A53678:1384
A continuation of the exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the…
A continuation of the exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews viz, on the sixth, seventh, eight, ninth, and tenth chapters : wherein together with the explication of the text and context, the priesthood of Christ ... are declared, explained and confirmed : as also, the pleas of the Jews for the continuance and perpetuity of their legal worship, with the doctrine of the principal writers of the Socinians about these things, are examined and disproved / by J. Owen ...
London: printed for Nathaniel Ponder, 1680
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Having laid down this Matter of Fact, as that which was evident, and on all hands confessed, he observes upon it, that of that Tribe Moses spake nothing concerning the Priesthood.
[Greek or Hebrew], with reference unto which Tribe, [Greek or Hebrew], de qua Tribu. Being to prove that the Priesthood did no way belong to the Tribe of Judah: So that the Introduction 1of a Priest of that Tribe must necessarily exclude those of the House of Aaron from that Office, he appeals unto the Law-giver, or rather the Law it self. For by Moses, not the Person of Moses absolutely is intended; as though these 2things depended on his Authority: but it is his Ministry in giving of the Law; or his Person only as Ministerially employed in the Declaration of it, that our Apostle respects. And it is the Law of Worship that is under consideration. Moses did record the Blessing of Judah, as given him by Jacob, wherein the Promise was made unto him, that the Shiloh should come from him, Gen. 49. 10. And this same Shiloh was also to be a Priest. But this was a Promise before the Law, and not to be accomplished until the expiration of the Law, and belonged not unto any Institution of the Law given by Moses. Wherefore Moses as the Law-giver, when the Office of the Priesthood was Instituted in the Church, and confirmed by especial Law or Ordinance, spake nothing of it with respect unto the Tribe of Judah. For as in the Law, the first Institution of it was directly confined unto the Tribe of Levi, and House of Aaron, so there is not in all the Law of Moses the least intimation, that on any Occasion in any future Generations, it should be translated unto that Tribe. Nor was it possible without the alteration and abolition of the whole Law, that any one of that Tribe should once be put into the Office of the Priesthood: The whole worship of God was to cease, rather than that any one of the Tribe of Judah should Officiate in the Office of the Priesthood. And this silence of Moses in this matter, the Apostle takes to be a sufficient Argument to prove that the legal Priesthood did not belong, nor could be transferred unto the Tribe of Judah. And the Grounds hereof are resolved into this general Maxim, that whatever is not revealed and appointed in the Worship of God by God himself, is to be considered as nothing, yea, as that which is to be rejected.