BOOK 9. THE INTERCESSION.
CHAPTER 2.
9.2.9. Of Conforming to Jesus in that Respect.
Of Conforming to Jesus in that Respect.
Let us conform to Jesus in respect of his intercession. I cannot think, but in every action of Christ there is something imitable of us. And as to the present work, I shall instance only in these few particulars. As, --
1. Christ appears in heaven for us, let us appear on earth for him. Is there not equity as well as conformity in this duty? O my soul! Consider what thy Christ is doing, consider wherein the intercession of Jesus Christ consists; is not this the first part of it? Why, he appears in heaven before saints, and angels, and before God his Father in thy behalf; and art thou afraid to appear before worms, mortals, dust and ashes in his cause, or for his truth? Shall Jesus Christ own thee in heaven, and wilt thou not own Jesus Christ here in this world? Shall Jesus Christ, as thy great high-priest, take thy very name, and carry it upon his breast into the presence of God; and wilt not thou take the name of Christ, and hold it forth in profession and practice to all men? Oh! what a mighty engagement is here to stand to Christ, and to appear for Christ, and to own his cause in these backsliding times? In that Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, is willing and ready to appear in person for us, both as a mediator, and sponsor, and solicitor, and advocate, and leiger ambassador.
2. Christ spends all his time for us, and our salvation, let us spend all our time for him, and in his service; the apostle tells us, That "he ever lives to make intercession for us," Heb. vii. 25. It is not for a day, or a month, or a year, but he lives forever upon this account; forever, i.e. during all the time from his ascension until the end of the world; he is still interceding, he spends off all that time for us, and shall we think it too much time to spend a few days that we have here to live upon the earth for him? One thinks this is the greatest argument in the world to make us walk closely with God in Christ, "He spends off his eternity for us; and shall we not spend off our whole time for him?" Surely people do not think what Christ is a doing in heaven for them; if you who are saints would but seriously consider, that Christ, this Sabbath, this day of rest, is at his work, that without any weariness or intermission, from morning till evening, and from evening till morning, he is ever, ever interceding; how should this engage you in his service? Ah, Christians! if you should continue praying, praising, reading, hearing all this day, without any intermission or breaking off, Oh! what weariness? Oh! how would you say, "When will this day be done? when will the Sabbath be at an end?" Well, but Christ is not weary of serving you; this Sabbath, and the last Sabbath, and the other Sabbath, and every Sabbath, when you had done your duties, he took your persons and duties, and presented all unto his Father; he prayed over your prayers, and continued praying, and saying, "Lord, accept of a short, poor, lean, imperfect service done on earth for my sake, and for these merits sake, which I am continually presenting to thee here in heaven." Oh! why do we not come up to this conformity? Oh! why are we so unconformable to the actings of Christ? He is preparing mansions for us in heaven, and are we digging in this world? He is making mention of our names to God, and are we sinning against him and God? His blood cries, "O that these souls may be saved!" And shall our sins cry, "It is just that these souls should be damned." O! mind the examplar; Christ spends all this time for you, do you spend all your time for him: we cannot but judge this to be most equal, "That they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who ever lives to make intercession for them."
3. He prays for us and for all believers unto his Father, and let us pray for ourselves, and for all our brethren, and for all sorts of men, though they be our enemies, for we were no better to Jesus Christ; Learn of me, (saith Christ) and as far as he is imitable let us follow him; Doth Christ pray? Let us pray; Doth he pray for us and others? Let us pray for ourselves, and then let us pray for one another. "I exhort therefore, (saith the apostle) that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men," 1 Tim. ii. 1. "And come, lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left," said the king to Isaiah xxxvii. 4. And "wrestle together in prayer for me," said Paul, Rom. xv. 30. And, "Give the Lord no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth," said the prophet, Isa. lxii. 7. Christ intercedes, and there is no question but we should intercede for the living saints, "brethren, pray for us," said the apostle, 1 Thess. v. 25. Whosoever thou art that readest, "I beseech thee remember me in thy prayers, it may be thou art nearer God, and more in favour with God than such a poor sinner as I am." As Mordecai set Esther on work to intercede for him with the king, and for his people: so it is our duty to crave the prayers of such who are upon better terms, possibly with the Lord, than we ourselves are at the present; "Only I could wish thy prayers at such a time, when thy heart is got nearest to God, by special stirrings of faith and love." I suppose thou canst not have a spirit and power of prayer, but sometimes or other thou art, as it were, in the lap of Christ, upon the spouse's knee, in the beloved's bosom; "O then make a request for an unworthy one! O then, if ever intercede for me, because then I read Christ's own intercession in thy intercession. What is thy prayer then, but as the echo of Christ's prayer, the Amen to Christ's intercessions, which he makes in heaven?" Christians! It is our duty to put one another upon praying one for another; Christ intercedes for us, and so should we intercede for his, called or uncalled, if so they belong to the election of grace.
4. Christ takes our prayers, and mingles them with his own prayers, intercessions, incense, and so presents all as one work mingled together unto God the Father; O! let this be our care, to put up all our prayers to God in the name of Christ, and to stay ourselves upon the intercessions of Christ; when all is done, let us beg the acceptance of our prayers, not for our sakes, not for our prayers sake, but for his sake, who perfumes our prayers, by interweaving them with his prayers. Many a poor soul is many a time afraid to pray to God for want of the due consideration of this conformity; such an one goes to prayer, and he looks upon it as it lies upon his own heart, or as it comes from himself, and then he cries. "Oh! what a poor, weak, sinful, imperfect, impenitent prayer is this?" Well, but if this weak prayer of thine be once mingled with the glorious and heavenly prayer of Jesus Christ, the weakness will soon vanish, and thy prayer will find acceptance with God the Father: it is with your prayers and duties as it is with your fire, your kitchen fire is troubled with abundance of smoke, but if ever it could ascend into the element of fire above, it would smoke no more; so your prayer, while it lies upon your own heart, there is a great deal of smoke in it, but if ever it goes up into the hands of Jesus Christ, there it is in its own element, and so it is freed from all its smoke, and so the weakness of it is done away. O conform to Christ in this point! he will not present thy prayers to God, but he will first mingle it with his own prayers; no more shouldst thou present a prayer to God, but in Christ's name, considering that all thy prayers find acceptance in, for, and through the intercession of Jesus Christ: if it were not for this, I profess I know not how to answer the cavils of our dissolute adversaries, who throw down prayers as of no use at all. For thus they object:
Objection. Thou canst not pray (say they) by thy own confession, without some defect, imperfection, sin: and if so, there is need of a new prayer, to beg pardon for the defects of that prayer; and then another prayer to heal the flaws of that prayer; and then another to do as much for that, and so on, in infinitum: by this means there would be an infinite progression, without any stop at any prayer at all.
Answer. I answer, this objection were valid, if there were no intercession of Christ to stay ourselves and our prayers on: but as we grant requests many times for some friend's sake, rather than for the parties sake; so God doth always grant requests for Christ's sake, never for our own sakes. Thou ohjectest, There are many defects in our prayers as made by us; but I answer, There are no defects in the merits and intercession of Jesus Christ, for whose sake alone they are granted of God: and therefore our prayers being made in Christ's name, they may stay their heads in Christ's bosom; in this respect, we need not still to run ourselves in a circle, this being the last resolution, Christ's merits and Christ's intercessions: Christ offers up our persons and wooden prayers in his golden censer to his Father; Christ's intercession therefore is that which doth the deed. Now to say our prayers are of no use, is all one as to say, his intercession is of no use; not that we are so good, that he cannot take exception against us and our prayers, but because Christ is so good, and his intercession for us is so good, that he neither can, nor will take exception against him, or his intercession for us; and, in this case, Christ and Christians make one person (as it were) in law; his intercession for us, and our intercession for ourselves are but one intercession: and indeed, he so mingles them that they seem but one, for "the smoke of the incense, and the prayers of the saints, ascend up together before God out of the angel's hand," Rev. viii. 4.
5. Christ pleads the cause of his people, and answers all the accusations of Satan against them; Oh! let us plead for them for whom Christ pleads, and answer the accusations of Satan, or his instruments, against their persons, or their ways. We have a strange generation of men abroad, whose very religion consists in railing, reviling, reproaching the servants of the living God; not the best men, nor the best ministers under heaven escape them. "Are they not all, say they, wolves, dogs, hirelings, priests of Baal, covetous, carnal, damned:" and what not?
(I lately received a paper, wherein the Quakers gave the ministers of Christ these following names, "Conjurers, thieves, robbers, antichrists, witches, blind guides, devils, liars, Baal's priests, Sir Symonds, dissemblers, upholders of the seven-headed and ten-horned beasts, a viperous and serpentine generation, bloody Herodians, blasphemers, scarlet coloured beasts, Babylon's merchants, busy bodies, whited walls, painted sepulchres, ravening wolves, persecutors, tyrants, greedy dogs, Pharisees.")
Are they not all, say they, (as the devil said of Joshua) "clothed with filthy garments, defiled totally, utterly defiled with the pollutions of Babylon?"
Christians! when you hear this language, learn you to conform to Christ; go you first to God with the Lord's own plea: "now the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee," Zech. iii. 2. And then go on in vindication of their persons and their cause; are they not precious, gracious, holy, able, shining, and burning lights? It may be, some of their persons have been faulty; but say of such, "Is not this a brand newly plucked out of the fire?" Failings and human frailties have been in the best, yea, in the most of the prophets and apostles: but shall we therefore condemn to hell the generation of God's dear children? Or, howsoever it may be with their persons, yet is not their cause and office of Christ's own institution? In this respect, "he that despiseth you, despiseth me, (saith Christ) and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me," Luke x. 16 . Are not the ministers of Christ as stars in the right hand of Christ? They that would do them any deadly harm must pluck them thence. Christians! conform you to Christ in this point; you see how Satan stands at the right hand of our Joshuas to resist them; and then plead your cause, and answer the adversary's accusations.
6. Christ by his intercession, "saves us to the uttermost," Heh. vii. 25. O let us serve him to the uttermost; surely all we can do is too little to answer so great a love as this. Oh, Christians! why should it be esteemed a needless thing to be most rigorously conscionable and exactly circumspect? Christ paid our debt to the uttermost farthing, drunk every drop of our bitter cup, and now presents all unto his Father, by way of intercession, and saves us, (cis panteles,) "Thoroughly, to the uttermost." Why should we not labour to perform his service, and to fulfil every one of his commandments thoroughly and to the uttermost also? Certainly there is a duty which concerns us Christians, as, to be "hot in religion," Rev. iii. 16 . to be "zealous of good works," Tit. ii. 14. "to walk circumspectly or precisely," as the word carries it, Eph. v. 15. to be "fervent in spirit," Rom. xii. 11. to "strive to enter in at the strait gate," Luke xiii. 24. to "contend for the faith," Jude 3. with an holy kind of "violence to lay hold upon the kingdom of heaven," Matt. xi. 12. Oh! that ever men should be afraid of taking God's part too much, or fighting too valiantly under the colours of Christ, of being too busy about the salvation of their own souls, of being singular (as they call it) in the duties of religion; I observe, men are content to be singular in anything, save in the service of God; you desire and labour to be singularly rich, and singularly wise, and singularly valorous, and singularly proud; but you can by no means endure singularity or eminency in zeal, and the Lord's service. In matters of religion you are resolved to do as the most do, though in so doing you damn your own souls. Matt. vii. 13. O come and learn this lesson of Christ! he saves us to the uttermost, and let us serve him to the uttermost with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our might.
Thus far we have looked on Jesus in his intercession: our next work is our last work, which is, to look on Jesus, as carrying on the great work of our salvation for us in his coming again, the very end of time, to all eternity; he hath no more now to do but to judge the saints, and to lead them into glory, and to deliver up his kingdom to his Father; and so to live with his redeemed ones, forever, and ever, and ever.
Matt. xxiv. 30, 31. "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect, from one end of heaven to the other."
Matt. xxv. 34, 35. "Then shall the King say to them on his right hand. Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink," etc.
Matt. xix. 28. "When the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
1 Cor. xv. 24, 28. "Then cometh the end, when he shall have have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. -- And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him, that put all things under him, that God may be all in all."
Heb. xii. 2; 2 Cor. iii. 18; Phil. iii. 20; Tit. ii. 13; Rev. xx. 12. 21 "Looking unto Jesus, the beginniner and finisher of our faith. -- We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory. -- For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. -- We look for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ. -- And I saw the dead, small and great stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. -- And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth; for the first heaven, and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea."