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Updated: June 22, 2025
Mediatorial priesthood, a very different thing from commissioned pastorate, has no place in apostolic Christianity, with the vast exception of its sublime and solitary place in the Person of our most blessed Lord. It gives us the certainty that, for every human heart which asks for God, this wonderful Christ, personal, eternal, human, Divine, is quite immediately accessible.
It was expedient that the Son of God should become man, that he might set us an example, sympathize with our griefs, vanquish our enemies, and abolish death: and equally so that he should be coequal with God in order to procure salvation for the lost world by the merit of his atonement; otherwise his obedience must have been imperfect, his sufferings unsatisfactory, and his mediatorial character, by which he was allied to both parties, incomplete.
In his last testament he had bequeathed his soul to God through the mercies of Christ, declining the mediatorial offices of the saints; and leaving no money to be expended in masses. Such notorious heresy could not be passed over with impunity, and the first step of the assembled clergy was to issue a commission to raise the body and burn it.
Before his eyes he had the sublime summit of abnegation, the highest possible pitch of virtue; the innocence which pardons men their faults, and which expiates in their stead; servitude submitted to, torture accepted, punishment claimed by souls which have not sinned, for the sake of sparing it to souls which have fallen; the love of humanity swallowed up in the love of God, but even there preserving its distinct and mediatorial character; sweet and feeble beings possessing the misery of those who are punished and the smile of those who are recompensed.
He is, however, known by his mediatorial titles, "faithful and true" to all covenant engagements; as the prophet of the church, he "declares the Father," making known the "word of God;" and his lordship is at once a warning to his enemies and security to his friends. "On his thigh," where he wears his sword, there is a legible inscription, indicating his universal and rightful authority.
Christ was not regarded as the only mediator between God and man, but the virgin Mary and the saints were exalted to share the mediatorial throne, the mother being more honored than the Son. Penance, counting of beads, works of supererogation, were believed to be more effectual in obtaining forgiveness of sin than living faith in our only Redeemer.
It is most frequently the emblem of purity, legal or moral. Much opposition from Jews and Gentiles was raised against his gospel, especially upon his exaltation to his mediatorial throne: but the opening of this seal discloses the Father's purpose to bear out his Son in extending his rightful conquests. He shall wound the heads over the large earth; therefore shall he lift up the head.
The Church, indeed, assigns her no parochial precedence; but public opinion, if it sets her beneath her husband, places her above all other ecclesiastical agencies. Tacitly she is allowed to have the right to speak of "our curates." Then, again, society assigns her a sort of mediatorial position between the Church and the world; she is the point of transition between the clergy and their flocks.
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