A treatise of the consecration of the Sonne of God to his everlasting priesthood And the accomplishment of it by his glorious resurrection and ascention. Being the ninth book of commentaries upon the Apostles Creed. Continued by Thomas Iackson Doctor in Divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Maiesty, and president of C.C.C. in Oxford.

CHAP. 8. That the omission of Melchisedech's Genealogie did import a speciall mystery; and what that mystery was:

MAy we hence averre, that every man men∣tioned in Scripture, whose birth, whose death or genealogie is not expressed, may be a true shadow or picture of the Sonne God, as he is eternall? Wee doe not, wee need not say so. The day is oftimes mentioned in the Scripture without any mention of the night. Yet to seeke after a mysticall sense in all such places, were to set our wits a wandring in a waking dream. But seeing in the Story of the worlds creation, wee find such accurate and constant mention of the evening and morning making one day, untill all the works of the sixe daies were accomplished, and no mention of any evening in the seaventh day which God did sanctify for a day of rest; wee may with the Ancients safely admit the first sixe daies to be as a Map, or Calender of the sixe ages of this transitory world, wherein there is a continuall vicissitude of light and darknesse, no joy or pleasure without sorrow and griefe, for their Suc∣cessors and companions; and the Mosaicall descripti∣on

of the seventh, to be an embleme or shadow of the everlasting Sabbath in the heavens, which shall be a day of joy and gladnesse, without mixture of dark∣nesse or succession of night, without any medly of paines or griefe.

2 By perfect analogy to this and the like, not more mysticall then orthodoxall interpretation of Scripture, not merely authoriz'd by the Greeke or Latine Fathers, but presuppos'd by our Apostle as unquestionable among the ancient Iewes, we may in∣ferre our intended conclusion: What was that? That the omission of every mans Genealogie, whose name or deeds are specified in the sacred Story, is alwayes a signe or token of some latent mystery? No, but ra∣ther thus; Seeing no King or Priest of Abraham's li∣neage were he good or bad; seeing no Patriarch from whom God's blessings did lineally descend, but hath a Genealogie upon sacred record, the omission of so great a mans Genealogie as was Melchisedech, who was a King and Priest of the most high God; a Priest which solemnely and really blessed him in whose seed all the Nations of the earth were to be blessed, unto whom Abraham paid Tithes of all that he had, The omis∣sion of such a mans genealogie doubtlesie includes some great and weighty mystery. And if wee stand not (as in many like cases we ought not) upon the lo∣gicall inference which the assertive letter affords, but follow the emblematicall, or characteristicall sense of the story, we may behold this man to be (as the A∣postle speakes) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that is, one transformed or turned out of his proper shape or likenesse, that hee might be like the Sonne of God. The absimilation of

this man (whosoever he were) from himselfe, that he might be li••e the Son of God, consists especially in the abandoning or putting off all references to father or mother, to wife or children: For these references in man necessarily represent a beginning and end of dayes, and by consequency a dissimilitude to the person of the Son of God, who is eternall, and to his endlesse Priesthood.

3 It was the speech of one man but is univer∣sally true of all, Mortalis mortalem genui, and it is as necessarily and essentially true of God, Immortalis immortalem gignit. For seeing God is more essential∣ly and more immutably immortall, more truly eter∣nall then we are mortal; Then he which is as truly the Sonne of God, as we are the Sonnes of men or Adam, must needs be as absolutely eternall as the Deitie or divine nature, or as God the Father himselfe: Other∣wise the generation should be equivocall and imper∣fect, not univocall; as contrary to nature it selfe, and as prodigious, as for a mortall man to beget an im∣mortall Sonne; as for a woman to conceive a God. And if there were no other places of Scripture (as God be praised there are plenty) to inferre the abso∣lute eternitie or eternall generation of the Sonne of God against the Arrian or other heretique, the very foundation of our Apostles similitude between Mel∣chisedech and Christ in the Chapter following, doth clearly represent thus much to all that look not on it with Iewish spectacles. To conclude then, as the great∣nesse and height of Melchisedech's calling serves as a map to represent the high Majestie of the everla∣sting Priesthood: So the omission of his genealogie

is an embleme or shadow of the infinite duration, or eternitie of the Sonne of God. Howbeit if we should take off this borrowed shape, or wipe out the artifici∣all colours wherewith it hath pleased the spirit to set forth this lively picture of Christ, yet the very table it selfe whereon the picture is drawne, is more apt then any other tree in all the garden of God besides, to be made an heavenly Mercurie. The fitnesse of it for this purpose will more easily be apprehended, if we suppose what the ancient Iewes (whose traditi∣ons where they are no parties are in no wise to be re∣jected) take as granted viz. That hee, whom Moses in the fourteenth of Genesis calls Melchisedech, was Shem the great, the sonne of Noah. This Shem was a man begotten of his father before the world that then was; our high Priest our heavenly Mercurie is the Sonne of God begotten of his Father before all worlds, before any period or instant of imaginary time, even from eternitie it selfe.