and straitness of words, as to the freeness and conditionality of them,
which we are not able so well to understand; and, therefore, when Satan
dealeth with us about them, we quickly fall to the ground before him;
we often conclude that the words of the promise are too narrow and
strait to comprehend us; we also think, verily, that the conditions of
some promises do utterly shut us out from hope of justification and
life; but our Advocate, who is for us with the Father, he is better
acquainted with, and learned in, this law than to be baffled out with a
bold word or two, or with a subtle piece of hellish sophistication (Isa
50:4). He knows the true purport, intent, meaning, and sense of every
promise, and piece of promise that is in the whole Bible, and can tell
how to plead it for advantage against our accuser, and doth so. And I
gather it not only from his contest with Satan for Joshua, (Zech 3),
and from his conflict with him in the wilderness, (Matt 4), and in
heaven, (Rev 14), but also from the practice of Satan’s emissaries
here; for what his angels do, that doth he. Now there is here nothing
more apparent than that the instruments of Satan do plead against the
church, from the pretended intricacy, ambiguity, and difficulty of the
promise; whence I gather, so doth Satan before the tribunal of God; but
there we have one to match him; “we have an Advocate with the Father,”
that knows law and judgment better than Satan, and statute and
commandment better than all his angels; and by the verdict of our
Advocate, all the words, and limits, and extensions of words, with all
conditions of the promises, are expounded and applied! And hence it is
that it sometimes so falleth out that the very promise we have thought
could not reach us, to comfort us by any means, has at another time
swallowed us up with joy unspeakable. Christ, the true Prophet, has the
right understanding of the Word as an Advocate, has pleaded it before
God against Satan, and having overcome him at the common law, he hath
sent to let us know it by his good Spirit, to our comfort, and the
confusion of our enemy. Again,
2. There are many things relating to our lives that minister to our
accuser occasions of many objections against our salvation; for,
besides our daily infirmities, there are in our lives gross sins, many
horrible backslidings; also we ofttimes suck and drink in many
abominable errors and deceitful opinions, of all which Satan accuseth
us before the judgment-seat of God, and pleadeth hard that we may be
damned for ever for them. Besides, some of these things are done after
light received, against present convictions and dissuasions to the
contrary, against solemn engagements to amendment, when the bonds of
love were upon us (Jer 2:20). These are crying sins; they have a loud
voice in themselves against us, and give to Satan great advantage and
boldness to sue for our destruction before the bar of God; nor doth he
want skill to aggravate and to comment profoundly upon all occasions
and circumstances that did attend us in these our miscarriages-to wit,
that we did it without a cause, also, when we had, had we had grace to
have used them, many things to have helped us against such sins, and to
have kept us clean and upright. “There is also a sin unto death,” (I
John 5:16), and he can tell how to labour, by argument and sleight of
speech, to make our transgressions, not only to border upon, but to
appear in the hue, shape, and figure of that, and thereto make his
objection against our salvation. He often argueth thus with us, and
fasteneth the weight of his reasons upon our consciences, to the almost
utter destruction of us, and the bringing of us down to the gates of
despair and utter destruction; the same sins, with their aggravating
circumstances, as I said, he pleadeth against us at the bar of God. But
there he meeteth with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Advocate, who entereth
his plea against him, unravels all his reasons and arguments against
us, and shows the guile and falsehood of them. He also pleadeth as to
the nature of sin, as also to all those high aggravations, and proveth
that neither the sin in itself, nor yet as joined with all its
advantageous circumstances, can be the sin unto death, (Col 2:19),
because we hold the head, and have not “made shipwreck of faith,” (I
Tim 1:19), but still, as David and Solomon, we confess, and are sorry
for our sins. Thus, though we seem, through our falls, to come short of
the promise, with Peter, (Heb 4:1-3), and leave our transgressions as
stumbling blocks to the world, with Solomon, and minister occasion of a
question of our salvation among the godly, yet our Advocate fetches us
off before God, and we shall be found safe and in heaven at last, by
them in the next world, who were afraid they had lost us in this.
But all these points must be managed by Christ for us, against Satan,
as a lawyer, an advocate, who to that end now appears in the presence
of God for us, and wisely handleth the very crisis of the word, and of
the failings of his people, together with all those nice and critical
juggles by which our adversary laboureth to bring us down, to the
confusion of his face.
3. There are also the threatenings that are annexed to the gospel, and
they fall now under our consideration. They are of two sorts-such as
respect those who altogether neglect and reject the gospel, or those
that profess it, yet fall in or from the profession thereof.
The first sort of threatening cannot be pleaded against the professors
of the gospel as against those that never professed it; wherefore he
betaketh himself to manage those threatenings against us that belong to
those that have professed, and that have fallen from it (Psa 109:1-6).
Joshua fell in it (Zech 3:1, 2). Judas fell from it, and the accuser
stands at the right hand of them before the judgment of God, to resist
them, by pleading the threatenings against them-to wit, that God’s soul
should have no pleasure in them. “If any man draw back, my soul shall
have no pleasure in him.” Here is a plea for Satan, both against the
one and the other; they are both apostatized, both drawn back, and he
is subtle enough to manage it.
Ay, but Satan, here is also matter sufficient for a plea for our
Advocate against thee, forasmuch as the next words distinguish betwixt
drawing back, and drawing back “unto perdition”; every one that draws
back, doth not draw back unto perdition (Heb 10:38, 39). Some of them
draw back from, and some in the profession of, the gospel. Judas drew
back from, and Peter in the profession of his faith; wherefore Judas
perishes, but Peter turns again, because Judas drew back unto
perdition, but Peter yet believed to the saving of the soul.26 Nor doth
Jesus Christ, when he sees it is to no boot, at any time step in to
endeavour to save the soul. Wherefore, as for Judas, for his
backsliding from the faith, Christ turns him up to Satan, and leaveth
him in his hand, saying, “When he shall be judged, let him be
condemned: and let his prayer become sin” (Psa 109:7) But he will not
serve Peter so-“The Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn
him when he is judged” (Psa 37:33). He will pray for him before, and
plead for him after, he hath been in the temptation, and so secure him,
by virtue of his advocation, from the sting and lash of the threatening
that is made against final apostasy. But,
Fourth. The necessity of the Advocate’s office in Jesus Christ appears
plainly in this-to plead about the judgments, distresses, afflictions,
and troubles that we meet withal in this life for our sins. For though,
by virtue of this office, Christ fully takes us off from the
condemnation that the unbelievers go down to for their sins, yet he
doth not thereby exempt us from temporal punishments, for we see and
feel that they daily overtake us; but for the proportioning of the
punishment, or affliction for transgression, seeing that comes under
the sentence of the law, it is fit that we should have an Advocate that
understands both law and judgment, to plead for equal distribution of
chastisement, according, I say, to the law of grace; and this the Lord
Jesus doth.
Suppose a man for transgression be indicted at the assizes; his
adversary is full of malice, and would have him punished sorely beyond
what by the law is provided for such offence; and he pleads that the
judge will so afflict and punish as he in his malicious mind desireth.
But the man has an advocate there, and he enters his plea against the
cruelty of his client’s accuser, saying, My lord, it cannot be as our
enemy would have it; the punishment for these transgressions is
prescribed by that law that we here ground our plea upon; nor may it be
declined to satisfy his envy; we stand here upon matters of law, and
appeal to the law. And this is the work of our Advocate in heaven.
Punishments for the sin of the children come not headlong, not without
measure, as our accuser would have them, nor yet as they fall upon
those who have none to plead their cause.27 Hath he smote the children
according to the stroke wherewith he hath smitten others? No; “in
measure when it shooteth forth,” or seeks to exceed due bounds, “thou
wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east
wind” (Isa 27:8). “Thou wilt debate with it,” inquiring and reasoning
by the law, whether the shootings forth of the affliction (now going
out for the offence committed) be not too strong, too heavy, too hot,
and of too long a time admitted to distress and break the spirit of
this Christian; and if it be, he applies himself to the rule to measure
it by, he fetches forth his plumb line, and sets it in the midst of his
people, (Amos 7:8; Isa 28:17), and lays righteousness to that, and will
not suffer it to go further; but according to the quality of the
transgression, and according to the terms, bounds, limits, and measures
which the law of grace admits, so shall the punishment be. Satan often
saith of us when we have sinned, as Abishai said of Shimei after he had
cursed David, Shall not this man die for this? (II Sam 19:21). But
Jesus, our Advocate, answers as David, What have I to do with thee, O
Satan? Thou this day art an enemy to me; thou seekest for a punishment
for the transgressions of my people above what is allotted to them by
the law of grace, under which they are, and beyond what their relation
that they stand in to my Father and myself will admit. Wherefore, as
Advocate, he pleadeth against Satan when he brings in against us a
charge for sins committed, for the regulating of punishments, both as
to the nature, degree, and continuation of punishment; and this is the
reason why, when we are judged, we are not condemned, but chastened,
“that we should not be condemned with the world” (I Cor 11:32). Hence
king David says, the Lord hath not given him over to the will of his
enemy (Psa 27:12). And again, “The Lord hath chastened me sore; but he
hath not given me over unto death” (Psa 118:18). Satan’s plea was, that
the Lord would give David over to his will, and to the tyranny of
death. No, says our Advocate, that must not be; to do so would be an
affront to the covenant under which grace has put them; that would be
to deal with them by a covenant of works, under which they are not.
There is a rod for children; and stripes for those of them that
transgress. This rod is in the hand of a Father, and must be used
according to the law of that relation, not for the destruction, but
correction of the children; not to satisfy the rage of Satan, but to
vindicate the holiness of my Father; not to drive them further from,
but to bring them nearer to their God. But,
Fifth. The necessity of the advocateship of Jesus Christ is also
manifest in this, for that there is need of one to plead the efficacy
of old titles to our eternal inheritance, when our interest thereunto
seems questionable by reason of new transgressions. That God’s people
may, by their new and repeated sins, as to reason at least, endanger
their interest in the eternal inheritance, is manifest by such
groanings of theirs as these-“Why dost thou cast me off?” (Psa 43:2).
“Cast me not away from thy presence” (Psa 51:11). And, “O God, why hast
thou cast us off for ever?” (Psa 74:1). Yet I find in the book of
Leviticus, that though any of the children of Israel should have sold,
mortgaged, or made away with their inheritance, they did not thereby
utterly make void their title to an interest therein, but it should
again return to them, and they again enjoy the possession of it, in the
year of jubilee. In the year of jubilee, saith God, you shall return
every man to his possession; “the land shall not be sold for ever,” nor
be quite cut off, “for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and
sojourners with me. And in all the land of your possession, ye shall
grant a redemption for the land” (Lev 25:23,24).
The man in Israel that, by waxing poor, did sell his land in Canaan,
was surely a type of the Christian who, by sin and decays in grace, has
forfeited his place and inheritance in heaven; but as the ceremonial
law provided that the poor man in Canaan should not, by his poverty,
lose his portion in Canaan for ever, but that it should return to him
in the year of jubilee; so the law of grace has provided that the
children shall not, for their sin, lose their inheritance in heaven for
ever, but that it shall return to them in the world to come (I Cor
11:32)28
All therefore that happeneth in this case is, they may live without the
comfort of it here, as he that had sold his house in Canaan might live
without the enjoyment of it till the jubilee. They may also seem to
come short of it when they die, as he in Canaan did that deceased
before the year of jubilee; but as certainly as he that died in Canaan
before the jubilee did yet receive again his inheritance by the hand of
his relative survivor when the jubilee came, so certainly shall he that
dieth, and that seemeth in his dying to come short of the celestial
inheritance now, be yet admitted, at his rising again, to the
repossession of his old inheritance at the day of judgment. But now
here is room for a caviler to object, and to plead against the
children, saying, They have forfeited their part of paradise by their
sin; what right, then, shall they have to the kingdom of heaven? Now
let the Lord stand up to plead, for he is Advocate for the children;
yea, let them plead the sufficiency of their first title to the
kingdom, and that it is not their doings can sell the land for ever.
The reason why the children of Israel could not sell the land for ever
was, because the Lord, their head, reserved to himself a right
therein-“The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is mine.”
Suppose two or three children have a lawful title to such an estate,
but they are all profuse and prodigal, and there is a brother also that
has by law a chief right to the same estate: this brother may hinder
the estate from being sold for ever, because it is his inheritance, and
he may, when the limited time that his brethren had sold their share
therein is out, if he will, restore it to them again. And in the
meantime, if any that are unjust should go about utterly and for ever
to deprive his brethren, he may stand up and plead for them; that in
law the land cannot be sold for ever, for that it is his as well as
theirs, he being resolved not to part with his right. O my brethren!
Christ will not part with his right of the inheritance unto which you
are also born; your profuseness and prodigality shall not make him let
go his hold that he hath for you of heaven; nor can you, according to
law, sell the land for ever, since it is his, and he hath the principal
and chief title thereto. This also gives him ground to stand up to
plead for you against all those that would hold the kingdom from you
for ever; for let Satan say what he can against you, yet Christ can
say, “The land is mine,” and consequently that his brethren could not
sell it. Yes, says Satan, if the inheritance be divided.
O but, says Christ, the land is undivided; no man has his part set out
and turned over to himself; besides, my brethren yet are under age, and
I am made their guardian; they have not power to sell the land for
ever; the land is mine; also my Father has made me feoffee in trust for
my brethren, that they may have what is allotted them when they are all
come to a perfect man, “unto the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ” (Eph 4:13). And not before, and I will reserve it for them
till then; and thus to do is the will of my Father, the law of the
Judge, and also my unchangeable resolution. And what can Satan say
against this plea? Can he prove that Christ has no interest in the
saints’ inheritance? Can he prove that we are at age, or that our
several parts of the heavenly house are already delivered into our own
power? And if he goes about to do this, is not the law of the land
against him? Doth it not say that our Advocate is “Lord of all,” (Acts
10:36), that the kingdom is Christ’s, that it is laid up in heaven for
us, (Eph 5:5, Col 1:5); yea, that the “inheritance which is
incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, is reserved in
heaven for us, who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto
salvation” (I Peter 1:4, 5). Thus therefore is our heavenly inheritance
made good by our Advocate against the thwartings and branglings29 of
the devil; nor can our new sins make it invalid, but it abideth safe to
us at last, notwithstanding our weaknesses; though, if we sin, we may
have but little comfort of it, or but little of its present profits,
while we live in this present world. A spendthrift, though he loses not
his title, may yet lose the present benefit, but the principal will
come again at last; for “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous.”
Sixth. The necessity of the advocateship of Jesus Christ for us further
appears in this-to wit, for that our evidences, which declare that we
have a right to the eternal inheritance, are often out of our own hand,
yea, and also sometimes kept long from us, the which we come not at the
sight or comfort of again but by our Advocate, especially when our
evidences are taken from us, because of a present forfeiture of this
inheritance to God by this or that most foul offence. Evidences, when
they are thus taken away, as in David’s case they were, (Psa 51:12),
why then they are in our God’s hand, laid up, I say, from the sight of
them to whom they belong, till they even forget the contents thereof
(II Peter 1:5-9).30
Now when writings and evidences are out of the hand of the owners, and
laid up in the court, where in justice they ought to be kept, they are
not ordinarily got thence again but by the help of a lawyer-an
Advocate. Thus it is with the children of God. We do often forfeit our
interest in eternal life, but the mercy is, the forfeit falls into the
hand of God, not of the law nor of Satan, wherefore he taketh away also
our evidences, if not all, yet some of them, as he saith-“I have taken
away my peace from this people, even loving-kindness and mercies” (Jer
16:5). This he took from David, and he entreats for the restoration of
it, saying, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me
with thy free Spirit” (I Chron 17:13; Psa 51:12). And, “Lord, turn us
again, cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved” (Psa 80:3, 7,
19.)
Satan now also hath an opportunity to plead against us, and to help
forward the affliction, as his servants did of old, when God was but a
little angry (Zech 1:15); but Jesus Christ our Advocate is ready to
appear against him, and to send us from heaven our old evidences again,
or to signify to us that they are yet good and authentic, and cannot be
gainsaid. “Gabriel,” saith he, “make this man to understand the vision”
(Dan 8:16). And again, saith he to another, “Run, speak to this young
man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls” (Zech
2:4). Jerusalem had been in captivity, had lost many evidences of God’s
favour and love by reason of her sin, and her enemy stepped in to
augment her sin and sorrow; but there was a man [the angel of the Lord]
“among the myrtle trees” that were in the bottom that did prevail with
God to say, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; and then commands
it to be proclaimed that his “cities through prosperity shall yet be
spread abroad” (Zech 1:11-17). Thus, by virtue of our Advocate, we are
either made to receive our old evidences for heaven again, or else are
made to understand that they yet are good, and stand valid in the court
of heaven; nor can they be made ineffectual, but shall abide the test
at last, because our Advocate is also concerned in the inheritance of
the saints in light. Christians know what it is to lose their evidences
for heaven, and to receive them again, or to hear that they hold their
title by them; but perhaps they know not how they come at this
privilege; therefore the apostle tells them “they have an Advocate”;
and that by him, as Advocate, they enjoy all these advantages is
manifest, because his Advocate’s office is appointed for our help when
we sin-that is, commit sins that are great and heinous-“If any man sin,
we have an Advocate.”31
By him the justice of God is vindicated, the law answered, the
threatenings taken off, the measure of affliction that for sin we
undergo determined, our titles to eternal life preserved, and our
comfort of them restored, notwithstanding the wit, and rage, and envy
of hell. So, then, Christ gave himself for us as a priest, died for us
as a sacrifice, but pleadeth justice and righteousness in a way of
justice and righteousness; for such is his sacrifice, for our salvation
from the death that is due to our foul or high transgressions-as an
Advocate. Thus have I given you thus far, an account of the nature,
end, and necessity of the Advocateship of Jesus Christ, and should now
come to the use and application, only I must first remove an objection
or two.
[OBJECTIONS REMOVED.]
SIXTHLY, [I now come to answer some objections.]
First Objection. But what need all these offices of Jesus Christ? or,
what need you trouble us with these nice distinctions? It is enough for
us to believe in Christ in the general, without considering him under
this and that office.
Answer. The wisdom of God is not to be charged with needless doing when
it giveth to Jesus Christ such variety of offices, and calleth him to
so many sundry employments for us; they are all thought necessary by
heaven, and therefore should not be counted superfluous by earth. And
to put a question upon thy objection-What is a sacrifice without a
priest, and what is a priest without a sacrifice? And the same I say of
his Advocate’s office-What is an advocate without the exercise of his
office? And what need of an Advocate’s office to be exercised, if
Christ, as sacrifice and Priest, was thought sufficient by God? Each of
these offices is sufficient for the perfecting the work for which it is
designed; but they are not all designed for the self-same particular
thing. Christ as sacrifice offereth not himself; it is Christ as Priest
does that. Christ as Priest dieth not for our sins; it is Christ as
sacrifice does so. Again, Christ as a sacrifice and a Priest limits
himself to those two employs, but as an Advocate he launches out into a
third. And since these are not confounded in heaven, nor by the
Scriptures, they should not be confounded in our apprehension, nor
accounted useless.
It is not, therefore, enough for us that we exercise our thoughts upon
Christ in an indistinct and general way, but we must learn to know him
in all his offices, and to know the nature of his offices also; our
condition requires this, it requireth it, I say, as we are guilty of
sin, as we have to do with God, and with our enemy the devil. As we are
guilty of sin, so we need a sacrifice; and as we are also sinners, we
need one perfect to present our sacrifice to God for us. We have need
also of him as priest to present our persons and services to God. And
since God is just, and upon the judgment-seat, and since also we are
subject to sin grievously, and again, since we have an accuser who will
by law plead at this bar of God our sins against us, to the end we
might be condemned, we have need of, and also “have an Advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”