Section 5

Romans 8:34 — Who also makes intercession for us.

Chapter 1.

We have seen Christ sitting at God's right hand as a judge and king, having all authority of saving or condemning in his own hands and having all power in heaven and earth to give eternal life to those who believe — and the confidence this gives us.

Let us now come to his intercession and the influence it has into our justification and salvation. As it strikes the last stroke to make all sure, it is as great a stroke as any of the former. Therefore, as you have heard, there was an all-sufficiency in his death ('Who shall condemn? it is Christ that died'), a 'rather' in his resurrection ('yes rather, is risen again'), and a 'much rather' that he lives and is at God's right hand (Romans 5:10). The Apostle rises yet higher to a 'saving to the utmost' placed upon his intercession: Hebrews 7:25, 'Therefore he is able to save to the uttermost, seeing he ever lives to make intercession.' So that if you could suppose there were anything which none of all the former three could do or effect for us, yet his intercession could do it to the uttermost, for it itself is the uttermost and highest. If money would purchase our salvation, his death has done it, which he laid down as a price and an equivalent ransom (as in 1 Timothy 2:6). If power and authority would effect it, his sitting at God's right hand invested with all power in heaven and earth shall be put forth to the uttermost to effect it. If favor and entreaties added to all these — which often does as much as any of those other — were needful, he will use the uttermost of this also and forever make intercession. So that if love, money, or power (any of them or all of them) will save us, we shall be sure to be saved — saved to the uttermost, all manner of ways, by all manner of means, saved over and over.

For the clearing of this last general head — the intercession of Christ and the influence and security it has into our faith and justification — I shall handle two things, both proper to the text.

First, I will show how to all those other aforementioned acts of Christ for us, this of intercession is also to be added by him for the effecting of our salvation and the securing of our hearts therein. This the particle 'also' in the text calls for: 'Who also makes intercession for us.'

Then second, I will show the security that faith may assume and draw from this intercession of Christ, his praying for us in heaven: 'Who shall condemn? it is Christ that makes intercession for us.'

Chapter 2.

Toward the explanation of the first of these, two things are to be done.

First, to show how great, necessary, and excellent a part of Christ's priesthood his intercession and praying for us in heaven is.

Second, to show the peculiar influence that intercession has into our salvation, and the reasons for which God ordained this work of intercession for us in heaven to be added to all the former.

For the first, I will proceed therein by degrees.

First, it is one part of his priesthood. You must know that Christ has not entered into heaven simply as a forerunner (which has been explained) to take up places for you, but as a priest also — made a priest after the order of Melchizedek, which is more than simply a forerunner. Indeed his sitting at God's right hand is not only as a king armed with power and authority to save us, but he sits there as a priest too: Hebrews 8:1 says, 'We have such a high priest who is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.'

In the old Levitical priesthood the high priest's office had two parts, both of which together made them high priests.

First, oblation, or offering the sacrifice.

Second, presentation of it in the holy of holies with prayer and intercession to God to accept it for the sins of the people. The one was done outside, the other within the holy of holies. This you may see in many places, especially Leviticus 16:11–16, where you have the law about the high priest entering into the holy of holies. He was not to come into the holy place until first he had offered a sacrifice for himself and the people (verses 11 and 15), and this outside. Then second, when he had killed it, he was to enter with the blood of it into the holy of holies and sprinkle the mercy seat with it (verse 14, 17) and to go in with incense and cause a cloud to arise over the mercy seat. This you have also in Hebrews 13:11, where it is said that the blood of those beasts that were burned outside the camp was brought into the sanctuary by the high priest. And in Leviticus 16 you shall find the atonement made as well by the blood when brought into the holy place (verse 16) as by the killing of the beast (verse 11). Both these were acts of the high priesthood for atonement.

And this was done as a type of the priestly office of Christ and the parts thereof. So Hebrews 9:23 calls all those transactions under the ceremonial law the 'patterns' of things heavenly, instancing in this part of Christ's office in verse 24: 'For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands (as that was) which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us.' Now then in answer to this type, there are two distinct parts of Christ's priesthood:

First, the offering of himself a sacrifice to death, as Hebrews 9:26 — which answers to the killing of the sacrifice outside the holy of holies, for correspondingly he was crucified outside the city (Hebrews 13:12).

Second, he carried this his blood into the holy of holies — namely the heavens (Hebrews 9:12) — where he appears (verse 24) and there also prays in the force of that blood. The type of those prayers was the cloud of incense made by the high priest, as it is expressly interpreted in Revelation 8:3: the angel Christ is said to have much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints, which incense is his own prayers in heaven that he continually puts up when the saints pray on earth, and so perfumes all their prayers and procures all blessings for them.

Both these parts of his priesthood the Apostle John mentions in his first epistle, chapter 2 verse 2, where as he calls Jesus Christ a propitiation for our sins (that is, an oblation or sacrifice offered up for us), so likewise he calls him our advocate — both going to make up this his office. And indeed this latter of intercession and bringing his blood into the holy of holies (or heaven) is but the same action continued. That blood which he offered with tears and strong cries on the cross (where he likewise interceded) is the same blood he continues virtually to offer up with prayers in the heavens, making atonement by both. Only with this difference: on earth, though he interceded, yet he more eminently offered up himself; in heaven he more eminently intercedes and does but present that offering.

Second, this was so necessary a part of his priesthood that without it he had not been a complete priest. Hebrews 8:4 says, 'If he were on earth he should not be a priest' — that is, if he had remained on earth he would not have been a complete priest. Paul does not say that if he had offered that sacrifice on earth he had not been a priest, for that was necessary; but that if he had stayed on earth after he had offered it, he would not have been a priest — that is, a perfect priest. For he would have left his office imperfect and done it but by halves, seeing this other part of it (the work of intercession) still lay upon him to be acted in heaven. Thus the high priest, his type, if he had only offered sacrifice outside the holy of holies, had not been a perfect high priest, for to enter into the holy of holies and act the part of a priest there was the proper, peculiar work of the high priest as such. This shows that Christ had not been a high priest if he had not gone to heaven and officiated there as a priest (if I may so speak) as well as on earth. Indeed if Christ had not gone to heaven and were not now become a priest there, then the Levitical priesthood would still be in force and would share the honor with him, and the high priest would have to continue entering the holy of holies. So long as Christ was on earth, though risen, the types of the law held in force and were not to give way until all the truth signified by their ministry was fully accomplished — and so not until Christ had gone into heaven as a priest and there begun to do all that which the high priest had done in the holy of holies as his type foresignified. This is plainly the meaning of what follows in Hebrews 8:4 as the reason why Christ should not have been a priest if he had not gone to heaven not only as a king but as a priest too (as he had affirmed in verse 1): 'Seeing that there are priests upon earth that offer gifts according to the law.' The force of the reason lies thus: there are already priests, and of a tribe he was not of, that offer gifts on earth before he came into the world. Therefore if that had been all his priesthood, to be a priest on earth, they would plead prior possession, having been priests before him. He further backs his reason by noting that those priests served (as verse 5 has it) 'to the example and shadow of heavenly things' — and therefore it is only a real priesthood in heaven which must put them out of place. Until such a priesthood comes they must serve still, for the truth which these served to shadow out is not fulfilled until then. This you have also in Hebrews 9:8: the first tabernacle was to stand until a priest went into heaven and acted that office there. So if Christ will be a priest alone, he must become a priest interceding in heaven, or else high priests must come up again and share that office with him, and so he would as good as fall from his office and lose all that he had done.

Indeed thirdly, this part of his priesthood is of the two the more eminent — yes, the top, the height of his priesthood. This is held forth in the types of both those two orders of priesthood that were before him and figures of him, both that of Aaron and Melchizedek. First, this was typified out in the Levitical priesthood of Aaron and his fellows: the highest service of that office was the going into the holy of holies and making an atonement there. Indeed this was the height of the high priest's honor that he did this alone, constituting the difference between him as high priest and other priests. For ordinary priests killed and offered the sacrifices outside as well as he — every ordinary priest did that. But none but the high priest was to approach the holy of holies with blood, and this but once a year. Thus Hebrews 9:6–7: 'The priests' (namely those inferior priests) 'went always' (that is, daily) 'into the first tabernacle' (the court of priests outside the holy of holies) 'accomplishing the service of God' — namely, the offering of the daily sacrifice. But 'into the second' (namely the holy of holies) 'went the high priests alone every year.' So then this was that high and transcendent prerogative of the high priest then, which indeed made him high priest. And correspondingly the height of our high priest's office (although he alone also could offer a satisfactory sacrifice as the Apostle shows in Hebrews 9 and 10) comparatively lay in this: that he entered into the heavens by his blood and is set down on the Majesty on high, and in the virtue of his sacrifice there intercedes. I know but one place that calls him the Great High Priest (higher than Aaron) and that is Hebrews 4:14–16 — and it is in this respect that he is passed into the heavens, as it follows there.

Second, the excellency of this part of his priesthood was likewise typified out by Melchizedek's priesthood, which the Apostle argues to have been much more excellent than Aaron's, inasmuch as Levi, Aaron's father, paid tithes to this Melchizedek in Abraham's loins. Now Melchizedek was Christ's type not so much in respect of his oblation or offering of sacrifice (that work which Christ performed on earth) but in respect of that work which he performs forever in heaven. Therefore that clause 'forever' still comes in with the quotation and mention of Melchizedek's priesthood in that epistle — because in respect of that his continual intercession in heaven, Melchizedek was properly Christ's type. And accordingly you may observe in Psalm 110 when it is that the speech comes in, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek' — but when God had him sitting at his right hand (verse 1). So that as the transcendent excellency of Christ's priesthood was typified out by Melchizedek's rather than Aaron's (as being the better priesthood of the two), so this the most excellent part thereof was typified out thereby — namely that which Christ forever acts in heaven.

And third, to confirm this, you shall find this to be the top notion of this epistle to the Hebrews, and the scope of it chiefly to discourse of Christ's eternal priesthood in heaven and to show how therein Melchizedek was a type of him. This is not only expressed in Hebrews 7:21 and 25 where this same 'forever' is applied to his intercession (verse 25), but more expressly in Hebrews 8:1 where the Apostle puts the emphasis upon this part of his priesthood, saying that of the things which have been spoken (or which are to be spoken, for the Greek word will bear either), 'this is the sum' — or rather the head, the chief, the top of all, for the Greek word signifies as well the head and chief and top of all as it does the sum. And what is it that he thus professes to be both the main subject and argument of this epistle and the top and eminent thing in Christ he intends to discourse of? It follows: 'That we have such a high priest as is set down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.' He discourses of the priestly office alone both before and after, and in the following verses calls his ministry or office in respect to this 'a more excellent ministry' (verse 6), he being such a priest as was higher than the heavens as he had set him out in the latter part of the previous chapter. And therefore you may observe how in his preface to this epistle in the first chapter verse 3 he holds this up to our eye as the argument of the whole, saying: 'When he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.'

Indeed to conclude this: all his priesthood would have been ineffectual if he had not acted the part of a priest in heaven by intercession there. By his death he did but begin the execution of his office; in heaven he ends it. And if he had not fulfilled his office in both, the work of our salvation would not have been fully perfected — it was therefore as necessary as oblation itself. Not but that his death was a perfect oblation — it was perfect for an oblation, to which as such nothing can be added. There needed no more, nor any other price to be paid for us; by that one offering he perfects us forever (Hebrews 10:14) and became himself perfect thereby (Hebrews 5:9). And in Hebrews 9:12: 'By his own blood he entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.' Mark how before he entered by his blood into heaven he had fully 'obtained' a redemption, and that eternal — that is, forever sufficient. Having done so, he became through his intercession in heaven an applying cause of eternal salvation, as Hebrews 5:10–11 has it. So that as in his death he paid the full sum of all he owed (to which payment nothing can be added, not even by himself — though he would come and die again, it was made at that 'once' as perfect, that is for an oblation, as ever he himself could make), yet still by God's ordination there remained another further action of another kind to be added to this of oblation, and that is intercession, or praying for us in heaven. Otherwise our salvation by his death would not be perfected, for if his priesthood be imperfect, our salvation must needs be so. The presenting of that his sacrifice in heaven was the consummation of his priesthood, and the performance of that part there, the perfection of it.

Chapter 3.

To come now more particularly to show that proper and special influence that intercession has into our salvation, and what it adds to the oblation of Christ's death (though in its kind perfect) toward effecting our salvation; and so to show the more inward reasons why God ordained (for upon his ordination alone this is to be placed) this work of intercession in heaven to be joined with his death. Both these I shall put together promiscuously, for in laying down the reasons why God thus ordered our salvation to be brought about by intercession, the influence which intercession has into our salvation will appear therewith together.

The reasons either respect first God himself, who will have us so saved that he himself may be most glorified; or second respect us and our salvation — God ordering all the links of this golden chain of the causes of our salvation so as to make our salvation most sure and steadfast (as David in his last song speaks in 2 Samuel 23:5); or third respect Christ himself, whose glory is to be held up and continued throughout as the author and finisher of our salvation, beginner and ender of our faith and justification.

The first sort of reasons respect God himself.

First in general: God will be dealt with like himself, in and throughout the whole way of our salvation from first to last, carrying it all along as a superior wronged, and so keeping a distance between himself and sinners. Sinners are still to come to him by a priest and a mediator (as Hebrews 7:25 has it), upon whose mediation and intercession forever (as there — at least until the day of judgment) their salvation depends. Therefore though Christ in his dispensation of all to us downward carries it as a king, as one having all power to justify and condemn (as has been shown), yet upward toward God he carries it as a priest who must still intercede to do all that which he has power to do as a king. Therefore in Psalm 2, after that God had set him up as king upon his holy hill (verse 6), namely in heaven, and so had committed all power in heaven and earth to him — he must yet ask all that he would have done: 'Ask of me, and I will give you' (verse 8), says God to him. For though he is a king, yet he is God's king — 'I have set my king' — and by asking, God will be acknowledged to be above him. But more of this hereafter.

But second, more particularly: God has two attributes which he would have most eminently appear in their highest glory by Christ's effecting our salvation, namely justice and free grace. Therefore he has so ordered the bringing about of our salvation that Christ must apply himself in a more special manner to each of these — by way of satisfaction to the one, of entreaty to the other. Justice will be known to be justice and dealt with upon its own terms, and grace will be acknowledged to be free grace throughout the accomplishment of our salvation. You have both these joined in Romans 3:23–25: 'Being justified freely through his grace by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believes.' Here is highest justice and the freest grace both met to save us, and both ordained by God to be declared and set forth as verses 25–26 have it. I said before that God justifies and saves us through free grace so absolutely and freely as if his justice had had no satisfaction. Now therefore our salvation depending and being carried on, even in the application of it, by a continuation of grace in a free way notwithstanding satisfaction to justice — therefore this free grace must be sought to and treated with like itself and applied to in all, and the sovereignty and freedom of it acknowledged in all, even as well as God's justice had the honor to be satisfied by a price paid to it, that so the severity of it might appear and be held forth in our salvation. Thus God having two attributes eminently to be dealt with — his justice and his free grace — it was fitting that there should be two eminent actions of Christ's priesthood wherein he should apply himself to each according to their kind and as the nature and glory of each requires. Accordingly in his death he deals with justice by laying down a sufficient price, and in his intercession he entreats free grace, and so both come to be alike acknowledged. In Hebrews 4:16 we are encouraged to come boldly 'to the throne of grace' because we have a high priest entered into the heavens: observe how it is called 'a throne of grace,' which our high priest now in heaven officiates at. So called because his priesthood there deals with free grace chiefly — it is a throne of grace and is to be sued to as such. Therefore he treats with God by way of intercession. Of this throne of grace in heaven the mercy seat in the holy of holies was the type. And as there the high priest was to bring the blood and the mercy seat together (he was to sprinkle the blood upon it), so Christ. And as the high priest was to go into the holy of holies by blood, so also with incense (that is, prayer), to show that heaven is not opened by mere justice or bringing only a price in hand for it, but by grace also, and that must be entreated. Therefore when the priest was within that holy place he was to make a cloud over the mercy seat (which cloud of incense is prayer, whereof incense was the type, as Revelation 8:3 shows). And from this it is that Christ has as much work of it still in heaven as ever, though of another kind: he dealt with justice here below to satisfy it and here got money enough to pay the debt, but in heaven he deals with mercy. Therefore all the grace he bestows on us he is said first to receive even now when in heaven: Acts 2:33 says of him, after his going to heaven and being exalted, that he received the promise of the Spirit, which in John 14:16 he told them he would pray for. And this is part of the meaning of Psalm 68:18: 'He ascended up on high and received gifts for men,' says the psalmist. The Apostle renders it 'gave' in Ephesians 4, but you see it was by receiving them first as fruits of his intercession and asking after his ascending. He is said both to give (as being all of his own purchase, and as having power as a king both to do and bestow all he does) and yet also to receive all that he gives, because as a priest he intercedes for it and asks it. Free grace requires this.

Indeed, secondly, Justice itself might stand a little upon it, though there was enough in Christ his death to satisfy it; yet having been wronged, it stood thus far upon it (as those to whom a debt is due, use to do), namely, to have the money brought home to God's dwelling house, and laid down there. God is resolved not to stoop one whit to man, no nor to Christ his Surety. Justice will not only be satisfied, and have a sufficient ransom collected and paid, as at Christ's death; but he must come and bring his bags up to heaven: justice will be paid it upon the Mercy-seat. For so in the type the blood was to be carried into the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled upon the Mercy-seat. And therefore his Resurrection, Ascension, etc. were but as the breaking through all enemies, and subduing them, to the end to bring this price or satisfaction to the Mercy-seat; and so God having his money by him, might not want wherewithal to pardon sinners: so as the blood of Christ is current money, not only on earth, but in heaven too, where all is brought, which is for our comfort, that all the treasure which should satisfy God, is safely conveyed there, and our Surety with it.

The second sort of reasons why God ordained Christ's intercession to be joined to his Death, are taken from what was the best way to effect and make sure our salvation, and secure our hearts therein: and these reasons will show the peculiar influence that Intercession has into our Salvation, and therein as in the former.

First in general, God would have our salvation made sure, and us saved all manner of ways, over and over. By ransom and price (as captives are redeemed), which was done by his Death, which of itself was enough; for it is said (Hebrews 10) to perfect us for ever. By power and rescue; so in his Resurrection, and Ascension, and sitting at God's right hand which also was sufficient. Then again by Intercession, a way of favor and entreaty; and this likewise would have been enough, but God would have all ways concur in it; whereof notwithstanding not one could fail; a threefold cord, whereof each twine were strong enough, but all together must of necessity hold.

Secondly, the whole application of his redemption, both in justifying and saving of us first and last, has a special dependence upon this his Intercession. This all divines on all sides do attribute to it while they put this difference between the influence of his death, and that of his intercession into our salvation; calling his death Medium impetrationis; that is, the means of procurement or obtaining it for us; but his intercession, Medium applicationis, the means of applying all to us. Christ purchases salvation by the one, but possesses us of it by the other. Some have attributed the application of Justification to his Resurrection; but it is much more proper to ascribe it to his Intercession; (and what causal influence his Resurrection has into our Justification, has been before in the third Section declared.) But that his eternal Priesthood in heaven, and the work of its Intercession, is the applying cause of our eternal salvation, in all the parts of it, first and last, seems to me to be the result of the connection of the 8th, 9th, and 10th verses of chapter 5 of Hebrews: For having spoken of his obedience and sufferings to death, verse 8, and how he thereby was made perfect, verse 9, he says, And being (thus first) made perfect, he became [the Author] (or applying cause, [illegible]) of eternal salvation, to all them that obey him; and this by his being become an eternal Priest in heaven, after he was thus perfected by sufferings: for so it follows, verse 10, Called of God a High-priest, after the order of Melchizedek. And Melchizedek's Priesthood was principally the type of his Priesthood in heaven, as was before declared. One leading instance to show that his Intercession was to be the applying cause of salvation, was given by Christ, while he was on earth, thereby manifesting what much more was to be done by him in heaven, through his Intercession there: when he was on the Cross, and as then offering that great sacrifice for sin, he at that time also joined prayers for the justification of those that crucified him, Father, [forgive] them, for they know not what they do: So fulfilling that in (Isaiah 53, last verse) He bore the sins of many, and made Intercession for the transgressors. And the efficacy of that prayer then put up, was the cause of the conversion of those three thousand (Acts 2), whom verse 35 the Apostle had expressly charged with the crucifying of Christ, whom you by wicked hands have taken, crucified, and slain. These were the first fruits of his Intercession, whose prayers still do reap and bring in the rest of the crop, which in all ages is to grow up to God on earth.

3. And more particularly, as the whole application in general, so our Justification, in the whole progress of it, depends upon Christ's Intercession.

First, our initial justification (which is given to us at our first conversion) depends upon Christ's intercession. Therefore in the aforementioned prayer on the cross, the thing he prayed for was forgiveness: 'Father, forgive them.' You heard before that Christ's death affords the matter of our justification, being that which is imputed — the ransom, the price, the thing itself that satisfies. And his resurrection was the original act of God's justifying us in Christ — we were virtually justified then in Christ being justified as a common person. But besides all this, there is a personal or actual justification to be bestowed upon us — an accounting and bestowing of it upon us in our own persons — which is done when we believe, and is called in Romans 5:1 being justified by faith, and in verse 10 receiving the atonement. Now this depends upon Christ's intercession, and it was typified out by Moses sprinkling the people with blood (mentioned in Hebrews 9:19), which thing Jesus Christ as mediator and priest now does from heaven. For Hebrews 12:24 says, 'You are come to heaven and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant' and as it is next adjoined, 'to the blood of sprinkling' — he shed his blood on the cross on earth, but he sprinkles it now as a priest from heaven. It is on Mount Zion, to which he had said in the previous verse that you are come, and so to Christ as a mediator standing on that mount and sprinkling from there his blood. And there is in this an allusion to Moses, Christ's type, who sprinkled the people with the blood of that ceremonial covenant, the type of the covenant of grace. Now in 1 Peter 1:2 the sprinkling of Christ's blood as it is made the more proper work of Christ himself in distinction from the other persons (and therefore was done by Moses, who was his type) is also put for our first justification. And this sprinkling (as it is there mentioned) is from the virtue of his intercession. Therefore in that place in Hebrews just cited, he attributes an intercession to it as the phrase that follows ('which speaks better things') implies. Yet concerning this first head, let me add this by way of caution: though our first justification is to be ascribed to his intercession, yet intercession is more eminently ordained for the accomplishing of our salvation, and this other is more rarely attributed to it in the scriptures.

Second, the continuation of our justification depends upon it. And as his intercession is the virtual continuation of his sacrifice, so it is the continuing cause of our justification. Though justification is an act done once as fully as ever, yet it is done over every moment, for it is continued by acts of free grace and so renewed actually every moment. There is a standing in grace by Christ spoken of in Romans 5:2 as well as a first access by Christ, and that standing in grace and continuing in it is afterward in verse 11 attributed to his life — that is, as it is interpreted in Hebrews 7:25, his living ever to intercede. We owe our standing in grace every moment to his sitting in heaven and interceding every moment. There is no fresh act of justification that goes forth without a fresh act of intercession. And as though God created the world once for all, yet every moment he is said to create (every new act of providence being a new creation) — so likewise he justifies continually, through his continuing out free grace to justify as at first. And this Christ does by continuing his intercession: he continues a priest forever, and so we continue to be justified forever.

Third, there is hereby a full security given us of justification to be continued forever. The danger either must lie in old sins coming into remembrance, or from sins newly to be committed. Now first, God hereby takes order that no old sins shall come up into remembrance to trouble his thoughts (as in the old law, after the priest's going into the holy of holies, their sins are said yet to have done so, Hebrews 10:3). To that end he placed Christ as his remembrancer for us, so near him, to take up his thoughts so fully with his obedience that our sins might not come into mind. Not that God needed this help to put himself in mind, but only for a formality's sake, that things being thus really carried between God and Christ for us according to a way suiting with our apprehensions, our faith might be strengthened against all suppositions and fears of our guilt being afterward revived. Look therefore, as God ordained the rainbow in the heavens so that when he looked on it he might remember his covenant never to destroy the world again by water — so he has set Christ as the rainbow about his throne. And look as the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper are appointed on earth to show forth Christ's death as a remembrancer to us, so is Christ himself appointed in heaven to show forth his death really as a remembrancer thereof to his Father. The two are correspondent to each other. Only the papists have perverted the use of the Lord's Supper by making it on earth a commemorative sacrifice to God, when it is but a remembrancer to men. Besides, their priests therein take upon themselves this very office of presenting this sacrifice to God, which is proper only to Christ in heaven. But God, when he would make sure not to be tempted to remember our sins any more nor trouble himself with them, has set his Christ beside him to put him in mind of so pleasing an offering. So the high priest's going into the holy of holies was for a memorial, and therein the type of Christ. And this is plainly and expressly made the use of this execution of his priestly office in heaven in Hebrews 8, where the Apostle having discoursed of that part of his office (as the chief thing he aimed at in this epistle, verse 1, and of the necessity of it in verses 3–5, and of the excellence of it in this respect in verse 6) then shows how from this the new covenant of pardon came to be sure and steadfast and God will remember our sins no more (verse 12) — which he brings in there as the proper use of this doctrine and of this part of his priesthood.

Second, as by reason of intercession God does not remember old sins, so likewise he is not provoked by new ones. For though God when he justifies us should forgive all old sins past forever so as never to remember them more, yet new ones would break forth and he could not but take notice of them. So long as sin continues there is need of a continuing intercession. Therefore for securing us in this it is said in Romans 5:10: 'If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.' Here we see that his death is in some more special manner said to procure reconciliation at first for sins of unregenerate life and to bring us to Christ, but then his life and intercession (or living to intercede) is said to keep God and us friends so that we may never fall out again. What Christ did on earth more especially procures reconciliation for sins which we commit in the state of nature, so that notwithstanding them God resolves to turn us from that state and draw us to Christ. But sins which we commit after conversion (though pardoned also by his death) have their pardon more especially attributed to his life and intercession, as a daily preservative, a continual plaster (as some call it) to heal such sins. So it would seem that God out of his eternal love brings us to Christ and draws us to him through beholding the reconciliation wrought by his death, and so gives us at first conversion to Christ. And we being brought to him, he sprinkles us with his blood, and then God says to him: 'Now take their cause in hand, that they and I fall out no more.' And to that end Christ takes our cause in hand by that eternal priesthood of his and from that time begins more especially to intercede for us. Thus sins after the state of grace may be said more eminently to be taken away by that part of his priesthood which he now performs in heaven. That place also in 1 John 2:1–2 seems to make this the great end of intercession: 'If any man sin' (that is, if any of the company of believers, to whom alone he wrote) 'we have an advocate with the Father' — so that intercession principally serves for sins to come or committed after grace received. Thus also in his prayer in John 17, which was left as a pattern of his intercession in heaven, he prays for his elect as believers: 'I pray for them that shall believe through their word.' Not but that sins after conversion are taken away by his death and sins before it by his intercession also (for Christ interceded for those who crucified him and by virtue of that intercession those three thousand were converted, as was observed). The meaning only is that yet more eminently the work of reconciliation for sins before conversion is attributed to his death, and for sins after conversion to his intercession — even as the persons of the Trinity, though they have all an equal hand in all the works of our salvation, yet one part is attributed more to one person and another to another.

A third sort of reasons why God ordained this work of intercession to accomplish our salvation by respect Christ himself, whose honor and glory and the perpetuation of it in our hearts God had as well in his eye in ordering all the workings of our salvation as much as his own — that all might honor the Son as well as the Father, as Christ himself speaks. Therefore for the maintaining and upholding his glory and the continuance thereof, God ordained after all that he had done for us here below this work of intercession in heaven to be added to all the rest for the perfecting of our salvation.

First, it became him and was for his honor that none of his offices should be vacant or lie idle and he want employment in them. All offices have work to accompany them, and all work has honor (as its reward) to arise out of it. Therefore when he had done all that was to be done on earth as pertaining to the merit of our salvation, he appoints this full and perpetual work in heaven for the applying and possessing us of salvation — and that as a priest, by praying and interceding in the merit of that one oblation of himself. God would have Christ never to be out of office nor out of work. And this very reason is more than intimated in Hebrews 7:24–25: 'This man, because he continues ever, has an unchangeable priesthood' (or as verse 21 expounds it) 'forever.' And the work of his priesthood is interpreted in verse 25 to be 'ever to make intercession.' The meaning is that God would not have him continue to be a priest in title only or in respect only of a service past (so as to have only the honor of priesthood perpetuated to him out of remembrance of what he once had done, as great generals in time of peace have the glory of some great battle fought continued to them in their titles or rewards forever). But God would have him have, as the renown of the old, so a perpetual spring of honor by new work and employment in that office which he is continually carrying out, so to preserve the freshness of his glory ever vivid and green. Therefore he ordained a continual work for him. The sum of the Apostle's reasoning is this: that seeing Christ himself was to be forever, so should his work and priesthood be, that his honor might be forever. So verse 28 concludes it: 'consecrated or perfected for evermore.'

Second, for the same reason also, it became him that the whole work of our salvation first and last — every part and every step and degree of its accomplishment — should be so ordered that he should continue still to have as great and continual a hand in every part, even to the laying of the top stone thereof, as he had in laying the first foundation and corner stone. And this you have expressed in Hebrews 12:2: 'Looking to Jesus the beginner and perfecter of our faith.' Two things had been said of him as two causes of two effects, and we must look to him in both. First, he is to be looked at as dying (enduring the cross) as he is set forth there. Second, as sitting at God's right hand and interceding, as that whole epistle had represented him. We are to look at these two as causes of a double effect: to look at his dying as that which is the beginning of our faith (so according to the Greek and the margin of our translation) and at his sitting at God's right hand as an intercessor for the finishing of our faith thereby and so of our final salvation. For as Christ's work began in his life and death (which is put for all his obedience here below), so our first believing begins by virtue of his death at first. And as his work ends in his intercession and sitting at God's right hand, so correspondingly is our faith and salvation perfected by it — so that he might be left out in nothing but be the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, to whom be glory forever. So we are to look upon our mediator Christ as doing as much work for us in heaven at this instant as ever he did on earth: here suffering, but there praying and presenting his sufferings. All his work was not done when he had finished here. That work here was indeed the harder piece of the two, yet soon dispatched; but his work in heaven, though far sweeter, lies on his hands forever. Therefore let us leave out none of these in our believing on him.

Chapter 4.

And so I come (as in the former I have done) to show what strong grounds of security and triumph our faith may raise from this last act — namely, Christ's intercession for us in the point of justification: 'Who shall condemn? it is Christ that intercedes.' This was the second general head proposed, and therein I will proceed also according to the method taken up in the former.

First, what assurance by way of evidence this affords to faith of non-condemnation.

Second, what powerful efficacy and influence it must carry that Christ intercedes.

First, to handle it by way of evidence.

That Christ intercedes is a strong evidence to our faith by two demonstrations.

First, from the very intent and scope of the work of intercession itself and what it is ordained by God to effect.

Second, from the end of Jesus Christ himself, who lives in heaven on purpose to intercede for us. Our salvation is both the end of the work and in some respect the end of Christ himself the intercessor. Both these lay the greatest possible engagement upon Christ to accomplish our salvation through his intercession.

For the work itself: intercession, as you have seen, is a part of the office of Christ's priesthood as well as his dying and offering himself. Now all the works of Christ are and must be perfect in their kind (even as God's are, of which Moses says in Deuteronomy 32:4: 'His work is perfect') for otherwise he would not be a perfect priest. The perfection of every work lies in order to its end for which it is ordained — so that work is perfect that attains to such an end as it is ordained for, and that imperfect which does not. Now the immediate direct end of Christ's intercession is the actual salvation of believers, the elect, and the persons whom he died for. The end of his death is the acquiring of a right to salvation, but the end of intercession is the very saving of us actually and putting us in possession of heaven. To this purpose, observe how the scripture speaks concerning Christ's death: Hebrews 9:12 says 'he entered into heaven having obtained redemption' — that is, by way of right, having procured full title to it. But of his intercession it says in Hebrews 7:25 that by it Christ is able to save to the uttermost those that come to God by him — that is, actually to save and put them in possession of happiness. That is made the end and scope of intercession there, and the phrase 'to the uttermost' marks out a saving indeed, a doing it not by halves but wholly and thoroughly and completely — to save altogether, to give our salvation its last act and complement, to effect it to the very last of it, all that is to be done about it. Thus also Romans 5:9–10: we are justified by his death, but saved (namely, completely) by his life — that is, his living to intercede. So the very salvation of believers is the work of Christ's intercession.

Now what security does this afford? To be saved is more than to be justified, for it is the actual possessing us of heaven. Do but grant that Christ's intercession is as perfect a work in its kind as Christ's death is in its kind, and you must needs be saved. Wherein lay the perfection of Christ's death and the work thereof (as on Christ's part to be performed) but in this: that he should lay down a ransom sufficient to purchase salvation for such and such persons as God would save? So the perfection of his death lies in the worth and sufficiency of it for that end it was ordained for — being a perfect sacrifice in itself, able to purchase eternal redemption for us and to make us salvable against all sins and the demerits of them and to give us right to heaven. And had it wanted a grain of this, it would have been imperfect. Now then correspondingly, for intercession: the comfort of our souls is that the proper work that lies upon Christ therein is the complete saving of those very persons and the possessing them of heaven — this is the proper work thereof. To outweigh the demerits of our sins was the perfection of his death, but to save our souls is the end and perfection of his intercession. Our sins are the object of the one and our souls of the other. To that end was intercession added to his death, that we might not have a right to heaven in vain and be dispossessed of it. Now therefore on this ground, if Christ should fail of our souls' salvation — yes, of but any one degree of glory purchased by his death to any soul which that soul should lack — this work of his would then fall short of its perfection. That place in Hebrews 7 says not only that Christ will do his utmost to save, but that he will save to the uttermost.

You may say: my unbelief and obstinacy may hinder it, though Christ does what in him lies.

Well, but intercession undertakes the work absolutely. For Christ prays not conditionally in heaven ('if men shall believe,' etc.) as we do here on earth, nor for propositions only but for persons. Therefore he prays to cure that very unbelief. Now as a physician who undertakes to cure a madman (if he knows what he is doing) considers the madness of his patient and how he will tear off whatever is applied and refuse all medicine — he therefore resolves to deal with him accordingly and so to manage him as he shall not hinder that help which is being given — and upon those terms he undertakes the cure. Even so does Christ when by intercession he undertakes to save us sinners. He considers us as we are and how it is with us, what unbelief is in us, yet undertakes the matter and so to save us is the scope and end of this his work. Which if he should not accomplish, he after all this would not be a perfect priest. It was the fault that God found with the old priesthood that it made nothing perfect (Hebrews 7:19), and therefore in verse 12 the law was changed and the priesthood changed together with it. Now in like manner Christ's priesthood would be imperfect if it did not make the elect perfect, and then God must yet seek for another covenant and a more perfect priest, for this would be found faulty as the other was. So then our comfort is: if Christ approves himself to be a perfect priest, we who come to God by him must be perfectly saved. It is in this office of his priesthood and all the parts of it as in his kingly office: the work of his kingly office is to subdue all enemies to the last, even fully to do the thing — not only to have power and to go about to do it. So if there should be any one enemy left unsubdued, Christ would not be a perfect king. The same holds in his priestly office also: he would not be a perfect priest if but one soul of the elect, or those he intercedes for, were left unsaved. And this is indeed the top and highest consideration for our comfort in this argument — that intercession leaves us not until it has actually and completely saved us. This is it that makes the Apostle put a further thing upon intercession here in the text than upon his sitting at God's right hand. So we are in this respect as sure of attaining to the uttermost glory of our salvation as Christ is of having the full honor of his priesthood. A man saved is more than justified, and Christ cannot reckon his work nor himself a perfect priest until we are saved. Who shall condemn? It is Christ that intercedes.

Besides the consideration of the nature and scope of this work itself, which Christ upon his honor of acquitting himself as a perfect priest has undertaken, there is in the second place a further consideration that argues him engaged by a stronger obligation still — even the loss of his own honor, his office, and all, if he should not effect salvation for those that come to God by him. So much does it concern him to effect it. Of all the works that ever he did, he is most engaged in this. It will not only be the loss of a business that concerns him and of so much work, but he himself must be lost in it too. And the reason is that he intercedes as a surety. He was not only a surety on earth in dying (and so was to look to do that work thoroughly and to be sure to lay down a price sufficient, or else he himself would have gone for it — he pawned in that work not only his honor but even his life and soul to effect it or lose himself in it). But he is a surety now also in heaven by interceding. This you may find to be the scope of Hebrews 7:22 by observing the coherence of that verse (wherein he is called a surety) with verses 23–25. That title and appellation is there given him in relation to this part of his office especially. Although it holds true of all parts of his office whatever, the coherence carries it that that mention of his being a surety refers in a more special manner to his intercession, as appears both from the words before and after. In the words before (verse 21) the Apostle speaks of this his priesthood which is forever, and then adjoins (verse 22): 'By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.' And after he also discourses of and instances in his intercession and his continuing a priest forever in that work: verses 23–25, 'Therefore he is able to save to the uttermost, seeing he ever lives to make intercession.' Indeed he is therefore engaged to save to the uttermost because even in interceding (for which he is said there to live) he is a surety.

He was a surety on earth and is a surety still in heaven — only with a twofold difference that arises first from the different things he undertook for then while on earth and for which he now undertakes in heaven. On earth he was a surety to pay a price so sufficient as should satisfy God's justice, which having paid he was discharged (in that respect and so far) of that obligation and his bond for that was cancelled. But so as still he remains a surety bound in another obligation as great — for the bringing to salvation those whom he died for. For their persons remained still unsaved though the debt was then paid, and until they are saved he is not quit of this suretyship and engagement. And second, these two suretyships differ also by the differing pledges which he was engaged to forfeit by failing in each of these works. For the payment of our debt his soul itself lay at the stake, which he offered up for sin. But for the saving of the persons, all his honor in heaven lies at stake. He lives to intercede; he possesses heaven upon these terms and it is one end of his life. So that as he must have sunk under God's wrath if he had not paid the debt (his soul standing in our souls' stead), so he must yet quit heaven and give over living there if he does not bring us there. It is true he intercedes not as a common person (which relation he bore in all the other aforementioned acts: thus in his death he was both a common person and a surety representing us so that we died in him; so likewise in his resurrection we arose with him, and in his ascension we ascended, etc.) — but he does not intercede under that relation, namely not as a common person. For we must not and cannot be said to intercede in him, since this last work lay not upon us to do. He does it wholly for us indeed, but not in our stead or as that which we should have done (though on our behalf), for it being the last and the crown of all his works of mediation is therefore proper to him as mediator and his sole work as such. Thus likewise the first work of incarnation and correspondingly the last of intercession — in neither of these was Christ a common person representing others, though a common savior of others in these. For the one was the foundation of all, the other the accomplishment of all, and so proper only to himself as mediator. But although he intercedes not as a common person representing us in what we were to have done for ourselves, yet the other relation of a surety is continued still in that work: he stands engaged therein as an undertaker for us and so as a surety intercedes. Such as Judah was for Benjamin in Genesis 43:9: 'I will be surety for him; of my hand shall you require him: if I bring him not to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.' So says Christ for us. And therefore 'undertaking for us' is made by divines a great part of this part of his office. Now the consideration of this may the more secure us, for the more peculiarly and solely it is his work the more his honor lies at stake and the more he will set himself to effect it. And being by way of suretyship it concerns him yet more nearly, for he has engaged so that if he should fail he might even lose that honor which he now has in heaven.

Chapter 5.

Thus we have heard what matter of support to our faith (by way of evidence) this must needs afford — that Christ intercedes. Let us consider now what further assurance will arise to our faith from the influence which Christ's intercession must needs have to effect and carry on our salvation to an assured issue. The work of intercession being effectually to procure our salvation and to continue the pardon of our sins and hold us in favor with God, the influence and energy it has herein must lie in that potency and prevalence which this intercession of Christ has with God to obtain anything at his hands for us and so to continue his favor toward us. Now to raise up our apprehensions of how potent and prevalent this intercession of Christ must needs be, let us consider both the person interceding (namely, Christ) and the person with whom Christ intercedes for this favor (which is God) — the one the Son, the other the Father. And so the greatness of Christ with God and the graciousness of God to Christ, together with the oneness of wills and unity of affections in them both: so that Christ will be sure to ask nothing which his Father will deny, and his Father will not deny anything which he shall ask.

Now first, for the greatness of Christ the intercessor, that is his greatness with God the Father. This is often urged in this epistle to the Hebrews to persuade confidence in us in this very point in hand. So Hebrews 4:14–16: 'Seeing we have a great high priest, let us come boldly.' And while 'great' and 'priest' are thus joined together, the more comfort and boldness we may have — the greater he is. For he is a priest in relation to his dealing with God for our pardon, and as a priest he deals in nothing else. The greater the person is who uses his interest therein, the better and the sooner he will prevail. And he is said there to be great because great with God in prevailing with him — and indeed so great that it is impossible but he should prevail. It was the greatness of his person that did and does put such an influence into his death that it was (as you heard) a price more than enough to satisfy justice, even to overflowing. Therefore who shall condemn? It is Christ that died. And the greatness of his person must needs have as much influence to make intercession prevalent. In a matter of intercession the person that intercedes prevails more than any other consideration whatever. We see what great friends sometimes procure with but a word speaking what money and nothing else could have obtained. Now Christ must needs be great with God in many respects.

First, in respect of the nearness of his alliance to God: he is the natural Son of God, God of God, and therefore certain to prevail with him. This is diligently still put in almost in all places where this part of his priesthood (his intercession) is mentioned in the epistle to the Hebrews. So in Hebrews 4:14: 'We have a great high priest entered into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God.' So in Hebrews 7:25 and 28 compared: the Apostle having said in verse 25 that he is able to save to the uttermost seeing he ever lives to make intercession, then in verse 28 devolves this ability of his to save ultimately upon his being the Son. In verse 28, at the end of that discourse, this is made the basis of all: 'The law makes men high priests which have infirmity' (which infirmity or disability of theirs is mentioned in opposition to what he had just before spoken of the great ability of our high priest in his interceding in verse 25 in those words 'he is able to save to the uttermost'). Those priests whom the ceremonial law made (Aaron and his sons) are unable to save; they have infirmity. Now what is it in him that makes this difference and him so able above what they were? 'The word of the oath makes the Son' (as the Greek and the margin have it) 'who is perfected for evermore.' He mentions this his sonship principally in relation to his intercession, which he had there discoursed of. Intercession is a carrying on of our salvation in a way of grace and favor, as his death was by way of satisfaction. And correspondingly it may be observed in the scripture that as the all-sufficiency of the satisfaction of his death is still put upon his being God — and so upon the greatness of his person considered in respect of his nature or essence, namely his Godhead — so in like manner the prevalence of his intercession is founded upon the nearness of his relation to God, his alliance to him and his being the Son. When redemption is spoken of, the sufficiency of the price is eminently put upon his Godhead: 'the blood of God.' Thus also in Hebrews 9: when he had in verse 12 shown how Christ had purchased and obtained a perfect redemption, he then argues the sufficiency of it from his Godhead in verses 13–14: 'For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself?' The eternal Spirit is his Godhead. Correspondingly when he speaks of the prevailing of his intercession in heaven, he puts it upon his sonship: 'Jesus the Son' — he mentions the nearness of the relation of his person to God as being that which draws with it that great respect of favor and grace, he being by this great with God as great in himself. All matters of intercession are carried, we know, by way of favor. Therefore look how prevalent in a way of merit his being God makes his death in its kind — no less prevalent does his being the Son of God make his intercession in its kind, namely in a way of obtaining grace and mercy. Indeed so prevalent of itself it is that we might build upon it alone even as much as upon his death. And indeed Christ intercedes not only in the virtue and strength of his satisfaction (though in that also) and of his obedience to his Father, but also in the strength of his relation as a Son who pleads his own grace and interest in God as he is his Son — which is a consideration that does always actually exist and abide. Whereas his obedience (though perfect) was but once offered up and its existence is but virtual; but he continues a Son forever, not virtually only but actually. Therefore it is added in Hebrews 7 last verse that the gospel ordained the Son 'perfected for ever.' The meaning is that he is not only a priest perfected in time past by that perfect offering once made, but in that he is the Son he remains a perfect priest forever for time to come — whom therefore no imperfection in his office, no failing or missing of his suits can befall. So that if it could be supposed that his obedience (because past so long ago) might be forgotten, yet never this — that he is a Son. That forever abides and of itself were enough to prevail. How effectual must the intercession of such a Son be, who is so great a Son of so great a Father, equal with him and the express image of his person? Never was any son so like, and in so peculiarly a transcendent manner a son, as the relation of sonship among men is but a shadow of it. Christ is one with his Father as he himself often speaks, and therefore if his Father should deny him anything he would then cease to be one with him and must deny himself — which God can never do. He is in this respect 'the beloved' as he is called in Ephesians 1:6, on whom originally and primarily all the beams of God's love fall. Solomon (the type of Christ) was the beloved of God (2 Samuel 12:24) and had his name from this (namely Jedidiah, that is, beloved of the Lord). And to show how beloved he was, God when he came first to his kingdom bade him ask what he should give him (1 Kings 3:5). Now the like God says to Christ when he comes first to his kingdom also: 'Ask of me and I will give you' (Psalm 2:8), when he had set him as king on his holy hill (verse 6). And of him he says, 'This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear him.' God bids us therefore, and upon that respect, to hear him; and that speech was but the echo of his own heart, in that he himself is so well pleased with him (for this — that he is his Son) that he himself will hear him in everything. Indeed he is so pleased with him that even if Christ had never died nor obeyed the law, yet simply because he is his Son he has such full acquiescence of all desires in him and complacency of delights that he could deny him nothing. How prevalent then must Christ's intercession needs be, though there were nothing else to be considered?

And that God had indeed this as one main consideration upon which he made him a priest thus to intercede, those words testify in Hebrews 5:5–6: 'He that said to him, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you; as he says also in another place, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.' These latter words are not only a paraphrase (as some think) merely to show that he who said Christ was his Son said also he was a priest. Rather they show the foundation of his call to that office. The great consideration that fitted him for it was that he was God's Son — especially that fitted him for that part of his priesthood which was to remain forever, of which Psalm 110 and the epistle to the Hebrews especially speak. Neither is the meaning of the cited place only to show that in his being God's Son it was his birthright to be a priest, so that if God would have any priest at all it must be he. And so upon that consideration he that said to him 'You are my Son' said 'You are a priest,' and that being his right, he therefore called him to it because he was his Son. For according to the law of nature, the eldest in the family was to be priest; and so Christ, even as God-man, being the firstborn of every creature and the natural firstborn Son of God, had right to be the prime leader of that great chorus in that eternal worship in heaven. That is not all the meaning of those words, nor all that God considered when he thus ordained him to be a priest. But he had a further and more peculiar respect to this special part of his priesthood — his intercession (as that clause 'for ever' imports) — as for which, he being his natural Son so nearly allied to him, would transcendently fit him and give such an omnipotent prevalence and effectualness to his requests that he would be the most absolutely perfect priest forever in this respect that could be. So that as God himself is perfect and his power irresistible, so his priesthood through this relation might be perfect also and his requests undeniable. Thus did God order it to strengthen our faith. And that God did consider this relation of his to him to this very end is evident by Psalm 2 (out of which that saying 'You are my Son' is cited) verses 7–8: 'You are my Son, this day have I begotten you' — and what follows? 'Ask of me and I will give you.' He connects both these together — namely intercession (that part of his priestly office of asking) with his sonship, for that is it which moves God to grant all that he asks. God loves Christ as he loves himself and therefore can deny him nothing, as he cannot deny himself. And so by the way, this clears the ground of the Apostle's quoting those words of Psalm 2 in Hebrews 5 as a proof of Christ's call to the priesthood, which interpreters have been troubled to make out. For as you have seen, that speech 'You are my Son; ask, etc.' is all one as if he had said 'You are a priest,' and so was as fit and full a place to prove his being a priest in the Holy Spirit's intent as is that other quoted with it out of Psalm 110, though uttered in more express words: 'You are a priest forever.' Both speeches come to one in both places, the Holy Spirit especially aiming in both at that part of his priesthood in heaven — his intercession. In the one he speaks of him after he is set upon God's hill as king (Psalm 2:6), and in the other after he is set down at God's right hand (Psalm 110:1–2). Indeed this his favor with his Father and intercession alone might have procured pardon for us sinners, but that God's will was to have justice satisfied.

And second, he intercedes not only as a Son (and in that respect a priest perfect enough forever) but also as a Son who has been obedient to his Father and has done at his request and for his sake the greatest service for him that ever was done, and the most willingly. You all know how much former services done always forward suits. In Hebrews 5:8–10 it is said that though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience, and thereby became perfect. The Apostle had said in the verses before that in respect of his being God's Son, God had called him to this office as one who was thereby sufficiently qualified to be a priest that might prevail. Yet in these verses he further adds that though he was a Son (and in that respect a priest perfect enough), yet he was to be obedient also and thereby to become in a further respect a perfect high priest also, even in respect of service done and obedience performed. And so he shows that Christ comes to have a further perfection and power of prevailing in his priestly office added to that relation of sonship spoken of in verse 5. Therefore it follows that he being thus made perfect through his obedience became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him, called of God a high priest forever. That therefore which makes him yet more potent (that he may be sure to prevail) is his obedience and service done — and this alone also were enough to carry anything. Both these considerations of his sonship and obedience as giving an efficacy to his intercession you have also in Hebrews 7:24–28. He had spoken of the power of intercession in verses 24–25, how he was able to save to the uttermost; and then in the following verses he shows the ground of it: first in his past obedience (verse 26): 'For such a high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled' — such a one who was holy and harmless and in whose lips no guile was found, what requests come out of such lips must needs be accepted. Then he mentions his passive obedience (verse 27): 'He offered up himself once, and thereby made so full a satisfaction as he needed not to do it but once' — and in the strength of both these he intercedes, for to that purpose the mention of both there comes in. And then he adds that other which we before insisted on — that he is the Son — which follows in the next words (verse 28). And accordingly you shall find Christ himself urging this his obedience as the foundation of all those his suits and requests for us that follow after. So in that last prayer, John 17 (which is as it were a pattern or instance of his intercession for us in heaven): 'I have glorified you on earth, I have finished the work you gave me' (verse 4). And whereas two things may be distinctly considered in that his obedience — first the worth of it as a price in the valuation of justice itself, and second the desert of favor and grace with God which such an obedience and service done for his sake might in a way of kindness expect to find at his hands — you may for your comfort consider that besides what the worth of it as a price might exact of justice itself between two strangers (as we use to say), he having well paid for all that he asks, he has moreover deserved this much grace and favor with his Father, in that this obedience was done for his sake and at his request. And this calls for a return even by way of recompense and requittal of one kindness with the like: that therefore his Father should hear him in all the requests that ever he should make. Indeed so transcendent was the obedience which he did to his Father in giving himself to death at his request (and it was done at God's sole entreaty: 'Lo, I come to do your will'), that he can never out-ask the merit of this his service. And what may yet further encourage us herein: he has nothing at all left to ask for himself simply, for he has need of nothing. So all his favor remains entirely to be laid forth for sinners and employed for them. Then add this thereto: all he can ask for them is less, indeed far less, than the service which he has done to God amounts to; our lives and pardon and salvation are not enough — they are too small a requittal. So that besides his natural grace and interest which he has with his Father as his Son (which can never be lessened), this his acquired favor by his obedience must needs make him prevail, seeing it can never be requited to the full. Some divines put so much efficacy in this that they say Christ's very being in heaven (who once did this service, and so putting God in mind of it by his very presence) is all that intercession the scripture speaks of — so sufficient do they think this alone to be.

Chapter 6.

Besides favor and grace in all these respects, he can and does plead justice and righteousness and is able to carry it so: as you have it in 1 John 2:1–2, 'We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.' An advocate has place only in a cause of justice, and this Christ's advocacy is executed by pleading his own satisfaction. So it follows: 'Who is a propitiation for our sins' — and he can plead his own righteousness so far that justice itself shall be compelled to save the worst of sinners. He can turn justice itself for them and handle matters so that justice shall be as forward to save them as any other attribute. So that if God is said to be righteous in forgiving us our sins if we do but confess them (as 1 John 1:9 has it), then much more when Jesus Christ the righteous shall intercede for the pardon of them, as he adds in chapter 2 verse 2 — and this if he will be just. The worst case he will make a good one — not by coloring it over (as cunning lawyers do) or extenuating things, but by pleading that righteousness which, being put into the opposing balance, shall cast it for you be there never so many sins weighed against it. Indeed he will be just in it too and carry all by mere righteousness and equity.

In the explication of this Branch, my purpose is not to insist upon the demonstration of that all-sufficient fullness that is in Christ's satisfaction, such as may in justice procure our pardon and salvation, (because it will more fitly belong to another Discourse) but I shall absolve this point in hand by two things which are proper to this head of Intercession.

First, by showing how that there is even in respect to God's Justice a powerful voice of Intercerssion attributed to Christ's blood; and how prevalent that must needs be in the ears of the righteous God.

Secondly, especially when Christ himself shall join with that cry and Intercession of his blood, himself in Heaven appearing and interceding in the strength of it.

For the first, the Apostle Hebrews 12:24 does ascribe a voice, an appeal, an Intercession to the blood of Christ in Heaven. The blood of sprinkling (says he) [speaks] better things than the blood of Abel. He makes Christ's very blood an Advocate to speak for us, though Christ himself were silent; as he says in another case, Abel, though dead, yet speaks, Hebrews 11:4 Many other things are said to cry to Scripture, (and I might show how the cry of all other things do meet in this) but Blood has the loudest cry of all things else, in the ears of the Lord of Hosts, the Judge of all the world, as he is in the 23. verse of that 12. chapter styled. Neither has any cry the eare of God's justice more than that of blood; The voyce of your brothers blood (says God to Cain) cries to me from the ground, Genesis 4:10 Now in that speech of the Apostle forecited, is the allusion made to the blood of Abel, and the cry thereof: And he illustrates the cry of Christ's blood for us, by the cry of that blood of Abel against Cain, it speaks better things than the blood of Abel: And his scope therein is by an Antithesis or way of opposition, to show, that Christ's blood cals for greater good things to be bestowed on us for whom it was shed, then Abel's blood did for evil things, and vengeance against Cain, by whom it was shed. For look how loud the blood of one innocent cries for justice against another that murdered him; so loud will the blood of one righteous (who by the appointment and permission of a supreame Judge, has been condemned for another) cry for his release and non-condemnation, for whom he died. And the more righteous he was, who laid down his life for another, the louder still is that cry, for it is made in the strength of all that worth which was in him, whose blood was shed. Now to set forth the power of this cry of Christ's blood with justice, let us compare it with that cry of Abel's blood in these two things, wherein it will be found infinitely to exceed it in force and loudness.

First, even the blood of the wickedest man on earth, if innocently shed, does cry, and has a power with Justice against him who murdered him. Had Abel murdered Cain, Cain's blood would have cryed, and called upon God's Justice against Abel: but [Abel's blood] (there is an emphasis in that) Abel's, who was a Saint, and the first Martyr in God's Kalender; and so his blood cries according to the worth that was in him. Now Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints; and the blood of one of Them cries louder than the blood of all Man-kind besides. Now from this I argue, If the blood of a Saint cries so, what must the blood of the King of Saints (as Christ is called, Revelation 15.) then do? If the blood of one member of Christ's body, what will than the blood of the head, far more worth than that whole body? how does it fill Heaven and Earth with out-cries, untill the promised intent of its shedding be accomplisht? And (as the Antithesis carries it) look how the blood of Abel cryed for the ruine and condemnation of his brother Cain, so does Christ's blood on the contrary for our pardon and non-condemnation; and so much the lowder, by how much his blood was of more worth then Abel's was. This was the blood of God; so Acts 20. Who therefore shall condemne?

But 2. Christ's blood has in its crie here a further advantage of Abel's blood attributed to it: For that cryed but from earth, from the ground, where it lay shed, and that but for an answerable earthly punishment on Cain, as he was a man upon the earth; but Christ's blood is carried up to Heaven: for as the High-priest carried the blood of the Sacrifices into the Holy of holies, so has Christ virtually carried his blood into Heaven, Hebrews 9:12 And this is intimated in this place also, as by the coherence will appeare. For all the other particulars, (of which this is one) whereto he says the Saints are come, they are all in Heaven: You are come (saies he verse 22) to the City of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the Church of the first borne who are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect: All which things are in Heaven; neither names he any other then such: And then adds [And to the blood of sprinkling which speaks, etc.] as a thing both speaking in Heaven, and besprinkled from Heaven, yea, wherewith Heaven is all besprinkled, as the Mercy-seat in the Holy of holies was, because sinners are to come there. This Blood therefore cries from Heaven, it is next to God who sits Judge there, it cries in his very ears; whereas the cry of blood from the ground is further off, and so though the cry thereof may come up to Heaven, yet the blood itself comes not up there, as Christ's already is. Abel's blood cryed for vengeance to come down from heaven, but Christ's blood cries us up into Heaven: like to that voice Revelation 11:12 [Come up here:] So John 17:24 Where I am, let them be, for whom this blood was shed.

But though this speaking, this voice, and intercession, be attributed to his blood, yet it is but in a metaphorical and improper (though real) sense: as also that this blood is in Heaven, is spoken, though in a real, yet not a proper sense. Some divines of all sides, both Popish and Protestant, would make the whole work of intercession, to be only metaphorical. It is true indeed, the voice and intercession of his blood apart considered, is but metaphorical, (I grant) and yet real; such a voice as those groans are that are attributed to the whole creation (Romans 8:22). But intercession as an act of Christ himself, joined with this voice of his blood, is most properly and truly such.

Therefore in the second place, add to this Christ's own intercession also, which was the second thing propounded, That Christ by his own prayers seconds this cry of his blood: that not only the blood of Christ does cry, but that Christ himself being alive does join with it: how forcible and prevalent must all this be supposed to be? The blood of a man slain does cry, though the man remain dead; even as of Abel it is said, (though to another purpose) that being dead he yet speaks (Hebrews 11), but Christ lives and appears: Vivit, & in coelum coelorum venit; He follows the suit, pursues the Hue and cry of his blood himself. His being alive, puts a life into his death. It is not in this as it was in that other, the first Adam's sin and disobedience. Adam although he himself had been annihilated when he died, yet he having set the stock of our nature a going in propagation of children, his sin would have defiled and condemned them to the end of the world, and the force of it to condemn is neither furthered nor lessened by his subsisting and being, or his not being: it receives no assistance from his personal life, one way or other. And the reason is, because his sin condemns us in a natural and necessary way: But the death of Christ and his blood shed, these saving us in a way of grace and favor to Christ himself and for his sake, that very being alive of Christ, that shed this blood, adds an infinite acceptation to it with God, and moves him the more to hear the cry of it, and to regard it. In a matter of favor to be done for the sake of another man, or in a suit or matter of justice that concerns another, who is interested in it, that man's being in vivis, his being alive, puts a life into the cause. If David would have respect to Jonathan (when dead) in his children, he would much more if himself had been alive. God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to remember their seed after them; And why? They are alive, and were to live for ever; and though dead, shall rise again. So Christ reasons from it (Matthew 22:32), I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: God is the God of the living, (says he) and not of the dead: and so, though Abraham be ignorant of his children (as the prophet speaks) and should not intercede for them, yet because Abraham's soul lives, and is not extinct, (as the Sadducees thought) but shall live again at the resurrection; therefore God remembers, and respects his covenant with them; for he is a God of the living, and so his covenant holds with them while they live. The old covenant of the first Testament ran in the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, [The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] but this new covenant runs in the name of Christ, The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; so (Ephesians 1:3), and so he becomes our God and our Father in him. And God being thus our Father, because Christ's Father, and Christ (in whose name the covenant runs) being alive, and God by covenant the God of a living, not of a dead Christ; This therefore works effectually with him to respect his blood and hear the cry of it; and this, though Christ were absent, much more than when he is present also, and on purpose appears in the presence of God for us; as it is (Hebrews 9:24). He is alive, and so, able to follow his own suit, and will be sure to see to it, and to second the cry of his blood, if it should not be heard.

To illustrate this by the help of the former comparison begun; If as Abel's blood cries, so also it proves that Abel's soul lives to cry; that both his cause cries and himself lives to follow it: So that the cry of Abel's blood is seconded with the cry of Abel's soul that lives, how doubly forcible must this needs be? And thus indeed you have it (Revelation 6:9), where it is said that [the souls] of them which were slain for the testimony which they held, [cried] with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not avenge our blood? Indeed, see that not only their blood cries, but their souls live, and live to cry. And it is not spoken metaphorically of their souls, but what is truly done by them now in Heaven, it being mentioned to show how and by what God was moved to bring vengeance on the Heathenish Empire of Rome that had shed their blood. Now not only Christ's soul (as theirs) lives to cry, but his whole person; for he is risen again, and lives to intercede for ever. In (Revelation 1:18), Christ appearing to John, when he would speak but one speech that should move all in him, he says but this, I am he that lives, and was dead, and died for you. And whose heart does it not move, to read it with faith? And does it not move his Father (think you) who was the chief cause and motioner of his death) to think, My Son that was dead, and died at my request for sinners, is now alive again, and lives to intercede, and lives to see the travail of his soul fulfilled and satisfied? God pronounces this upon it in (Isaiah 53:10), By his knowledge (or faith in him) shall he justify many; even as many as he died for. Who then shall condemn? Christ that was dead is alive, and lives to intercede.

Chapter 7

A third demonstration both of Christ's greatness with God, and his power to prevail for us, is taken from this, that God has put all power into his hand, to do whatever he will, has made him his King to do what pleases him either in heaven, earth, or hell; indeed to do all that God himself ever means to do, or all that God desires to do. And certainly if his Father has been so gracious to him as to bestow so high and absolute a sovereignty on him, as to accomplish and effect whatever he means to do, surely his purpose was never to deny Christ any request, that he should after this make: he would never have advanced the human nature to that absoluteness otherwise. Those two great monarchs made great grants and largesses, the one to Esther, the other to Herodias' daughter; but yet they were limited only to the half of their kingdoms: so (Mark 6) and (Esther 5:6) and the royal power in their kingdoms, they meant still to retain and reserve wholly to themselves. But God having placed Christ on his throne, bids him ask even to the whole of his kingdom, for God has made him a King, sitting on his throne with him, not to share halves, but to have all power in heaven and earth; he has committed all judgment to the Son, to save and condemn whoever he will; and so far as the kingdom of God goes, or is extended, he may do anything. So (John 5:21): As the Father raises up the dead, so the Son quickens whom he will; for as the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life in himself, verse 26, and has in like manner given authority to execute judgment also, as the Son of man, (namely, of himself) verse 27. As he had said, he had given him to have life in himself, verse 26, (not dependently, as we have, but independently) so to execute judgment also, verse 27. So that Christ's will is as free, and himself as absolute a monarch and king of himself, as God himself is. He indeed has it not à seipso, but in seipso; not à seipso originally, but from his Father; but in seipso independently.

Now then, if he who is King, and may and does of himself command all that is done, as absolutely as God himself does, (I speak in respect of the execution of things downward, by second causes) if he, over and above, to honor his Father, will ask all that himself has power to do, what will not be done? Qui rogat, & imperare potest; he that can, and does command whatever he would have done, and it is immediately done; if he shall ask and entreat, what will not be done? As a King who sues for peace, backed with a potent army which is able to win what he entreats for, must needs treat more effectually: so does Christ sue for every thing, with power to effect it. Remember that he is said here in the text, first to be at God's right hand, and then to intercede. He treats the salvation of sinners, as a mighty prince treats the giving up some town to him, which lies seated under a castle of his, which commands that town: he stands treating with the governor, having his ordnance ready for the battery, and to bring all into subjection, as (2 Corinthians 10:4). And this is a consideration that God himself took, in that Psalm 2, when he made him that promise, (Ask and I will give you) why he made so large a grant: he had said before, verse 6, I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion, (which made him, one would think, past asking) and above the condition of an intercessor. Now God says of him, He is my King, not in respect of his commanding God, (that were blasphemy to think) but it is spoken in respect of commanding all below him. God having set him in his throne, to do as much as he himself would (or means) to have done, says, He is my King to rule all, not so much under me, as for me, and in my stead; yet absolutely, and in himself, the Father judges no man. Now when the Father had first made and constituted him thus great a King, then he bids him ask, to whom he had first given this absolute power to command. We may (without blasphemy) say of this God-man, that God has (not only not the heart, as being his Father, but) not the power to cross anything he does. Thus fast has he God to him. Only he (who in respect of this his power is to be honored as the Father, as John 5:23, yet) to honor his Father, who gave this power originally to him as Mediator; he is to ask for that which of himself he yet can do. And therefore (says God) though you are a King, (so verse 6) and all my kingdom, even the utmost ends of the earth are your inheritance by a natural right, now that you are my Son, (as verse 8) yet because you are my King, of my appointing, and I have set you on the throne, (as the word is, verse 6) and (you are my Son, and I have begotten you) therefore acknowledge my grant in all, ask of me, and I will give you the utmost ends of the earth for your inheritance: I cannot deny you, but I would have you ask; and therefore Christ asks. Yet still withal remember, that he asks, who can command the thing to be done: and yet, as he must ask before the thing be done; so if he ask, it must needs be granted. These are the terms between this Father and this Son; who (in a word) had not been so great a Father, if he had not had a Son thus great, that himself could not deny what this Son would have done: it is for his own honor, to have such a Son. So (John 5:23): that they might honor the Son, as they honor the Father, therefore all judgment is committed to him. Now then, if he who has so much power, will join the force of entreaty with a Father that so loves him; if he who is the Word of his Father, that commands, creates, and upholds all, as (Hebrews 1) [he spoke, and it was done] if he will become a word to his Father, and speak a word for us, and ask all that he means to do; how forcible will such words be?

Therefore observe Christ's manner of praying, John 17 (which prayer is a platform of intercession in heaven) verse 24. [Father I will] that they whom you have given me, be where I am. He prays like a king, who is in joint commission with God. If God puts that honor upon our prayers, that we are said to have power with God, as Jacob (Hosea 12:3) — that if God be never so angry, yet by taking hold of his strength, we hold his hands (Isaiah 27:5) — that God cries out to Moses, like a man whose hands are held, Let me alone (Exodus 32:10) — indeed that he accounts it as a command and a Mandamus, so he styles it (Isaiah 45:11) [Command you me] — so unable is he to go against it. Then how much more does Jesus Christ's intercession bind God's hands, and command all in heaven and earth? Therefore in Zechariah 1, you have Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, brought in interceding with the Father for his Church, and he speaks abruptly as one full of complaints, and in an expostulating way, [O Lord of Hosts, how long, will you not be merciful to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah?] and verse 13, Zechariah says that he observed that the Lord answered the Angel with good words and comfortable. God was fain to give him good words (as we use to say) — that is, words that might pacify him as words of comfort to us, so good words in respect to the Angel's complaint. And you may observe how in the answer God returns upon it (which he bade Zechariah write), God excuses it (as it were) to Christ, that his Church had been so long and so hardly dealt withal; as if beyond his intention, he lays the fault on the instruments, I was but a little displeased, but they helped forward the affliction; verse 15. This is spoken and carried after the manner of men, to show how tender God is of displeasing Christ our Intercessor: that when Christ has (as it were) been a long while silent, and let God alone, and his people have been ill dealt withal; he on the sudden in the end intercedes and complains of it, and it is not only instantly redressed, but excused for times past, with good words, and comfortable words. Christ's Father will not displease him, nor go against him in anything.

Now that you may see a reason of this, and have all cavils and exceptions taken away, that may arise against this; and how that there is an impossibility that it should be otherwise: know, that this Father and this Son, though two persons, have yet but one will between them, and but one power between them, (though the Son outwardly executes all) (John 10:30) — My Father and I are one; that is, have but one and the same power to save you, and one mind and will. So also (John 5:19), the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do, and whatever he does, the same the Father does also: they conspire in one, have one power, one will. And then it is no matter though God commit all power to the Son, and that the Son though he has all power, must ask all of the Father, for to be sure whatever he asks, the Father has not power to deny; for they have but one will and power. They are one; so as if God deny him, he must deny himself, which the Apostle tells us he cannot do (2 Timothy 2:13). And so in the same sense that God is said not to have power to deny himself; in the same sense it may be said, he has not power to deny Christ what he asks. Therefore God might well make him an absolute king, and entrust him with all power; and Christ might well oblige himself, notwithstanding this power, to ask all that he means to do; for they have but one will and one power, so as our salvation is made sure by this on all hands. [I come not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me; and his will is, that I shall lose none of all those whom he has given me] (John 6:38-39). And therefore who shall condemn? It is Christ that intercedes. As who shall resist God's will? (as the Apostle speaks) so who shall resist or gainsay Christ's intercession? God himself cannot, no more than he can gainsay, or deny himself.

Chapter 8

We have seen the greatness of the person interceding, and many considerations from there, which may persuade us of his prevailing for us. Let us now in the next place, consider the graciousness of the person with whom he intercedes, which the Scripture for our comfort herein does distinctly set before us, to the end that in this great matter, our joy and security may every way be full. Thus in that (1 John 2:1), when for the comfort and support of believers, against the evil of the greatest sins that can befall them after conversion, the apostle minds them of Christ's intercession in those words, If any man sin, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous: mentioning therein the power and prevalence of such an advocate, through his own righteousness: But yet over and above all this, the more fully to assure us of his good success herein for us, he also adds, [An advocate with the Father.] He insinuates and suggests the relation and gracious disposition of him, upon whose supreme will our case ultimately depends, [The Father] as affording a new comfort and encouragement, even as great [illegible] as does the righteousness and power of the person interceding. He says not, [With God only] as elsewhere, but [With the Father.] And that his words might afford the more full matter of confidence, and be the more comprehensive, and take in all, he expresses not this relation of God limitedly, as confined to his fatherhood, either to Christ only, or us alone: He says not only [An advocate with his Father,] though that would have given much assurance, or [With your Father,] though that might afford much boldness; but indefinitely he says [With the Father,] as intending to take in both; to assure us of the prevailing efficacy of Christ's intercession, from both. You have both these elsewhere more distinctly, and on purpose, and together mentioned, (John 20:17). I go to my Father, and your Father, says Christ there: And it was spoken after that all his disciples had before forsaken him, and Peter denied him; when Christ himself would send them the greatest cordial that his heart could utter, and wrap up the strongest sublimation of comforts in one pill; What was it? Go tell them, (says he) not so much that I have satisfied for sin, overcome death, or am risen, but that I ascend: For in that which Christ does for us being ascended, lies the height, the top of our comfort. And whereas he might have said, (and it had been matter of unspeakable comfort) I ascend to heaven, and so where I am, you shall be also; yet he chooses rather to say, [I ascend to the Father,] for that indeed contained the foundation, spring, and cause of their comfort; even that relation of God's, [his fatherhood] with which Christ was to deal after his ascending, for them. And because when before his death he had spoken of his going to his Father, their hearts had been troubled, (John 14:28), they thinking it was for his own preferment only, (as Christ's speech there implies they did) therefore he here distinctly adds, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. He had in effect spoken as much before, in the words foregoing, Go tell my brethren, but that was only implicitly; therefore more plainly and explicitly he says it, for their further comfort, [I go to my Father, and your Father.] And consider, that Christ being now newly risen, and having as yet not seen his disciples, and being now to send a message, his first message, a gospel of good tidings to them, (and that in a brief sentence) by a woman; he chooses out this as the first word to be spoken from him now, when he was come out of the other world, at their first hearsay of his return, he utters forth at once, the bottom, the depth of all comfort, the sum of all joy; than which the gospel knows no greater, nor can go higher: So as if Christ should intend now at this day to send good news from Heaven to any of you, it would be but this, I am here an advocate, interceding with my Father, and your Father. All is spoken in that. Even [He] could not speak more comfort, who is the God of comfort. Now therefore let us apart consider these two relations, which afford each of them their proper comfort and assurance; both that Christ is ascended, and intercedes with his own Father; and also with our Father: and therefore how prevailing must this intercession be?

First, Christ intercedes with his Father, who neither will nor can deny him anything. To confirm this, you have a double testimony, and of two of the greatest witnesses in heaven: both a testimony of Christ's own, while he was on earth; and God's own word also declared, since Christ came to heaven. The first is in the 11th of John, while Christ was here on earth, and had not as then fully performed that great service which he was to finish; which since he having done, it must needs ingratiate him the more with God his Father. When Lazarus was now four days dead, Martha, to move Christ to pity her, first tells him, that if he had been there before her brother died, that then he had not died: and then (as having spoken too little) she adds, indeed you can (if you please) remedy it yet. But I know (says she, (verse 22)) that even now (though he be so long dead) whatever you will ask of God, God will give it you. Here was her confidence in Christ's intercession, though this were a greater work than ever yet Christ had done any. And Christ seeing her faith in this, he confirms her speech when he came to raise him, and takes a solemn occasion to declare, that God had never denied him any request that he had ever put up to him, first thanking God particularly that he had heard him in this (verse 41). Father, I thank you, that you have heard me: he had (it seems) prayed for the thing at her entreaty; and now, before the thing was done, he (being assured his prayer was heard) gives thanks; so confident was he of his being heard. And then secondly, shows upon what this his confidence at this time was grounded, his constant experience that God had never denied him any request; for it follows (verse 42): And I know that you hear me always, (and therefore was so bold, as to express my confidence in this, before the thing was done) but because of them who stood by, I said it. As if he had said, Though I gave this public thanks for being heard only in this one miracle, and at no time the like so publicly; yet this is no new thing, but thus it has been always hitherto, in all the miracles I have wrought, and requests I have put up, which made me so to give thanks beforehand: and this is not the first time that God has heard me thus; which I speak, that they might believe. Thus he was never denied on earth, from the first to the last. For this was one of his greatest miracles, and reserved to the last, even a few days before his crucifying.

And now he has performed the service designed him, and is come to heaven, let us secondly hear God himself speak, what he means to do for him. You heard before, when he came first to heaven, what God said to him, and how he welcomed him with a "Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool:" And before Christ opened his mouth to speak a word, by way of any request to God, (which was the office that he was now to execute) God himself prevented him, and added, "You are my Son, this day have I begotten you: Ask of me, and I will give you (Psalm 2:8)." He speaks it at Christ's first coming up to heaven, when he had his King on his holy hill, as verse 6. Christ was newly glorified, which was as a new begetting to him, "Today have I begotten you:" And this is, as if he had said, I know you will ask me now for all that you have died for; and this I promise you beforehand, before you speak a word, or make any request to me, you shall ask nothing but it shall be granted; and this I speak once for all, as a boon and a grace granted you upon your birthday, as the solemnest celebration of it, (for such was his Resurrection, and Ascension, and sitting at God's right hand) "Today have I begotten you; Ask of me and I will give you." So full of joy was his Father's heart, that he had his Son in heaven with him, whom he had begotten from everlasting, and ordained to this glory, who was lately dead, and in a manner lost, and therefore now (as it were) newly begotten. God's heart was so full, that he could not hold from expressing it in the largest favors and grants. And whereas kings upon their own birthdays use to grant such favors to their favorites: So Herod on his birthday to the daughter of Herodias, promised with an oath to give her whatever she would ask (Matthew 14:7). God himself having no birthday, nor being of himself capable of it, yet having a Son who had, he honors him with that grace upon that day; and if Queen Esther (a subject, indeed, a slave in her original condition) was so prevalent for the Jews her people and nation, when their case was desperate, and when there was an irrevocable decree past (and that not to be altered) for their ruin and destruction, then what will not Christ (so great a Son, even equal with his Father) prevail for, with his Father, for his brethren? Be their case, for the time past, never so desperate, be there never so many threatenings gone out against them, never so many [reconstructed: precedents] and examples of men condemned before for the like sins, and in the like case, yet Christ can prevail against them all.

Chapter 9.

Secondly, Christ is an Advocate for us with our Father: you may perhaps think there is little in that; but Christ puts much upon it: indeed so much, as if God would however grant all that Christ himself means to ask, whether Christ asked it or not. This you have expressly in John 16:26-27. At that day (says Christ) you shall ask in my name, and I say not to you, that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loves you. To open this place, where he says [at that day;] the day he means through this whole chapter, is that time when the Holy Ghost should be shed upon them: for throughout his discourse, he still speaks of the fruits of his Ascension, and of giving the Comforter, which was done upon his ascending, and was the first fruits of his priestly office in Heaven. Thus Peter informs us (Acts 2:33): He being (says he) exalted by the right hand of God, and having received (namely by asking, Ask and I will give you) of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he has shed forth this, which you now see and hear. Now of that time, when he shall be in Heaven, he says, I say not that I will pray for you: which is not meant, that Christ prays not for us in heaven, but rather those very words are the highest intimation, that he would and does pray for us, that can be. When men would most strongly intimate their purpose of a kindness they mean to do for one, they use to say, I do not say that I love you, or that I will do this or that for you; which is as much as to say, I will surely do it, and do it to purpose. But Christ's scope here is, as in the highest manner to promise them that he would pray for them; so withal, further to tell them for their more abundant assurance and security, that besides their having the benefit of his prayers, God himself so loves them of himself, that indeed that alone were enough to obtain anything at his hands, which they shall but ask in his name; so as he needs not pray for them, and yet he will too. But now in this case, if he himself pray for them, and they themselves in his name, and both to a Father, who of himself loves them, and who has purposed to grant all, before either he, or they should ask; what hope must there needs be then of a good success? This is both the meaning of this place, and a great truth to be considered by us, to the purpose in hand: that it is the meaning of the place, the manner of Christ's speech implies, [I say not that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you.] It is such a speech as Christ used upon a clean contrary occasion (John 5:45): Do not think (says he) that I will accuse you to the Father, there is one who accuses you, even Moses, etc. He there threatens the obstinate and accursed Pharisees with condemnation: Never stand thinking that it is I (says he) who am your only enemy and accuser, that will procure your condemnation, and so prosecute the matter against you merely for my own interest; no, I shall not need to do it: though I should not accuse you, your own Moses in whom you trust, he is enough to condemn you, he will do your errand sufficiently, you would be sure to be damned by his words and sayings; I shall not need to trouble myself to come in and enter my action against you too, Moses and his law would follow the suit, and be enough to condemn you to Hell. So as this speech does not imply that Christ will not at all accuse them; no, he means to bring in his action against them too: for he after says, If he had not spoken to them, they had had no sin, and therefore he meant to bring the greatest accusation of all. Now in an opposite (though parallel) speech here, to comfort his disciples, he says [I say not that I will pray for you] that God may save you, I who yourselves shall see will die for you, I say not that I will pray for you, not I. But though I speak this to insinuate in the highest manner, that I will; (for if I spend my blood for you, will I not spend my breath for you?) yet the truth is, that the case so stands, that but for God's own ordination, I should not need to do it, for the Father himself loves you: (that is) the Father of his own motion, and proper good will taken up of himself toward you, and not wrought in him by me, does love you, and bears so much love to you, as he can deny you nothing, for he is your Father as well as mine. How much more then shall you be saved, when I shall strike in too, and use all my interest in him for you? Christ on purpose uses this speech, so to dash out of their hearts that conceit, which harbors in many of ours, who look upon God in the matter of salvation, as one who is hardly entreated to come off, to save sinners, and with whom Christ (through the backwardness of his heart) has so much ado; and we are apt to think that when he does come off to pardon, he does it only and merely at Christ's entreaty, and for his sake, having otherwise no innate motion in himself sufficient to incline his heart to it; but that it is in this transaction by Christ with him, as a favorite procures a pardon for a traitor, whose person the King cares not for; only at his favorite's suit and request he grants it, which else he would never have done. You are deceived, says Christ, it is otherwise: my Father's heart is as much toward you, and for your salvations, as mine is: himself of himself loves you. And the truth is, that God took up as vast a love to us of himself at first, as ever he has borne us since: and all that Christ does for us, is but the expression of that love which was taken up originally in God's own heart. Thus we find, that out of that love he gave Christ for us: So John 3:16, God so loved the world (of elect) that he gave his only begotten Son to die, etc. Indeed, Christ's death was but a means to commend or set forth that love of his to us: So Romans 5:8, it was God also that did himself give the persons to Christ, and underhand set him on work to mediate for them: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself: he only used Christ as his instrument to bring it honorably about. All the blessings he means to give us, he first purposed and intended in himself: (so Ephesians 1:3, 5, 9, 11 compared) out of the good pleasure of his will, yet [in Christ] as it is added there, as the means through which he would convey them: indeed Christ adds not one drop of love to God's heart; only he draws it out, he broaches it, and makes it flow forth, whose current had otherwise been stopped. The truth is, that God suborned Christ to beg them on our behalf for an honorable way of carrying it, and to make us prize this favor of it the more; but so, as his heart is as ready to give all to us, as Christ's is to ask, and this out of his pure love to us.

The intercession therefore of Christ must needs speed, when God's heart is thus of itself prepared to us. In Isaiah 53:10, it is said, The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand: If our salvation be in Christ's hand, it is in a good hand; but if it be the pleasure of the Lord too, it must needs prosper. And it is said of our hearts and prayers, that He prepares the heart, and hears the prayer; much more therefore when his own heart is prepared to grant the suit, will he easily hear it. When one has a mind to do a thing, then the least hint procures it of him: So a father having a mind to spare his child, he will take any excuse, any one's mediation, even of a servant, a stranger, or an enemy, rather than of none. Now when Christ shall speak for us, and speak God's own heart, how prevalent must those words needs be? David's soul longing to go forth to Absalom (2 Samuel 13, last verse), whom notwithstanding (for the honor of a father, and a king's state policy, and to satisfy the world) he had banished the court for his treason; when Joab perceived it, that the king's heart was toward Absalom (2 Samuel 14:1), and that the king only needed one to speak a good word for him, he suborns a woman, a stranger (no matter whom, for it had been all one for speeding) with a made tale to come to the king; and you know how easily it took and prevailed with him, and how glad the king's heart was of that occasion: even so acceptable it was to him, that Joab could not have done him a greater kindness; and that Joab knew well enough. Thus it is with God's heart toward us, Christ assures us of it, and you may believe him in this case, for Christ might have took all the honor to himself, and made us beholding to himself alone for all God's kindness to us; but he deals plainly, and tells us that his Father is as ready as himself; and this for his Father's honor and our comfort. And therefore it is that, in John 17, in that this prayer so operated on this discourse, he pleads our election (John 17:6): Yours they were, and you gave them me; You committed them to me, and commanded me to pray for them, and I do but commend the same to you again. In the high priest's breastplate when he went into the Holy of Holies, were set twelve stones, on which were written the names of the twelve tribes: the mystery of which is this, Christ bears us and our names in his heart, when he goes to God: and moreover, we are God's jewels, precious in his own account and choice. So God calls them (Malachi 3:17): made precious to him out of his love. So (Isaiah 43:4). So that God loves us as jewels chosen by him, but much more when he beholds us set and presented to him in the breastplate of Christ's heart and prayer.

To conclude therefore, we have now made both ends of this text to meet, God's love, and Christ's intercession. The Apostle began with that, Who shall accuse? It is God that justifies, and he being for us, who can be against us? The Father himself loves us as he is our Father: And then he ends with this, Christ intercedes, namely, with our Father and his Father, Who then shall condemn? Who, or what can possibly condemn, all these things being for us, the least of which were alone enough to save us?

Let us now look round about, and take a full view and prospect at once, of all those particulars that Christ has done and does for us, and their several and joint influence which they have into our salvation.

1. In that Christ died, it assures us of a perfect price paid for, and a right to eternal life thereby acquired.

2. In that he rose again as a common person, this assures us yet further, that there is a formal, legal, and irrevocable act of justification of us passed and enrolled in that court of heaven between Christ and God: and that in his being then justified, we were also justified in him, so that thereby our justification is made past recalling.

3. Christ's ascension into heaven, is a further act of his taking possession of heaven for us, he then formally entering upon that our right in our stead; and so is a further confirmation of our salvation to us. But still we in our own persons are not yet saved, this being but done to us as we are representatively in Christ as our head.

4. Therefore he sits at God's right hand, which imports his being armed and invested with all power in heaven and earth to give and apply eternal life to us.

5. And last of all there remains intercession to finish and complete our salvation; to do the thing, even to save us. And as Christ's death and Resurrection were to procure our justification: so his sitting at God's right hand and intercession are to procure salvation; and by faith we may see it done, and behold our souls not only sitting in heaven, as in Christ a common person sitting there in our right; as an evidence that we shall come there: but also through Christ's intercession begun we may see ourselves actually possessed of heaven. And there I will leave all you that are believers by faith possessed of it, and solacing your souls in it, and do you fear condemnation if you can.

Chapter 10.

Now for a conclusion of this discourse I will add a brief use of encouragement; and this, suited to the lowest faith of the weakest believer, who cannot put forth any act of assurance, and is likewise discouraged from coming in to Christ. And I shall confine myself only to what those most comfortable words (as any in the book of God) do hold forth, which the Apostle has uttered concerning Christ's intercession (the point in hand;) [Therefore he is able to save to the utmost, those that come to God by him: seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them,] words which I have had the most recourse to in this doctrinal part, of any other, as most tending to the clearing of many things about intercession: And which I would also commend to, and leave with poor believers to have recourse to for their comfort, as a sufficient [reconstructed: abundance] of consolation to their souls, and as a catholicon or universal cordial against all faintings and misgivings of spirit whatever.

In the words observe,

1. A definition of faith by the lowest acts of it, for the comfort of weak Christians:

2. Encouragements to such a faith, opposite to all misgivings and discouragements whatever.

1. A definition of faith; and such, as will suit the weakest believer. It is a coming to God by Christ for salvation.

It is [a coming] to be saved. Let not the want of assurance that God will save you, or that Christ is yours, discourage you, if you have but a heart to come to God by Christ to be saved, though you do not know whether he will yet save you, or not. Remember that the Believers of the New Testament are here described to be [comers] to God by Christ; such as go out of themselves, and rest in nothing in themselves, do come to God through Christ for salvation, though with trembling.

It is a coming [to God.] For he is the ultimate object of our faith, and the person with whom we have to do in believing, and from whom we are to receive salvation, if ever we obtain it.

It is a coming to God [by Christ:] which phrase is used in this Epistle in an allusion to the worshipers of the Old Testament; who when they had sinned, were directed to go to God by a priest, who with a sacrifice made an atonement for them. Now Christ is the great and true High-Priest, by whom we have access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). The word is [illegible], a leading by the hand. Do you not know how to appear before God or to come to him? Come first to Christ, and he will take you by the hand, and go along with you, and lead you to His Father.

It is a coming to God by Christ [for salvation.] Many a poor soul is apt to think that in coming to God by faith it must not aim at itself, or its own salvation: yes, it may, for that is here made the errand or business which faith has with God in coming to him; or which it comes for, and this is secretly couched in these words: for the Apostle speaking of the very aim of the heart in coming, he therefore on purpose mentions Christ's ability to save; [He is able to save.]

Secondly, Here are many encouragements to such a faith as is not yet grown up to assurance of salvation.

Here is the most suitable object propounded to it, namely, Christ as interceding; which work of intercession because it remains for Christ as yet to do for a soul that is to be saved, and which he is every day doing for us; therefore it is more peculiarly fitted to a recumbent's faith. For when such a soul comes and casts itself upon Christ, that thing in Christ, which must needs most suit that kind of act, is that which is yet to be done by Christ for that soul. Now for that soul to come to Christ to die for it, and offer up himself a sacrifice, (as sinners did use to come to the high priest to sacrifice for them) this were bootless, for (as it is verse 27.) he has at once done that already. And as for what is already past and done, such a believer's faith is oftentimes exceedingly puzzled, what manner of act to put forth towards Christ about it: as (for example) when it is about to come to God, and it hears of an election of some to salvation from all eternity made by him; because this is an act already past by God, the soul knows it to be in vain to cast itself upon God for election, or to come to him to elect and choose itself. And so in like manner, when the soul looks upon Christ's death; because it is done and past, it does not know how to take it in in believing, when it wants assurance that Christ died for it, (though it should come to Christ to be saved by virtue of his death.) But there is this one work that remains still to be done by him for us, and which he is daily doing; and that is, interceding, for he lives ever to intercede, or to pray for us in the strength and merit of that his sacrifice once offered up. This therefore is more directly and peculiarly fitted to a faith of recumbency, or, of coming to Christ: the proper act of such a faith (as it is distinguished from faith of assurance) being a casting oneself upon Christ for something it would have done or wrought for one. Hence intercession becomes a fit object for the aim and errand of such a faith, in this its coming to Christ, as also [to be saved] is, it being a thing yet to be wrought and accomplished for me by Christ, is therefore a fit mark for such a faith to level at in its coming to Christ. Those acts of God and Christ which are past, faith of assurance does more easily comply with: such a faith takes in with comfort that Christ has died for me, and risen again, and does now intercede for me, and so I shall certainly be saved: but so cannot this weak faith do. Come therefore to Christ, as to save you through his death past, and by the merit of it, so for the present, and for the time to come, to take your cause in hand, and to intercede for you: it is a great relief to such a faith (as cannot put forth acts of assurance, that what has been done by Christ has been done for it) that God has left Christ this work yet to do for us. So as the intercession of Christ may afford matter to such a faith to throw itself upon Christ, to perform it for us, and it may set him to work to do it.

Now if such a soul asks, But will Christ upon my coming to him for salvation, be set to work to intercede for me, and undertake my cause?

I answer it out of those words, [He lives to intercede for them who come to God by him.] He lives on purpose to perform this work; it is the end of his living, the business of his life. And as he received a commandment to die, and it was the end of his life on earth; so he has received a command to intercede, and to be a common High Priest for all that come to God by him. God has appointed him to this work by an oath, He swore, and would not repent, You shall be a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek; and this is the end of his life in heaven. That as in the old law the High Priest (Christ's type in this) ought to offer up the sacrifice of everyone that came to God by him, (as Hebrews 5:5) in like manner Christ; for it is his calling, (as you have it, verse 6.) Otherwise, as that woman said to Philip, when she came to him for justice, and he put her off, Then cease (says she) to be a King: So if Christ should deny any such soul to take its cause in hand, he must then cease to be a Priest. He lives to intercede: He is a Priest called by God, as was Aaron, verse 6. Therefore he ought to do it, in that it is his office.

3. And if your soul yet fears the difficulty of its own particular case, in respect of the greatness of your sins, and the circumstances thereof, or any consideration whatever which to your view does make your salvation a hard suit to obtain: the Apostle therefore further adds, [He is able to save to the utmost] (whatever your cause be) and this, through this his intercession. That same word [to the utmost] is a good word, and well put in for our comfort. Consider it therefore, for it is a reaching word, and extends itself so far, that you cannot look beyond it. Let your soul be set upon the highest mount that ever any creature was yet set upon, and that is enlarged to take in and view the most spacious prospect both of sin and misery, and difficulties of being saved, that ever yet any poor humbled soul did cast within itself: indeed join to these all the objections and hindrances of your salvation that the heart of man can suppose or invent against itself: lift up your eyes and look to the utmost you can see, and Christ by his intercession is able to save you beyond the horizon and furthest compass of your thoughts, even to the utmost and worst case the heart of man can suppose. It is not your having lain long in sin, long under terrors and despairs, or having sinned often after many enlightenings, that can hinder you from being saved by Christ. Do but remember this same word [to the utmost,] and then put in what exceptions you will or can, lay all the bars in your way that are imaginable; yet know that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against you.

4. Again, consider but what it is that Christ, who has by his death done enough to save you, does yet further for you in Heaven. If you thought you had all the Saints in Heaven and Earth jointly concurring in promoting your salvation, and competitors to God in instant and incessant requests and prayers to save you; how would you be encouraged? (shall I tell you?) one word out of Christ's mouth (who is the King of Saints) will do more than all in heaven and earth can do: and what is there then which we may not hope to obtain through his intercession?

And would you know whether he has undertaken your cause, and begun to intercede for you? In a word, Has he put his spirit into your heart, and set your own heart on work to make incessant intercessions for yourself with groans unutterable? (as the Apostle has it, Romans 8) This is the echo of Christ's intercession for you in Heaven.

5. (And lastly) If such a soul shall further object, But will he not give over suing for me? may I not be cast out of his prayers through my unbelief? Let it here be considered, that he lives [ever] to intercede: And therefore if he once undertake your cause, and gets you into his prayers, he will never leave you out night nor day. He intercedes always, till he has accomplished and finished your salvation. Men have been cast out of good and holy men's prayers, as Saul out of Samuel's, and the People of Israel out of Jeremiah's; but never out of Christ's prayers; the smoke of his incense ascends forever, and he will intercede to the utmost, till he has saved you to the utmost. He will never give over, but will lie in the dust for you, or he will perfect and procure your salvation.

Only while I am thus raising up your faith to him upon the work of his intercession for us; let me speak a word to you for him, so to stir up your love to him, upon the consideration of this his intercession also. You see you have the whole life of Christ first and last, both here and in heaven laid out for you: He had not come to earth but for you: he had no other business here; To us a Son is born. And (to be sure) he had not died but for you: (for us a Son was given) and when he rose, it was for your justification: And now he is gone to heaven, he lives but to intercede for you. He makes your salvation his constant calling. O therefore let us live wholly to him, for he has, and does live wholly to us. You have his whole time among you; and if he were your servant, you could desire no more. There was much of your time lost before you began to live to him: but there has been no moment of his time which he has not lived to, and improved for you. Nor are you able ever to live for him, but only in this life, for hereafter you shall live with him, and be glorified of him. I conclude all with that of the Apostle, The love of Christ it should constrain us, because we cannot but judge this to be the most equal, that they who live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him who died for them, and rose again; and (out of the Text I also add) sits at God's right hand; indeed, and there lives forever to make intercession for us.

FINIS.