" Thou art a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech." [1] This subject the Apostle fully and accurately developes in his epistle to the Hebrews.[2] Christ not only as God, but as man, we also acknowledge to be a King: of him the angel testifies; " He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." [3] This kingdom of Christ is spiritual and eternal, begun on earth, but perfected in heaven: and, indeed, he discharges by his admirable providence the duties of King towards his Church, governing and protecting her against the open violence and covert designs of her enemies, imparting to her not only holiness and righteousness, but also power and strength to persevere. But, although the good and the bad are contained within the limits of.this kingdom, and thus all by right belong to it; yet those, who, in conformity with his commands, lead unsullied and innocent lives, experience, beyond all others, the sovereign goodness and beneficence of our King. Although descended from the most illustrious race of kings, he obtained not this kingdom by hereditary or other human right, but because God bestowed on him as man all the power, dignity, and majesty of which human nature is susceptible. To him, therefore, God delivered the government of the whole world, and to this his sovereignty, which has already commenced, all things shall be made fully and entirely subject on the day of judgment. [4]
" HIS ONLY SON"] In these words, mysteries more exalted with regard to Jesus are proposed to the faithful, as objects of their belief and contemplation that he is the Son of God, and true God, as is the Father who begot him from eternity. We also confess that he is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, equal in all things to the Father and the Holy Ghost; for, in the divine Persons nothing unequal or unlike should exist, or even be imagined to exist; whereas we acknowledge the essence, will and power of all to be one; a truth clearly revealed in many of the oracles of inspiration, and sublimely announced in this testimony of St. John: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God." [5]
But, when we are told that Jesus is the Son of God, we are not to understand any thing earthly or mortal of his birth; but are firmly to believe, and piously to adore that birth by which, from all eternity, the Father begot the Son; a mystery which reason cannot fully conceive or comprehend, and at the contemplation of which, overwhelmed, as it were with admiration, we should exclaim with the prophet: " Who will declare his gene ration?" [6] On this point, then, we are to believe that the Son is of the same nature, of the same power and wisdom with the Father; as we more fully profess in these words of the Nicene Creed: " And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, born of the Father before all ages, God of God, true God of true God, begotten, not made, unsubstantial to the Father, by whom all
