10. How divine is the gospel! 'Sin not.' 'If any man sin.' It gives us
different offices, are exercised in different acts. The Father is considered as the governor, and the advocate as a pleader.
10. How divine is the gospel! 'Sin not.' 'If any man sin.' It gives us comfort against the demerit of sin, without encouraging the acts of sin. It teaches us an exact conformity to God in holiness, and provides for our full security in Christ, a powerful advocate. No religion is so pure for the honour of God, nor any so cordial for the refreshment of the creature.
The doctrine I shall handle is this: Christ is an advocate with the Father in heaven, continually managing the concerns of believers, and effectually prevailing for their full remission and salvation upon the account of the propitiation made by his death. We shall see,
I. That Christ is an advocate, in some general propositions.
II. What kind of advocate he is.
III. How he doth manage this advocacy and intercession.
IV. That he doth perpetually manage it.
V. That he doth effectually manage it.
VI. That he doth manage it for every believer.
VII. The use.
I. In general, Christ is as much an advocate as he is a sacrifice, as God is as much a governor as he was a creator. As we say of providence, it is a continued creation, so of intercession, it is a continued oblation. As providence is a maintaining the creation, so this intercession is a maintaining the expiation, and therefore is by some called a presentative oblation. The heathens had some notice of the necessity of some mediator or intercessor, either by tradition from Adam, from whom the notion of a mediator might as well be
transmitted as the notion of expiation of guilt by bloody sacrifices.
But while they retained the carcase, they lost the spirit of it; and while they preserved the sentiment of the necessity of an advocate, they framed many wrong and unserviceable ones. They dubbed their heroes, and men that had been benefactors to them in the world, with this title after their death, and elevated them to be intermediate powers between God and them. Some of those demons are fancied to carry up their prayers to God, and back their prayers with new supplications;* others brought gifts from God. Some handed their petitions and pleaded for them; others brought the answers of their prayers and relieved them, which the apostle alludes to: 1 Cor. 8:5, 6,
'For though there be that are called gods, as there be gods many, and lords many; but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.' As they had many gods, so they had many mediators between themselves and those particular gods; but, saith he, 'To us there is but one God,' the principal cause, 'and one Lord
Jesus Christ,' the procuring cause of all things, by whose suit we are what we are, and enjoy what we have. This intercession of Christ was ancient; it is as ancient as his first undertaking our suretyship, by virtue of which the vengeance the sinner had merited was deferred.
He 'upholds all things by the word of his power,' Heb. 1:3, or his powerful or prevailing word, when they were ready to sink; not only as God by the word of providence, but as mediator by his word of intercession, that the guilty sinner might not be dealt with by the rigours of justice, but in the tenderness of mercy. As he was foreordained a sacrifice, so he was fore-ordained an advocate; as he was a lamb slain, so he was an advocate entertained, from the foundation of the world. His sacrifice, though not performed, could not have a credit with God, as it had, but his pleas upon the credit of that sacrifice must be admitted also. Thus were believers of old saved by him, and redeemed in his pity, as he was 'the angel of the presence' of God, Isa. 63:9, i.e. in the phrase of the New Testament, 'appearing in the presence of God for them,' Heb. 9:24, noting the manner of his intercession. He did, as an undertaker for them, interpose for their salvation; he 'bare them, and carried them all the days of old,'