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."
Alas! How many of God's precious people, for want of a distinct knowledge of Christ in all his offices, are at this day sadly baffled with the sophistications of the devil? To instance no more than this one thing-when they have committed some heinous sin after light received, how are they, I say, tossed and tumbled and distressed with many perplexities! They cannot come to any anchor in this their troubled sea; they go from promise to promise, from providence to providence, from this to that office of Jesus Christ, but forget that he is, or else understand not what it is for this Lord Jesus to be an Advocate for them. Hence they so oft sink under the fears that their sin is unpardonable, and that therefore their condition is desperate; whereas, if they could but consider that Christ is their Advocate, and that he is therefore made an Advocate to save them from those high transgressions that are committed by them, and that he waits upon this office continually before the judgment-seat of God, they would conceive relief, and be made to hold up their head, and would more strongly twist themselves from under that guilt and burden, those ropes and cords wherewith by their folly they have so strongly bound themselves, than commonly they have done, or do.
Second Objection. But notwithstanding what you have said, this sin is a deadly stick in my way; it will not out of my mind, my cause being bad, but Christ will desert me.
Answer. It is true, sin is, and will be, a deadly stick and stop to faith, attempt to exercise it on Christ as considered under which of his offices or relations you will; and, above all, the sin of unbelief is "the sin that doth so," or most "easily beset us" (Heb 12:1, 2). And no marvel; for it never acteth alone, but is backed, not only with guilt and ignorance, but also with carnal sense and reason. He that is ignorant of this knows but little of himself, or what believing is. He that undertakes to believe sets upon the hardest task that ever was proposed to man; not because the things imposed upon us are unreasonable or unaccountable, but because the heart of man, the more true anything is, the more it sticks and stumbles thereat; and, says Christ, "Because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not" (John 8:45). Hence believing is called labouring, (Heb 4:11); and it is the sorest labour, at times that any man can take in hand, because assaulted with the greatest oppositions; but believe thou must, be the labour never so hard, and that not only in Christ in a general way, but in him as to his several offices, and to this of his being an Advocate in particular, else some sins and some temptations will not, in their guilt or vexatious trouble, easily depart from thy conscience; no, not by promise, nor by thy attempts to apply the same by faith. And this the text insinuateth by its setting forth of Christ as Advocate, as the only or best and most speedy way of relief to the soul in certain cases.
There is, then, an order that thou must observe in exercising of thy soul in a way of believing.
1. Thou must believe unto justification in general; and for this thou must direct thy soul to the Lord Christ as he is a sacrifice for sin; and as a Priest offering that sacrifice, so as a sacrifice thou shalt see him appeasing Divine displeasure for thy sin, and as a Priest spreading the skirt of his garment over thee, for the covering of thy nakedness; thus being clothed, thou shalt not be found naked.
2. This, when thou hast done as well as thou canst, thou must, in the next place, keep thine eye upon the Lord Christ as improving, as Priest in heaven, the sacrifice which he offered on earth for the continuing thee in a state of justification in thy lifetime, notwithstanding those common infirmities that attend thee, and to which thou art incident in all thy holy services or best performances (Rom 5:10; Exo 28:31–38). For therefore is he a Priest in heaven, and by his sacrifices interceding for thee.
3. But if thy foot slippeth, if it slippeth greatly, then know thou it will not be long before a bill be in heaven preferred against thee by the accuser of the brethren; wherefore then thou must have recourse to Christ as Advocate, to plead before God thy judge against the devil thine adversary for thee.
4. And as to the badness of thy cause, let nothing move thee, save to humility and self-abasement, for Christ is glorified by being concerned for thee; yea, the angels will shout aloud to see him bring thee off. For what greater glory can we conceive Christ to obtain ad Advocate, than to bring off his people when they have sinned, notwithstanding Satan so charging of them for it as he doth?
He gloried when he was going to the cross to die; he went up with a shout and the sound of a trumpet, to make intercession for us; and shall we think that by his being an Advocate he receives no additional glory? It is glory to him, doubtless, to bear the title of an Advocate, and much more to plead and prosper for us against our adversary, as he doth.
5. And, I say again, for thee to think that Christ will reject thee for that thy cause is bad, is a kind of thinking blasphemy against this his office and his Word; for what doth such a man but side with Satan, while Christ is pleading against him? I say, it is as the devil would have it, for it puts strength into his plea against us, by increasing our sin and wickedness. But shall Christ take our cause in hand, and shall we doubt of good success?
This is to count Satan stronger than Christ; and that
