while Aaron's directly conveyed temporal blessings only, and a temporal atonements. It must indeed be owned, that true expiation was conveyed under the legal veils to persons fitly qualified: but those legal sacrifices, in their sacrificial capacity, did nothing of that kind. What they did of a saving kind was in their sacramental capacity: for, that they were sacraments, as well as sacrifices, is an allowed principle among knowing Divines of all principles or persuasions h. Where then was the difference between the Aaronical sacrifice and Melchizedekian, if both were sacramental conveyances of the same blessings, and if neither of them availed any thing in their sacrificial capacity, properly speaking? The difference lay here, that Melchizedek was considered as conveying the true expiation directly and plainly, by the symbols of bread and wine, and not under the dark covers of a legal expiation, which but remotely and obscurely pointed to it. He feasted himself and Abraham directly upon the grand sacrifice itself, as Christian priests do now: Aaron feasted himself and his people directly upon nothing but the legal sacrifices, and the legal, temporal expiations. But this distinction will yeṭ be better understood, by some other passages of the Fathers, which I am going to subjoin in their order.

St. Jerome, more than once, mentions the distinction between the Aaronical and Melchizedekian sacrifices. He declares, in one place, that Melchizedek did not (like Aaron) sacrifice irrational victims, but offered bread and

8 This matter is clearly expressed by an author of the twelfth century, under the name of Cyprian.

Hoc maxime discernere debet Christiana religio, quod sanguis animalium a sanguine Christi per omnia differens, temporalis tantum habeat vivifica. tionis effectum, et vita eorum finem habeat, et sine ulla revocatione terminum constitutum, ideoque ad obtinendam æternitatem non potest proficere

-Bibimus autem de sanguine Christi, ipso jubente, vitæ æternæ cum ipso et per ipsum participes. Pseudo-Cyprian. de Cœna, p. 113. edit. Bened.

b Cudworth on the Sacram. chap. ii. p. 23, &c. Gerhard, tom. iv. p. 292, 297. Alanus de Eucharist. p. 502. Chamier, tom. iv. p. 14, 15. Vossius de Idololatr. lib. i. cap. 41. p. 151, 152. Cloppenburg, Schol. Sacrific. p. 9, &c. Buddæus, Instit. Theolog. p. 687.

wine, that is, the body and blood of the Lordi. He does not say, sacrificed bread and wine, but offered, (a word of some latitude,) and he presently after interprets them by the body and blood. So that Melchizedek, according to him, offered no sacrifice but the grand sacrifice: and he could not properly sacrifice that body and blood, which were not then in being, but he figured it by symbolsk, and therewith conveyed the blessings of it; feasting Abraham, not with legal victims, but with Christ himself. This appears to be his sense of that matter; which will be farther confirmed by other passages of the same Father. He gives a kind of summary of the sentiments of Hippolytus, Irenæus, two Eusebius's, Apollinaris, and Eustathius, in relation to Melchizedek; importing, "that he sacrificed "no victims of flesh and blood, took not the blood of the "brute animals upon his right hand; but he dedicated a "Sacrament in bread and wine, in the simple and pure sa"crifice of Christ'." So I point and translate the sentence; altering the common punctuation, only as to the placing of a single comma, to make out the sense. As to what he says of not receiving blood on the right hand, (or right thumb,) I suppose it alludes to the Levitical rites of consecration to the priesthood m, which Melchizedek had nothing to do with. He received his priesthood in some

i Quod autem ait, Tu es sacerdos in æternum, secundum ordinem Melchizedech, mysterium nostrum in verbo ordinis significatur, nequaquam per Aaron irrationalibus victimis immolandis, sed oblato pane et vino, id est corpore et sanguine Domini. Hieron. Quæst. Hebraic. p. 520. tom. ii.

ed. Bened.

k Postquam typicum Pascha fuerat completum, et agni carnes cum Apostolis comederat, assumit panem qui confortat cor hominis, et ad verum Paschæ transgreditur Sacramentum: ut quomodo in præfiguratione ejus Melchizedech, summi Dei sacerdos, panem et vinum offerens fecerat, ipse quoque veritatem sui corporis et sanguinis repræsentaret. Hieronym. Comment. in Matt. xxvi. p. 128. tom. iv. part. 1.

1 Neque carnis et sanguinis victimas immolaverit, et brutorum sanguinem animalium dextra susceperit, sed pane et vino, simplici puroque sacrificio Christi, dedicaverit Sacramentum. Hieron. Epist. ad Evangel. p. 571. tom. ii.

in Exod. xxix. 20.

other way, and he exercised it in a different manner; not by sacrificing animals, but by dedicating or consecrating a Sacrament", in or with bread and wine: that is to say, with the simple and pure sacrifice of Christ alone, represented and exhibited by and under those symbols. This appears to be St. Jerome's sense, and his full sense. For like as he had, in a passage before cited, interpreted bread and wine by what they are signs of, namely, by body and blood of the Lord, so here he interprets them by the same thing, under the equivalent expression of the simple and pure sacrifice of Christ. And as he had in a second passage, before cited, interpreted the offering bread and wine, of a figuration and representation of the true body and blood, so he may reasonably be presumed to mean the same thing here. He calls the sacrifice of Christ, thus represented, thus exhibited, simple and pure, as not blended with any typical sacrifices or legal expiations, but standing perfectly clear of them, and nakedly viewed in its own simplicity, free from such legal incumbrances: represented, indeed, by symbols, but yet so represented as that the things signified, the body and blood, and the true expiation, are as plainly, as directly offered to every man's faith and understanding, as the signs are to the outward

n Recurre ad Genesim, et Melchisedech regem Salem hujus principem invenies civitatis: qui jam tum in typo Christi panem et vinum obtulit, et mysterium Christianum in Salvatoris sanguine et corpore dedicavit. Hieron. ad Marcell. p. 547. tom. iv. part 2.

N. B. Jerome considered Christ's body and blood as symbolically contained in the exhibitive signs: and no wonder, when in the same Epistle he could write thus: Sepulchrum Domini quotiescunque ingredimur, toties jacere in syndone cernimus Salvatorem, &c.

I interpret the dedicating a Sacrament in or with Christ's body and blood, in such a sense as St. Austin says, Mare rubrum - -passione et sanguine Domini consecratum. [In Psal. lxxx.] And, Unde rubet Baptismus, nisi Christi sanguine consecratus? In Johan. Tract. xi. That is to say, the Sacrament of Baptism is made an exhibitive sign of Christ's blood: which is, its consecration, or sanctification, or dedication, to high and holy purposes. The blood signified, and spiritually exhibited, by water in one Sacrament, by wine in the other, gives the holy sanction to both Sacraments: for without that, they would be no Sacraments at all.

senses, and both are alike spoken of in plain and clear terms. If it was not altogether so in Melchizedek's sacrament, or figurative sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, yet certainly it is in ours: and this consideration renders it vastly preferable to the legal sacrifices; though they also darkly were sacraments of the same things, and were much more valuable in that their sacramental capacity than in any other.

St. Austin often speaks of this matter. He understood the Melchizedekian sacrifice, (as opposed to Aaron's,) of sacrifice passively considered; not as offered to God, in a proper sense, but as exhibited to, and received, or participated by meno. The want of observing the difference between a sacrifice considered as actively offered, and as passively received, has made strange confusion in what concerns the Melchizedekian sacrifice, spoken of by the Fathers P. Yet this matter was clearly understood, as low as the times of Charles the Great 9, and much lower: and even Thomas Aquinas, of the thirteenth century, has given a just account of it; rightly distinguishing between the oblation of a sacrifice and a participation. To be

Quod ergo addidit, manducure panem, etiam ipsum sacrificii genus eleganter expressit.Ipsum est sacrificium, non secundum ordinem Aaron, sed secundum ordinem Melchisedech: qui legit intelligat.Quia enim dixerat superius, dedisse se domui Aaron cibos de victimis Veteris Testamenti, ubi ait, Dedi domui patris tui omnia quæ sunt ignis, filiorum Israel in escam. Hæc quippe fuerunt sacrificia Judæorum: ideo hic dixit munducare panem ; quod est in Novo Testamento sacrificium Christianorum. Augustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. xvii. cap. v. p. 466, 467. tom. vii. Conf. Ep. 177. p. 626. tom. ii. Et in Psal. xxxiii. p. 210, 211. tom. iv. In Psal. cvi. p. 1211. In Psal. cix. p. 1241. tom. iv. De Quæst. Octogint. q. lxi. p. 34. tom. vi. De Civit. Dei, lib. xvii. p. 435, 480. Contr. Advers. Leg. p. 570, 571. tom. viii.

See my Appendix, p. 199-202, 208.

¶ Jam verus Melchisedech, Christus videlicet, rex justus, rex pacis, non pecudum victimas, sed sui nobis corporis et sanguinis contulit Sacramentum. Carol. Magn. Capit. prolix. lib. iv. cap. 14. p. 520. Conf. Haynio Halberst. In Psal. cix. p. 597. Theodulf. de Ordinat. Baptismi, cap. 18. Anselm [sive Herveus Dolensis] in Hebr. v. p. 416. et in Hebr. vii. p. 423. Walafrid. Strab. de Reb. Eccl. cap. xvi. p. 674.

r In sacerdotio Christi duo possunt considerari, scilicet ipsa oblatio Christi, et participatio cjus. Quantum ad ipsam oblationem, expressius figurabat

short, as the sacrifices of Aaron, in their oblatory view, were no way comparable to the spiritual Gospel sacrifices, in their intrinsic value, or in regard to the Divine acceptance; so neither were the blessings, or the sacrificial feasts of Aaron and his altars, worthy to be named in comparison to the spiritual blessings, or spiritual banquet, given to believers, whether by the typical or the true Melchizedek. If we interpret what the Fathers say in relation to the Melchizedekian sacrifices, as opposed to the Aaronical, by this key, every thing, I presume, will be easy and clear: but without it all is confusion. I know but of one objection to this account, and that not weighty; namely, that the Fathers sometimes speak of Melchizedek as offering something to God, and not barely as distributing to Abraham and his company. But then let it be remembered, that the word offer is a word of a large and lax meaning, importing any kind of presenting, either to view, (as when Hezekiah spread a letter before the Lords,) or for consecration, or the like. And it is further to be noted, that the Fatherst, some of them at least, (as Am

sacerdotium Christi sacrificium legale per sanguinis effusionem, quam sacerdotium Melchisedech, in quo sanguis non effundebatur. Sed quantum ad participationem hujus sacrificii et ejus effectum, expressius præfigurabatur per sacerdotium Melchisedech, qui offerebat panem et vinum, significantia, ut Augustinus dicit, ecclesiasticam unitatem, quam constituit participatio Christi: unde etiam, in nova lege, verum Christi sacrificium communicatur fidelibus sub specie panis et vini. Aquin. part. iii. q. 22. art. 6. p. 61. * 2 Kings xix. 14. Isa. xxxviii. 14.

t Ambrosius, tom. i. p. 714. ed. Bened. Philastr. Hær. cix. p. 221. Hær. cxliv. p. 314, 316. Chrysostom. adv. Jud. Hom. vii. p. 671. tom. i. in Hebr. p. 128, 129. tom. xii. Augustin. contr. Advers. Leg. p. 570, 571. tom. vii. Eusebius, Demonstr. Evang. lib. v. cap. 3. p. 223.

Ambrosiaster well expresses that notion. Quantum est inter Aaron et Christum, tantum est quodammodo inter Judæos et Christianos; superiora etiam et sacrificia. Talia videlicet offeramus sacrificia, quæ in illud sanctuarium cœleste offerri possunt: non jam pecudem et bovem, non sanguinem et adipem ; omnia hæc soluta sunt, et pro eis introductum est rationabile obsequium. Quid est rationabile obsequium ?. Quod per animam, quod per spiritum offertur.Quid est Deum in spiritu adorare, nisi in charitate et fide perfecta, et spe indubia, et sanctis animæ virtutibus? Pseud-Ambros, in Hebr. vi. p. 443.