; for, however produced, he was still a man, and, as a man, was still under a law to God. The force of the Apostle's remark, then consists in this, that being more than a man, being a divine person, and therefore under no natural obligation to do or to suffer, he became voluntarily obedient; though he were a (the) Son,'-yet even he, identified with a suffering nature, learned obedience by the things he suffered.' This is the contrast which only can convey any impression of supererogatory charity: the contrast between natural dignity, and conventional and covenant obedience; between the right of exemption from suffering, and the benevolence of voluntary submission to it; between what he was as 'Son of God,' and what he chose to endure as the 'Son of God' made man."-WATSON'S Remarks on the Eternal Sonship, pp. 44, 45.

Heb. v. 5-10.

as the Son of God is superior to the sons of men, he is yet the subject of a sympathy with his people more deep and tender than that of Priests compassed with infirmity. His pre-existent glory, the love of the Father, his intimate and inviolable relation to the Godhead, supplied no ground of exemption from agony more oppressive than the human mind can conceive; and his infinite and irresistible power is therefore blended with a commiseration for the afflicted, equally unexampled and inconceivable.

From such suggestions might the persecuted Hebrews gather both strength and consolation. Thus might they renew their confidence in Christ, and confirm their attachment to the Christian profession; and thus, in all ages of the church, may the trust of the pious be cherished, the faith of the wavering established, and the solace of the tempted ensured. Thus, finally, do we arrive at the conclusion which it is the design of the Apostle's reasoning to enforce :-" Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the SON OF GOD, let us hold fast [our] profession. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."*

Heb. iv. 14—16,

NOTE (0), p. 322.

On Heb. vii. 3.

As upon this passage in a great measure depends the argument of the Apostle respecting the eminence of Christ's priesthood, it will be proper here to annex several remarks, especially of a controversial character, which could not conveniently be introduced in the main discussion.

The only alternative that I can anticipate to the views here suggested is, that this description is official and not personal. For if it is personal, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusions that "Son of God" is the personal title of an eternal subsistence, and that our Redeemer's priesthood is founded upon the divine relation which it implies.

I am not aware of any argument in favour of the official sense of this passage. On the contrary, by its very terms, such an exposition seems absolutely prohibited. To characterize an office, for example, as "without genealogy," &c., savours strongly of the ridiculous. Again, in what possible sense can the priesthood, either of Melchisedec or of Christ, be described as without beginning? If it be replied, In the foreknowledge and appointment of God, this is no distinction above the priesthood of Aaron, since we have equal reason to affirm its eternal pre-ordination. The necessity for a priesthood had a beginning; and a priesthood, of whatever order, must therefore have had a beginning likewise. Or were it otherwise, the essential relation of type and antitype renders it impossible that both can be at once without beginning and without end. Had the thing typified no beginning, the type were unnecessary; and upon the manifestation of the antitype, the type necessarily ceases. The priesthood of Melchisedec had both beginning and end; nor could that of Christ be without beginning, as functionally it will not be without end.

Nothing, in fact, would be more inappropriate than to describe a type of the Messiah, considered in that respect alone, as an ungenealogized person. For the genealogy of the Messiah among the Jews was always the subject of special

remark. It was foretold by the Prophets; it was understood by the populace, even of the lowest rank, the title "Son of David" being familiarly employed by common mendicants; it was made a test of the claims of Jesus; it was preached by the Apostles, and recorded by the Evangelists; and after all this, and with the extensive notoriety which the subject had acquired, it is inconceivable that any one would represent the being without genealogy as the characteristic of the most illustrious of the Messianic types.

Another objection is anticipated by Mr. Stuart, who nevertheless advocates the official application of the passage. "The Apostle," he remarks, "is not labouring to show that Melchisedec, in respect to his priesthood, was made like to Christ, but vice versa." The entire criticism is worthy the reader's attention. Instructive it is from its very confusedness; a confusedness which originates in the capital fallacy of identifying the theanthropic functionary, Christ, with the purely divine person, the Son of God. The argument nevertheless is perfectly sound. St. Paul is illustrating the official conformity of Christ to Melchisedec, and not of Melchisedec to Christ. The exposition in question is therefore an inversion of his reasoning. Mr. Stuart, to obviate the difficulty, adds a criticism on the word ȧpwμowμέvos. It means, he says, "not made like to, but like to, possible likened to, i. e., being compared to.' But this is an unnecessary deviation from the precise sense, merely to salve a pre-conceived interpretation. The meaning of the word, it is conceived, cannot be the subject of just question; and it is not the rendering of our version which we must discard, but the theory to which that rendering is fatal.

Besides, the official application of the passage renders its conclusion mere tautology. For if the words, "without beginning of days or end of life," declare the perpetuity of Melchisedec's office, it is obviously unnecessary and trifling to add, that he "abideth a Priest continually." Yet this is the grand result to which the whole of the parenthesis tends. It is by this alone that the sense of the text is to be completed; and it is not credible that the Apostle would reduce the consequence of such a piece of reasoning to the bare truism which this interpretation supposes.

Were this exposition allowed, the question would naturally