MEANS OF GRACE

(See Ordinances and Sacraments .) The sacraments and other ordinances of the Church, through which grace is conveyed to souls prepared by faith and penitence to receive it. MEDIATOR. (See Jesus , Lord , Christ , Me iah .) A person who intervenes between two parties at variance. Thus our ble ed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Mediator between God and man. This appears from 1 Tim. ii. 5, “For there is one God , and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus .” When we call him a Mediator, we call him so, not only as he is our Redeemer, but also as he is our Interce or. “For, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father , Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John ii. 1.)— Archdeacon Welchman. It is to be remembered, however, that by a mediator here the Church means, not barely an interce or or transactor of busine between two parties, in which sense Moses was a mediator between God and the Israeli tes with respect to the ceremonial law; but such a mediator, interce or, and transactor, as can plead the merit of his own blood, offered up in man’s stead, to reconcile an offended God to sinful man. In this sense Christ is the only mediator between God and man, being both God and man.— Dr. Bennet. It has been already proved that Christ partook both of the Divine and human nature: and St. Paul expre ly says, “There is one mediator,” . Christ is represented, both in the Old and New Testament, as the only redeemer of mankind, as the only sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. His merits will extend to all who lived before and after the promulgation of the gospel. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. xv. 22.) “He is the Lamb which was slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. xiii. 8.)— Bp. Tomline.