acknowledged throughout to be the only object of any kind of spiritual
worship; the only Being who heareth prayer, to whom alone therefore all
mankind should approach with the words and with the spirit of
invocation. It has been argued by some writers, that in the times of the
Old Testament, prayer was not offered to God through a mediator at all;
and that as the one Mediator was not then revealed in his person and his
offices, the subsidiary intercessors could not of course act; and
therefore could not be invoked by man. The answer to this remark is
conclusive. That Mediator has been revealed in his person and his
offices; and has been expressly declared to be the one Mediator between
God and man: we therefore seek God's covenanted mercies through Him.
Those subsidiary intercessors have never been revealed; and therefore we
do not seek their aid. To assure us that it was the mind and will of our
Heavenly Father that we should approach Him by secondary and subsidiary
mediators and intercessors, the same clear and unquestionable revelation
of their persons and their offices as mediators would have been
required, as He has vouchsafed of the mediation of his Son. Had God
willed that the faithful should approach Him by the intercessions of the
saints and martyrs, is it conceivable that He would not have given some
intimation of his will in this respect? If believers in the Gospel were
to have unnumbered mediators of intercession in heaven, as well as the
one Mediator of redemption, would not the {45} Gospel itself have
announced it? Could such declarations as these have remained on record
without any qualifying or limiting expression, "He[14] is able also to
save to the uttermost them who come unto God by Him, seeing He ever
liveth to make intercession for them." "There is one God, and one
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." But this involves
the question to which the next section must be devoted. All I would
anticipate here is, that if the irresistible argument from the Old
Testament is sought to be evaded on the ground that no mediator at all