III. The _Mediator_ of the covenant is the Divine Christ, the Angel of the Lord, whose apparitions of old “were prefaces to the Incarnation”--the Word, who was in the beginning, by whom all things were created, and who was made flesh. He is “the great God,” with St. Paul; the “true God,” with St. John; the “only Lord God,” with St. Jude. Scripture abounds in proofs of His Godhead. To the full meaning of these titles, as expressed by other texts in equivalent terms, the early Church’s belief in Christ’s Divinity, and the writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers, Ignatius, Justin, Irenæus, Clement, and Origen, bear concurrent witness. The fact of a Trinity in the Godhead is fully and clearly stated in Scripture. The admission of the mystery is reconcilable with reason; but no one can explain the secrets of the Divine nature, and it is only rational that, on such a subject, we should submit to the teaching of revelation. “All dispute about essence, and persons, and natures, and all the terms whereby either the Scriptures express themselves in this point, or the Church excludes the importunities of heresies from the true sense of the Christian faith, improves no man’s understanding an inch in this mystery. The service it does, is to teach men the language of the Church, by distinguishing that sense of several sayings which is, and that which is not, consistent with the faith. And if any man hereupon proceed, by discourse upon the nature of the subject, to infer what is and what is not such, his understanding is unsufferable.”[383] IV. The _method_ of the covenant is gracious. All its provisions depend entirely upon the grace of Christ. But salvation is not through any Divine predestination of the will of man. God determines not what the moral acts of His creatures shall be in themselves, but only the practical results of them. The soul is free from necessity, though not from bondage; and the doctrine of the predetermination of the human will is not the root but the rooting up of freedom and of Christianity. Nothing formally determines the will of man, but his own act. Predestination to the enjoyment of grace is absolute, but predestination to the enjoyment of glory is conditional, and has respect to character. The end _to_ which God predestinates is not the end _for_ which He predestinates. Grace is the reward of the right use of grace. Upon this entire subject, the tradition of the Church runs counter to Predestinarianism, to Arminianism, and to Pelagianism.[384] [Sidenote: ANGLICANS.--THORNDIKE.]