brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the Most High
God. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High
God, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be the Most High God,
which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand. And he gave him
tithes of all." No other mention is made of Melchizedek until David
writes the 110th Psalm, and this was nearly one thousand years after
Abraham. The Psalmist writing by inspiration, and alluding beyond all
reasonable doubt to the Messiah, says, "The Lord hath sworn and will
not repent, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."
And then, again, the inspired record drops Melchizedek out of sight,
as it were, for another thousand years, and then once more brings him
to the front in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he is described in
glowing language as "first being by interpretation King of
righteousness, and after that, also, King of Salem, which is king of
peace; without father, without mother, without genealogy (R. V.) having
neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the son
of God, abideth a priest continually."

Comparing, then, the different allusions to this most remarkable
personage, the following inferences seem fairly deducible therefrom:
(1) Melchizedek, being made like unto the Son of God, is preeminently
the Old Testament type of the Lord Jesus Christ in his kingly and
priestly offices. Both Melchizedek and Christ are priests, and yet the
former is not of the chosen family. He is a Canaanite. He is,
unquestionably, greater than Abraham. Of his origin, his ancestry and
his descendants, we have no account. He brought forth bread and wine.
So did his antitype at the Last Supper. The priesthood of Melchizedek
was before that of Aaron. Aaron was a Levite, and Levi paid tithes to
Melchizedek in Abraham, his ancestor. And the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews argues most conclusively that since Melchizedek was without