The Christian Life Part 2 Volume 2, Section 3
SECT. III. Of Christ's Priestly Office.
IN treating of which great and momentous Argument, I shall endeavour, first, to shew what the ancient Priesthood was, and in what Acts it consisted. Secondly, To prove that the ancient Priesthood in its proper Acts was a Type and Figure of the Priesthood of our Saviour. Thirdly, To explain the Priesthood, and Priestly Acts of our Saviour corresponding to that ancient Priesthood, in which they were prefigured.
First, What the ancient Priesthood was, and in what Acts it consisted. In the first Ages of the World it is evident, that in matters which concerned himself alone, every man was his own Priest. For thus in sacrificing to God upon their own particular accounts, both Cain and Abel officiated for themselves, but in Family-Sacrifices the Father of the Family was the Priest, as is evident by Noah and Iob, Gen. 8.22. Iob. 1.5. And when Families were multiplied into Tribes and greater Societies, the Prince of each Society was also the Supreme Priest of it; and hence before Aaron was consecrated, Moses, who was the Prince of Israel, officiated also as the Priest in that solemn Sacrifice by which the Covenant with Israel was confirmed, Exod. 24.6. And long before Moses, Melchisedeck, King of Salem, was also Priest of the most High God, Gen. 14.18. And it is evident that originally Kings were the High-Priests of their Countries. For so Aristotle observes, that foreign, to Rule and Sacrifice were Offices conjoyned in the same Person, Polit. l. 3. So also Virgil Aen. 3. Rex Anius, Rex idem hominum Phoebique Sacerdos, i. e. Anius in the same Person was King of Men, and Priest of Phoebus; upon which Servius hath this Note, Sane majorum haec erat consuetudo ut Rex esset etiam Sacerdos vel Pontifex; it was a Custom among the Ancients, that the King should be also Priest or High-Priest. Which Custom was continued for a long while in Aegypt, and from thence was derived to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans; for so Plut. Quaest. Rom. p. 279. tells us, foreign, i. e. Of old Kings performed the most and greatest parts of the Sacred Rites, and together with the Priests sacrificed the Victims; but upon their exceeding their due bounds, and taking upon them to domineer proudly and unjustly, many of the Greeks took from them all their Civil Power, and only left them their Authority to sacrifice to the Gods; but the Romans, as he goes on, utterly rejecting their Kings, appointed anoth…r to succeed them in the High Priesthood, whom they wholly debarred from intermedling with secular Affairs. Dionysius Halicarn. speaking of the power of Kings, expresly tells us, foreign, i. e. That they had the Government of all Sacrifices and Sacred Rites, and whatsoever was to be done to the holy Gods was done by them. And therefore the reason why Melchisedeck here is more particularly taken notice of under the Character of a King and Priest, was, not because there were no other Kings so but he, but perhaps because all other Kings that were Cotemporary with him were revolted to Idolatry, so that he only remained a Priest of the most High God. And in being a King and Priest together, he was a Type of our Saviour, who was a Priest, not after the Order of Aaron, but after the Order of Melchisedeck. Heb. 5.10. For in Aaron the Priestly Office was separated from the Kingly, which later remained in Moses, after he by the command of God had devolved the Priesthood, which was originally in himself, upon his Brother Aaron, and so according to divine institution the Priesthood was to continue in the Family of Aaron, separate from the Regal Power, till the coming of our Saviour, who reunited those Offices in himself, and became a Royal Priest after the ancient Order of Melchisedeck. For upon the separation of these Offices none could be a Priest of the Aaronical Order, but such as were descended from the Family of Aaron, and therefore Christ could not be a Priest of that Order, because he descended from the Family of Iudah, and being of the Royal Lineage he resumed the Priestly Office from the House of Aaron, and joyned it to the Kingly Office again, with which it was originally united; by which he abrogated the Priesthood of the Aaronical Order, and in its room restored the ancient Melchisedecan or Royal Priesthood. And hence the Author to the Hebrews observes, that Christ pertaineth to another Tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the Altar, for it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Iudah, of which Tribe Moses spake nothing concerning the Priesthood, Heb. 7.13, 14. and therefore by being a Priest of a different Tribe from that to which the Aaronical Order was confined, he disannulled that Order, and erected another in the room of it, viz. the ancient Order of Melchisedeck, which was before the Aaronical. Hence S. Ambrose in Loc. & quomodo translatum est Sacerdotium? Ex tribu ad tribum, de Sacerdotali ad Regalem, ut eadem ipsa sit Regalis & Sacerdotalis; & intuere mysterium, primum fuit Regale Sacerdotium Melchised…ch secundum consequentiam hujus sermonis; secundum etiam fuit Sacerdotale in Aaron; tertium in Christo fuit iterum Regale; i. e. How was the Priesthood translated? Why from one Tribe to another, viz. from the Sacerdotal to the Regal, that so it might be both Regal and Sacerdotal; and this is the Mystery; the first Priesthood of Melchisedeck was Regal; the second was Sacerdotal in Aaron; the third was Regal again in Christ. For that which distinguished the Melchisedecan from the Aaronical Priesthood, was not, as some imagine, the difference of their Sacrifice, viz. that Melchisedeck sacrificed only inanimate things, whereas Aaron sacrificed Animals also; for that Melchisedeck sacrificed, there is no doubt, because he was Priest of the most high God, but that he sacrificed inanimate things only, such as Bread and Wine, there is not the least intimation in Scripture; only it is said, that when he met Abraham he brought forth Bread and Wine, Gen. 14.18. that is, to refresh Abraham's Soldiers after their Battel with Chedorlaomer, as the manner was in those Countries, Vide Deut. 23.4. and Iudg. 8.15. and 6.15. And what is all this to his Sacrificing? But that he sacrificed Animate as well as Inanimate things, is evident, not only because animal Sacrifices were generally used before the institution of the Aaronical Priesthood, and it is very improbable that he who was so eminently the Priest of the most High God should never offer the accustomed Sacrifices; but also because Christ's Sacrifice was an animate one, who was a Priest after Melchisedeck's Order, and not of the Order of Aaron, Heb. 7.11. so that if the difference between these two Orders consisted in this difference of their Sacrifice, Christ must be rather a Priest of the Aaronick than the Melchisedecan Order. And how could the Acts of the Priesthood of Aaron be Typical of our Saviour's, which is Melchisedecan, as the Scripture all along makes them, if they were of a different nature from those of Melchisedeck? How could Aaron's bloudy Sacrifices be Typical of our Saviour's Priesthood, which was after the Order of Melchisedeck, if Melchisedeck's Priesthood admitted no bloudy Sacrifice? As to the Acts of their Priesthood therefore, for any thing that appears to the contrary, these two Orders were the same, but in this they apparently differed, that whereas the Regal Power was united to Melchisedeck's Priesthood, it was wholly separated from Aaron's, who in all probability was the first High Priest in the World that was not a King as well as a Priest. The Priestly acts therefore of these two different Orders being the same, we shall better understand the nature of our Saviour's Priesthood, though it be of the Order of Melchisedeck, by the account we have of the Aaronical, than by that of the Melchisedecan Order; because the former is far more distinct and particular than the later. For of the Acts and Functions of Melchisedeck's Priesthood there is very little mention in Scripture, whereas those of Aaron's are described at large in all their particular Rites and Circumstances. The Priestly Office therefore in general consists in officiating for sinful men with God, in order to the reconciling of God to them, and obtaining for them his Favour and Benediction. To which end there are two Offices necessary to be performed, First, to offer Sacrifice for them, and thereby to make some fitting reparation to God for their past sins and provocations; Secondly, To present that Sacrifice to God, and in the Vertue and Merit of it to interceed with God in their behalf in order to the Restoring them to his Grace and Favour. And accordingly we read of the Iewish High Priest, who of all their other Priests was the most perfect Type and Representative of Christ in his Priestly Office, and this more especially in Celebrating the Mysteries of the great day of Expiation, that on this day he was appointed to bring the Beast to the door of the Tabernacle, which was set apart to die for the Sins of the People, and to kill it there with his own hands; by which action he did, as the Peoples Representative, offer a life to God as a reparation for those manifold sins, by which they had justly forfeited their own lives to him; after which he was to take the Bloud of it, and present it before the Lord in the Holy of Holies, sprinkling it seven times with his finger upon and before the Mercy-Seat, by which action he interceded with God to accept that Bloud in lieu of the forfeited lives of the People; and accordingly the whole performance is called making an Atonement for the Children of Israel for all their sins once a year, Lev. 16 34. But for the fuller explication of the Priestly Office, it is necessary we should briefly explain these two essential Acts of it, viz. of sacrificing, and presenting the Sacrifice to God by way of Intercession for the People.
As for the first of these the Apostle tells us, that every High Priest is ordained to offer gifts and Sacrifices, Heb. 8.3. And that he is ordained for men in things pertaining unto God, that he may offer both Gifts and Sacrifices for sins, Heb. 5.1. It is true indeed to sacrifice, in a strict sence, i. e. to kill the Sacrifice, seems not to have been so peculiar to the Priestly Office, as to present the bloud of the Sacrifice before the Lord by way of Intercession, the later of which was so appropriate to the Priesthood, as that it was never allowed upon any occasion whatsoever for any but a Priest to perform it; but as for killing the Sacrifice, it seems that not only the Priests, but sometimes the Levites, vid. 2 Chron. 30.17. yea, and sometimes the People themselves were allowed to perform it, vid. Lev. 4.24, 29, 33. though it is probable that the Levites were allowed it only in cases of necessity, and the People only in private and particular sacrifice; but in the publick and general Expiation wherein Christ's dying for the sins of the World was more eminently expressed and represented, not only the presenting the bloud of the Sacrifice, but the killing it too, was peculiarly appropriated to the Priesthood. So that though in private and particular Expiations the People had a right to sacrifice, or kill the Victim, yet in all publick ones, such as our Saviour's was, that right was incommunicably inherent in the Priesthood. Now the killing of those sacrifices which were designed for expiations of sin, was a transferring of punishment from the People to the Victim; for, you must know, the Iews had two sorts of Laws, viz. Civil and Ritual; their Civil Laws were enforced according to their strictest sanction, with the Penalty of death, which Penalty, in many cases, allowed by God, admitted of this mitigation, that the life of a Beast should be accepted in exchange for the forfeited life of the Offender. Their Ritual Laws were inforced with the Penalty of legal uncleanness, and being separated upon that account from the Congregation and Publick Worship; which Penalty also was thus far relaxed, that if they offered the life of a Beast in Sacrifice, their uncleanness should be thereby purged, and themselves restored to the benefit of the publick Worship. In both which cases the Sacrifice was evidently substituted to suffer for the Offender, and in the first case he was substituted to suffer that very punishment which the Offender had incurred. And therefore you find that the greater Crimes were no otherwise to be expiated, but by the bloud of the Offender himself, whereas for lesser ones the bloud of a Beast was accepted, which is a plain Argument, that that punishment which in greater sins was exacted of the Criminal himself, was in the case of smaller sins transferred from the Criminal to the Sacrifice, and that the punishment of the Beast was instead of the punishment of the Man. And this is most evident in the case of the Scape-Goat, who upon the High Priest's laying his hands upon his head had the sins of the People transferred on him, and was thereby so polluted, that he defiled the man that led him into the Wilderness, who was therefore obliged before he returned to the Camp to lustrate himself by washing his Cloaths, and bathing his flesh in water, Lev. 16.26. And so also those expiatory Sacrifices, whose bloud was carried into the Holy place, and their bodies burnt without the Camp, had the sins of the People so imputed to them, and were so defiled by that Imputation, that they were ordered to be carried without the Camp immediately, lest they should defile the whole Congregation, and those who carried them out and burnt them, were so far actually defiled by them, that it was unlawful for them to return to the Camp, till they were legally purified; which is a plain argument, that in these Sacrificial Expiations the sin and guilt of the People was still transferred upon the Sacrifice, and consequently that the death of these Sacrifices was instead of the death of those Criminals; and accordingly, Lev. 17.11. we are told that it is the bloud, i. e. of the Sacrifice that maketh an atonement for the Soul. And indeed this was the sence which all Nations had of Expiatory Sacrifices, viz. that their death was instead of the Punishment due to the Offenders that offered them. For thus the Iews by making Expiation generally understand suffering Punishment for another in order to his being released from suffering it himself. For thus whereever it is said by them, Ecce me in Expiationem, the meaning is, En me in ejus locum, ut port…m iniquitates ejus, i. e. I stand in such a ones place that I may bear his Iniquities; and so, Ecce me in expiationem R. Chijae & filiorum ejus, i. e. castigationes quae obveniunt mihi sint in expiationem R. Chijae & filiorum ejus; Behold I am for an expiation of R. Chijah and his Sons, i. e. Let the afflictions that happen to me be for an expiation of R. Chijah and his Sons. So when all the People were to say to the High Priest, Simus nos expiatio tua, the meaning was, In nobis fiat expiatio tua, nosque subeamus tuo loco quicquid tibi evenire debet: Let us be thy Expiation, that is, let thy Expiation be made upon us, and let us undergo in thy stead whatsoever evil thou hast deserved, of which see more, Buxt. Lexic. Chald. p. 1078. And accordingly in the Form of Prayer they used at the killing the Sacrifice, they plainly expressed the substitution of it in the room of their own forfeited lives, Obsecro Domine, peccavi, rebellis fui, &c. O Lord I obsecrate, I have sinned, I have been rebellious, I have acted perversly, I have done this and that evil, of which I now heartily repent, let this be my Expiation, and let those evils which might justly fall upon my head fall upon the head of my Sacrifice, Outram de sacrif. p. 273. And so also for the Gentiles, Eusebius Demonst. l. 1. tells us, that they looked upon their foreign or expiations, as foreign, i. e. that their lives were a commutation for the lives of those that offered them, as who should say a life for a life; and accordingly Porphyry tells us, that the first original of the sacrifice of Animals was, foreign, i. e. Certain occasions requiring that a life should be offered for a life, Abstin. l. 4. and hence they were wont to curse the Sacrifice, and solemnly to impr…cate all those evils on it which themselves had deserved, vid. Herod. Euterp. & Serv. in Aeneid. 3. From all which it is abundantly evident that this Priestly Act of sacrificing or killing the expiatory Sacrifice, was nothing else but a translating the punishment that was due to the Offerer from his person to his Victim or Sacrifice. But then
Secondly, Besides this, another Sacerdotal Act was pres…nting the bloud of the Sacrifice to God by way of Intercession for the People. For when the Sacrifice was slain, the Priest was to take the bloud, and sprinkle some of it round about the Altar of burnt Offerings; and the rest of it, say the Jews, was poured out by the Priest on the Southside Floor of the Altar, where there were two holes through which it ran into a Channel that conveyed it into the Valley of Kidron; but in the Sin-Offerings for the High Priest and the Congregation, he was to carry the bloud within the Sanctuary, and to sprinkle of it seven times before the Vail of the Sanctuary, and to put some of it upon the Horns of the Altar of Incense, after which the Remainder of the bloud was to be disposed of, as was said before, on the Altar of Burnt Offerings. And at the great day of Expiation, the High Priest himself, having slain the Sacrifice, was to carry the bloud of it into the Holy of Holies, and there with his finger to sprinkle the bloud of it seven times before the Mercy-Seat. Now this sprinkling of the bloud was nothing else but a solemn presenting of the life of the sacrificed Animal to God, as an exchange or price of Redemption for the forfeited life of the Offender. For whatsoever was offered upon the Altar was always looked upon as religiously presented to God; so that by sprinkling the bloud on the Altar, which is the Vehicle of life, and therefore is sometimes called the Life, vide Gen. 9.4. the Life was solemnly tendered and presented to God as to the supreme Lord of life and death; and the meaning of this tendry, was to move God by way of Intercession to accept of that life instead of the Offenders, which was forfeited into his hands. For since, as a Learned Author of our own hath observed, all Divine Worship, whether natural or instituted, was either to implore or to commemorate God's grace and favour, this solemn sprinkling of the bloud in expiatory Sacrifices must necessarily respect the imploring of God's Pardon of those sins for which the Expiation was designed. So that in performing this Rite the Priest was a silent Intercessor with God in the behalf of the People, and his action was a solemn Deprecation, of which this was the natural language and meaning; O Lord I beseech thee be merciful to these guilty Supplicants, in lieu of whose bloud, which I acknowledge is justly forfeited to thee, I here present thee the life of this sacrificed Animal, whose bloud I am sprinkling on thy Altar, humbly imploring thee to accept it as a ransom for their lives, and in consideration of it to release them from that mortal penalty in which they stand bound to thy Iustice. Upon which Intercession of his, God's high displeasure was atoned, and the Priest thereupon Authorized to bless the People, i. e▪ to declare that God was appeased and reconciled to them.
And thus you see what the Office of Priesthood is, and in what acts it consists; in sum therefore it consists in sacrificing to God for the sins of the People, and interceding with him in the vertue of the Sacrifice to be propitious and merciful to them.
I proceed now in the second place to shew that both these Acts of the Priestly Office among the Iews, were designed and intended by God for Types and Shadows of the Priesthood of our Saviour. For as for the first, viz. Sacrificing, the Scripture plainly tells us that it was instituted for a Typical representation of the death of our Saviour. For so the Author to the Hebrews makes the Sacrificed body of our Saviour to answer to, and succeed in the room of the whole body of the Iewish Sacrifices, as the true Antitype of those Types and Shadows, Heb. 10.5, 6, &c. Wherefore when he cometh into the World, speaking of Christ, he saith, Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me, that is, a body to be sacrificed in the room of that former Sacrifice and Offering; In burnt Offerings and Sacrifices thou hast had no pleasure; Then said he, verse 9. Lo I come to do thy will O God; that is, to die a Sacrifice for the sins of the world; and hereby, saith he, he taketh away the first, that is, those Typical Sacrifices, that he may establish the second, that is, that great Sacrifice of Christ's body; for so it follows, verse 10. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Iesus Christ once for all, in which words he plainly makes all the Jewish Sacrifices in general to be Types and Figures of the great Sacrifice of our Saviour's Death. And indeed as those Sacrifices were all of them to be slain, and to be all sound and immaculate, they were so far forth at least express Types of our Saviour, both as to his death, and unspotted innocence and purity. But then as for those Sacrifices whose bodies were burnt without the Camp, they were more peculiarly Types than any of the rest, of our Saviour's Sacrifice, because they had not only all those things appertaining to them by which the other Sacrifices represented it, but besides that they were Expiations for sin, as well as the Sacrifice of our Saviour, and by their being burnt without the Camp did more eminently prefigure our Saviour's being Crucified without the City. Hence the Apostle, Heb. 13.10, 11, 12. We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle; for the Bodies of those Beasts whose bloud is brought into the Sanctuary by the High Priest for sin are burnt without the Camp, lest they should pollute the Congregation, as being defiled and cursed upon the account of the Peoples guilts which were transferred upon them; Wherefore Iesus also that he might sanctifie the People with his own bloud suffered without the Gate, that is, as an Expiatory Sacrifice, that took upon him the guilts of Mankind, and thereby became polluted and accursed; in which words the death of our Saviour is plainly represented as the true Antitype of the Expiatory Sacrifices of the Iews; and accordingly, as all Types have much less in them of that which they prefigure than their Antitypes, so those Expiatory Sacrifices had something of real Expiation in them, though much less than the Sacrifice of our Saviour. For so Heb. 9.13, 14. For if the bloud of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifie to the purifying of the flesh, (by which it is evident that there was a real Expiation made by those Sacrifices, so far as concerned the purifying mens flesh, i. e. releasing them from corporal punishments and legal uncleannesses;) How much more, saith he, shall the bloud of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your Consciences from dead works; where the same expiation in kind, that was made by those Legal Sacrifices, is expresly attributed, though in a much higher degree, to the Sacrifice of our Saviour; which plainly argues the former to be a Type and Shadow of the later.
And then as for the second Act of the Jewish Priesthood, viz. his presenting the bloud of the Sacrifice to God by way of Intercession for the People, this was also instituted for a Typical representation of our Saviour's presenting the bloud of his sacrificed body to God by way of Intercession for Mankind. And hence his bloud is called the bloud of sprinkling, which speaks better things for us than the bloud of Abel, Heb. 12.24. which is a plain allusion to the High Priest's sprinkling the bloud of the Sacrifice before the Mercy-Seat on the great day of Expiation, by which action, as I shewed before, he interceded with God to be propitious to the People in consideration of that bloud which he there presented in their behalf. And therefore as the Holy of Holies was a Type of Heaven, Heb. 9.24. and the High Priest's entering thereinto after he had slain the Sacrifice, a Type of our Saviour's entring into Heaven after the Sacrifice of himself, Ibid. verse 7, 11, 12. so the High Pries…'s sprinkling the bloud before the Mercy-Seat, was also a Type of our Saviour's presenting his bloud to the Father in Heaven, and there pleading it in our behalf; and hence he is said to have entered into the Holy place, that is, into Heaven the Antitype of the Holy of Holies, and to have obtained Eternal Redemption for us neither by the bloud of Bulls and Goats, as the Jewish High Priest did, but by his own bloud, Heb. 9.12. where the High Priest's entering into the Holy of Holies with the bloud of Bulls and Goats is plainly opposed, as a Type to its Anti-type, to Christ's entering into Heaven with his own bloud, and therefore the High Priest's interceding for the People in the Holy of Holies in vertue of the bloud of their Sacrifices must necessarily be Typical of Christ's interceding for us in Heaven in the vertue of his. Thus as God cast and contrived the Rites and Ceremonies of the Jewish Law in general into a prefiguration or visible Prophecy of the Mysteries of the Gospel, that so by those Emblematical Predictions he might intimate before-hand those glorious truths to pious and inquisitive minds, which he intended afterwards more plainly to reveal, (vid. Col. 2.17. and Heb. 10.1.) so particularly in the Jewish Priesthood he drew a rude draught and representation of the future Priesthood of our Saviour, that so by that figurative Sacrifice and Intercession he might visibly foreshew and intimate to the World the Sacrifice and Intercession of our Saviour. For thus it is evident from Philo that the Jews understood their High Priest to be a Type of the Eternal Word or Messias; for thus in his Allegories he makes the Temple to be an Embl…m of the World, foreign, in which God's first-born Divine Word is the High Priest; and in several other parts of his Writings he makes the High Priests Crown and Vestments to be Types and Representations of the dignity and perfections of the Eternal Word, by which it is evident, that by their Typical High-Priesthood the Jews were in some measure instructed in the nature of the Priesthood of our Saviour.
Thirdly, and lastly, I shall now proceed to explain the Priesthood and Priestly Acts of our Saviour corresponding to that ancient Priesthood in which they were prefigured. In General therefore the Priesthood of our Saviour corresponding to that ancient Priesthood consists in offering up himself a Sacrifice for our sins, and in presenting that Sacrifice to God in our behalf, and thereby interceding with him to be merciful and propitious to us. So that the Priesthood of our Saviour consists in these two acts:
First, In offering up himself a Sacrifice for our sins.
Secondly, In presenting that Sacrifice to God by way of Intercession for us; of each of which I shall discourse at large.