Tricoenivm Christi in nocte proditionis suæ The threefold svpper of Christ in the night that he vvas betrayed / explained by Edvvard Kellett.

PAR. 4.

BEllarmin (de missâ, 1.7.) Paterfamiliâs per se immolabat, reliqui per patrem familiâs; paterfamiliâs propriè, & per se immolante; reliquis per illum immolantibus, & volunta∣te, & participatione in sacrificium consentientibus: The Master of the Family, killed the passeover, by himselfe; others, by him, and in him; he properly, they, as Consen∣tients, and Co-parthers: yet Bellarmin determineth not, whether the eldest, or chiefest of the Family, were bound personally to doe it himselfe; so bound, that he could not depute another in his roome. I, for my part thinke, that, as the Primo∣genitus, or First-borne did willingly, and most ordinarily performe the duty, in his owne person: So, there were divers dispensable occasions, which might permit him, to consigne over that office, of preparing the passeover, for some times, to another, in his place, and, as his substitute, with vicariall power. Barradius (more peremptory than Belarmin) saith, Christ himselfe slew the passeover. Where is his proofe? That Christ himselfe [might] have slaine the passeover, I deny not: hee had a double right unto it; first, as Paterfamilias, or Master of the Family: secondly, as he was a Priest spiritually, of the order of Melchizedek, and had the fountaine of all authority, and Priesthood in him, as he was the eternall Priest; but, â posse ad esse non valet consequentia; from what he (might) have done, to what he actually did doe, is no good consequence; or, he might have done it; Ergo, he did doe it, is no good Argument: and the question is not, de jure, of the right; but, de facto, of the deede. This perhaps might be one reason, why he designed others to slay the passeover; lest, if he had slaine it himselfe; some mis-judging people might have beene deceived, and perhaps thought him to be a Priest lineally descended from Levi, or Aaron (who were not excluded from slaying the passeover, in their owne houses) but Christs pedigree is not counted from Levi, or his sonnes, Heb. 7.6. nor is he to be called Priest, after the order of Aaron, ver. 11. but appertaineth to ano∣ther Tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the Altar, ver. 13. For it is evident, the Lord sprang out of Judah, of which Tribe Moses spake nothing concerning Priesthood, ver. 14. Aquinas (part. 3. quast. 22. Art. 1. ad secundum) thus; Quia sa∣cerdotium

veteris Legis erat figura sacerdotii Christi, noluit Christus nasci, de stirpe figura∣lium sacerdotum, ut ostenderetur, non esse omnino idem sacerdotium, sed differre, sicut verum â figurali; that is, Because the Priesthood of the old Law, was a figure of the Priesthood of Christ: Christ would not be borne of the stocke of the Leviticall Priests, that it might appeare, that his Priesthood, and theirs was not all one; but that they did differ, as the truth from the shadow.