Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsHebrews 8
English College of Douai–Rheims
Read Hebrews 8 in the BibleHebrews 8:4
If upon the earth.
◦ It is by his death, and resurrection to life again, that his body is become apt and fit in such divine sort to be sacrificed perpetually. For if he had lived in mortal sort still, that way of mystical representation of breaking his body and separating the blood from the same, could not have been agreeable, and so the Church and Christian people should have lacked a priesthood and sacrifice, & Christ himself should not have been a Priest of a peculiar order, but either must have offered in the things that Aaron's Priests did, or else have been no Priest at all. For, to have offered only spiritually, as all faithful men do, that could not be enough for his vocation, and our redemption, and state of the new Testament. How his flesh was made fit to be offered and eaten in the B. Sacrament, by his death, see Isychius li. 1. in Levit. cap. 2.
- ◦ How Christ's body is made fit to be sacrificed and eaten perpetually.
Hebrews 8:5
Heavenly things.
◦ As the Church or state of the new Testament is commonly called Regnum coelorum & Dei, in the Scriptures, so these heavenly things be probably taken by learned men, for the mysteries of the new Testament. And it seemeth that the pattern given to Moyses to frame his tabernacle by, was the Church, rather than the heaven's themselves: all S. Paul's discourse tending to shew the difference betwixt the new Testament and the old, & not to make comparison between the state of heaven and the old law. Though incidentally, because the condition of the new Testament more nearly resembleth the same than the old state doth, he sometime may speak some-what thereof also.
- ◦ Kingdom of heaven & heavenly things, spoken of the Church.
Hebrews 8:10
Into their mind.
◦ This also and the rest following is fulfilled in the Church, and is the proper effect of the new Testament, which is the grace and spirit of love, grafted in the hearts of the faithful by the Holy Ghost, working in the Sacraments and sacrifice of the new law to that effect.
- ◦ Grace, the effect of the new Testament.
Their God.
[1] This mutual covenant made betwixt God and the faithful, is that which was dedicated and established, first in the chalice of his blood, called therefore [2] the new Testament in his blood: and which was straight after ratified by the death of the testator, upon the Cross.
- 1 The new Testament or covenant between God & man.
- 2 Luc. 22.
Hebrews 8:11
Shall not teach.
So it was in the primitive Church, in such specially as were the first founders of our new state in Christ. And that which was verified in the Apostles and other principal men, the Apostle speaketh generally as though it were so in the whole, as S. Peter [1] applieth the like out of Joel, and our Saviour [2] so speaketh, when he saith that such as believe in him, shall work miracles of diverse sorts. [3] Christian men then must not abuse this place to make challenge of new inspirations and so great knowledge that they need no Scriptures or teaching in this life, as some Heretics do: with much like reason and shew of Scriptures as the Protestants have to refuse external sacrifice. And it is no less phantastical madness to deny external sacrifice, sacraments, or Priesthood, than it is to abolish teaching and preaching.
- 1 Act. 2.
- 2 Io. 14. v. 12.
- 3 Scriptures abused for phantastical inspirations.
Original Douay–Rheims Annotations — English College of Douai–Rheims. CC0 1.0
Hebrews 8:3
Necessary that he also.
[1] Even now being in heaven, because he is a Bishop and Priest, he must needs have somewhat to offer, and wherein to do sacrifice: and that not in spiritual sort only, for that could not make him a Priest of any certain order. And it is most false and wicked, to hold with the Calvinists, [2] that Melchisedech's Priesthood was wholly spiritual. For then Christ's death was not a corporal, external, visible, and truly named sacrifice: neither could Christ or Melchisedech be any otherwise a Priest, than every faithful man is: which to hold (as the Calvinists following their own doctrine must needs do) is directly against the Scriptures, and no less against Christ's one oblation of his body upon the Cross, than it is against the daily sacrifice of his body upon the altar. Therefore he hath a certain host in external and proper manner, to make perpetual oblation thereby in the Church: for, visible and external act of sacrificing in heaven he doth not exercise.