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and that it is his will to remit nothing of his own right except after his justice had been satisfied.

VIII. For the fulfilling of this mediation God has constituted his only-begotten Son the Mediator between Him and men,-and indeed a Mediator through his own blood and death: For it was not the will of God that, without the shedding of blood and the intervention of the death of the Testator himself, there should be any remission, or a confirmation of the New Testament, which promises remission and the inscribing of the law of God in the hearts [of believers].

IX. This is the reason why the second object of the Christian religion, in subordination to God, is Jesus Christ, the Mediator of this restoration, after the Father had made Him Christ [the Anointed One] and had constituted Him the Lord and the Head of the church, so that we must through Him approach to God for the purpose of performing [acts of] religion to Him; and the duty of religion must be rendered to Him, with God the Father; from which duty we by no means exclude the Spirit of the Father and the Son.

DISPUTATION XXXIV.

ON THE PERSON OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

I. BECAUSE Our Lord Jesus Christ is the secondary object of the Christian religion, we must further treat on Him, as such, in a few Disputations. But we account it necessary, in the first place, to consider the person, [qualis] of what kind He is in himself.

II. We say that this person is the Son of God and the Son of man; consisting of two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably united without mixture or confusion, not only according to habitude or [inhabitatio] indwelling, but likewise by that union which the ancients have correctly denominated hypostatical.

III. He has the same nature with the Father, by internal and eternal communication.

IV. He has his human nature from the Virgin Mary through the operation of the Holy Spirit, who [supervenit] came upon her and overshadowed her by fecundating her seed; so that from it the promised Messiah should in a supernatural manner be born.

V. But, according to his human nature, he consists of a body truly organic, and of a soul truly human which [vivificavit] quickened or animated his body: In this He is similar to other persons or human beings, as well as in all the essential and natural properties both of body and soul.

VI. From this personal union arises a communication [idiomatum] of forms or properties; such communication, however, was not real, as though some things which are proper to the Divine nature were effused into the human nature; but it was verbal, yet it rested on the truth of this union, and intimated the closest conjunction of both the natures.

COROLLARY.

The word aurofeos, very God," so far as it signifies that the αυτόθεος, σε Son of God has the Divine Essence from himself, cannot be ascribed to the Son of God, according to the Scriptures and the sentiments of the Greek and Latin Churches.

DISPUTATION XXXV.

ON THE PRIESTLY OFFICE OF CHRIST.

I. THOUGH the person of Christ is, on account of its excellence, most worthy to be honoured and worshipped, yet, that He might be according to God the object of the Christian religion, two other things through the will of God were necessary: (1.) That He should undertake some offices for the sake of men to obtain eternal salvation for them: (2.) That God should bestow on Him dominion or lordship over all things, and full power to save and to damn, with an express command, "that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father," and that "every knee should bow to Him, to the glory of God the Father.”

II. Both these things are comprehended together under the title of Saviour and Mediator. He is a Saviour, so far as that comprises the end of both: And a Mediator, as it denotes the method of performing the end of both. For the act of saving, so far as it is ascribed to Christ, denotes the acquisition and communication of salvation. But Christ is the Mediator of men before God in soliciting and obtaining salvation; and the Mediator of God with men in imparting it. We will now treat on the former of these.

III. The Mediator of men before God, and their Saviour through [impetrationem] the soliciting and the acquisition of salvation, (which is also called, by the orthodox, "through the mode of merit,”) has been constituted a Priest by God, not according to the order of Levi, but according to that of Melchisedec, who was "priest of the Most High God," and at the same time "King of Salem."

IV. Through the nature of a true and not of a typical Priest,

this Priest was at once both Priest and Victim in one person; which [duty] therefore He could not perform except through true and [solidam] substantial obedience towards God who imposed the office on Him.

V. In the Priesthood of Christ must be considered, the preparation for the office, and the discharge of it. (1.) The PREPARATION is that of the Priest and of the Victim: The Priest was prepared by vocation or the imposition of the office, by the sanctification and consecration of his person through the Holy Spirit, and through his obedience and sufferings, and even in some respect by his resuscitation from the dead. The Victim was also prepared by separation, by obedience, (for it was necessary that the victim should likewise be holy,) and by being slain.

VI. (2.) The DISCHARGE of this office consists in the offering or presentation of the sacrifice of his body and blood, and in his intercession before God. Benediction or blessing, which also belonged to the sacerdotal office in the Old Testament, will in this case be more appropriately referred to the very communication of salvation; as we read in the Old Testament, that kings also dispensed benedictions.

VII. The [apotelesmata] results of the fulfilment of the sacerdotal office are, reconciliation with God, the obtaining of eternal redemption, the remission of sins, the Spirit of Grace, and life eternal.

VIII. Indeed, in this respect, the Priesthood of Christ was propitiatory: But, because we also by his beneficence have been constituted Priests to offer thanksgivings to God through Christ, therefore He is also an eucharistical Priest, so far as He offers our sacrifices to God the Father, that, when they are offered by his hands, the Father may receive them with acceptance.

IX. It is evident from those things which have been now advanced, that Christ in his sacerdotal office has neither any successor, vicar, nor associate,-whether we consider the oblation both of his propitiatory sacrifice which He offered of those things which were his own, and of his eucharistical sacrifice which He offered of those also which belonged to us;-or whether we consider his intercession.

COROLLARIES.

I. We deny, that the comparison between the Priesthood of Christ, and that of Melchisedec, consisted either principally or in any manner in this, that Melchisedec offered bread and wine when he met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings.

HI. That the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ is bloodless, implies a contradiction according to the Scriptures.

III. The living Christ [repræsentatur] is presented to the Father in no other place than in Heaven: Therefore He is not offered - in the Mass.

DISPUTATION XXXVI.

ON THE PROPHETICAL OFFICE OF CHRIST.

I. THE prophetical office of Christ comes under consideration in two views, either as He executed it in his own person [conver satus] while He was a sojourner on earth, or as He administered it when seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father. In the present Disputation, we shall treat upon it according to the former

of these relations:

II. The proper object of the prophetical office of Christ was not the Law, though [explicuerit, He explained, or] fulfilled that, and freed it from depraved corruptions; neither was it exayyeλia, the επαγγελια, Promise, though He confirmed that which had been made to the Fathers; but it was the Gospel and the New Testament itself, or "the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness."

III. In this prophetical office of Christ are to be considered both the Imposition of the office, and the Discharge of it. 1. The Imposition has Sanctification, Instruction or Furnishing, Inaugu ration, and the Promise of assistance.

IV. (1.) Sanctification is that by which the Father sanctified Him to this office, from the very moment of his conception by the Holy Spirit, (whence He says, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth,") and, indeed, in a manner far more excellent than that by which Jeremiah and John are said to have been sanctified.

V. (2.) Instruction, or Furnishing, is a conferring of those gifts which are necessary for discharging the duties of the prophetical office; and it consists in a most copious effusion of the Holy Spirit upon Him, and in its [mansione] abiding in Him;"the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;" by which Spirit factum ut] it came to pass that it was his will to teach according to godliness all those things which were to be taught, and that [auderet] He had the courage to teach them,-his mind and affections, both concupiscible and irascible, having been sufficiently and abundantly instructed or furnished against all impediments.

VI. But the Instruction in things necessary to be known is said, in the Scriptures, to be imparted by vision and hearing, by a familiar [intuitionem] knowledge of the secrets of the Father, which is intimated in the phrase in which He is said to be in the bosom of the Father, and in heaven.

VII. (3.) His Inauguration was made by the baptism which John conferred on Him, when a voice came from the Father in heaven, and the Spirit, " in a bodily shape like a dove, descended upon Him :" These were like [litteræ fiduciaria] credential letters, by which the power of teaching was asserted and claimed for Him as the Ambassador of the Father.

VIII. (4.) To this must be subjoined the promised perpetual Assistance of the Holy Spirit, resting and remaining upon Him in this very [signo] token of a Dove, that He might administer [animose] with spirit an office so arduous.

*

IX. 2. In the DISCHARGE of this office, are to be considered the Propounding of the doctrine, its Confirmation, and the Result. X. (1.) The Propounding of the doctrine was made in a manner suitable both to the things themselves, and to persons; to his own person, and to the persons of those whom He taught with grace and authority, by accepting the person of no man, of whatsoever state or condition he might be.

XI. (2.) The Confirmation was given both by the holiness which exactly answers to the doctrine, and by miracles, predictions of future things, the revealing of the thoughts of men and of other secrets, and by his most bitter and contumelious death.

XII. (3.) The Result was two-fold: The FIRST was one that agreed with the nature of the doctrine itself,-the conversion of a few men to Him, but without such a knowledge of Him as the doctrine required: For their thoughts were engaged with the notion of restoring the external kingdom. The SECOND, which arose from the depraved wickedness of his auditors, was the rejection of the doctrine and of Him who taught it, his crucifixion and murder. Wherefore He complains concerning himself, in Isaiah xlix, 4, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought."

XIII. As God foreknew that this would happen, it is certain that He willed this prophetical office to serve, for the consecration of Christ, through sufferings, to undertake and administer the sacerdotal and regal office: And thus the prophetical office of

A synonymous expression occurs in page 132, Thesis LXXII; and in page 349, Thesis XI: In which the Latin phrase is, Confidentia est qua Deus ingenti Spiritu bonum desideratum prosequitur.

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