priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedec. (Ps. cix.) This order thus comes and descends from that Sacrifice; that Melchisedec was the Priest of the Most High; that he offered bread and wine; and that he blessed Abraham. And who was so much a Priest of the most high God, our Lord Jesus Christ ? He offered Sacrifice to God the Father; he offered the same as did Melchisedec,—that is, bread and wine, his own body and blood : and the blessing given to Abraham, now applies to our people..... But, in the book of Genesis, that the blessing given to Abraham might be properly celebrated, the representation of the Sacrifice of Christ, appointed in bread and wine, precedes it; which our Lord, perfecting and fulfilling it, himself offered in bread and wine; and thus he, who is the plenitude, fulfilled the truth of the prefigured image.” Ibid. p. 105.—He afterwards adds: “If Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, be himself the high Priest of his Father; and if he first offered himself a Sacrifice to him, and commanded the same to be done in remembrance of him; then that Priest truly stands in the place of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did, and then offers in the Church a true and complete Sacrifice to God the Father, doing what he ordained. For the whole discipline of religion and of truth is subverted, if that which was commanded be not faithfully complied with.” Ibid. p. 109.
I could quote many other passages from the letters of St. Cyprian, and from his other tracts, in which he speaks of the Christian Sacrifice of the New law, in terms the most plain and obvious, such as: “ We are mindful of you day and night, and when we offer up prayer in the Sacrifices.” Ep. xv. p. 25.-“ As often as we celebrate the anniversary days of the martyrs, we offer Sacrifices for them, (the relatives
