8. Therefore observe further, that nothing of our own righteousness,
securing and perpetuating our standing before God, depends not in the least upon ourselves, but upon the mediation of Christ for us. If justification and pardon owe their continuance to Christ, they much more owe their first grant solely to the mediation of Christ.
8. Therefore observe further, that nothing of our own righteousness, or graces, or privileges, are to be set up by us as joint advocates with Christ before the tribunal of God in case of sin. The apostle saith not,
If any man sin, let him plead his former obedience, let him plead his habitual grace, let him plead his adoption, and by that challenge the renewing of God's paternal affection. Let him plead his present repentance. He strikes off our hands from all these by that one word,
'We have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous.' We must enter no plea but what Christ doth enter, and that is only his propitiation. The apostle hints not any matter of the plea of this advocate but this one.
Those that set up their own satisfactions, penitential acts, their humiliation, remorse, or their other glittering graces, mightily intrench upon the honour of Christ, and his standing office in heaven. They may be of some use in the accusations of our own consciences, but not before God's tribunal. It is certain our own righteousness sticks as close to us as our enmity to God. Nay, a secret confidence in it is the great citadel and chiefest fort and strength wherein our enmity against God and his righteousness lies. There is no man but is more willing to part with his sin than to part with his righteousness; and there is nothing we find more starting up in us in the actings of grace than the motions of spiritual pride. We would be eking out the merits of Christ, and be our own advocates. We would not let him manage the cause upon his own account, and by this we spiritually injure Christ in the work of mediation, as much as the papists do in setting up glorified saints and angels with him; may I not say, worse, since an unspotted angel and a perfected saint is a more meet mate for him than a spotted righteousness and grace?
9. Christ is a person in the Godhead distinct from the Father: advocate with the Father. The Father and the advocate are here distinct. A judge and an advocate are different persons, have