that confession of guiltiness, since there is a Saviour that hath
satisfied for it, and invites all to come, and accept him for their Lord
and Saviour.

Sermon XXVI.

1 John ii. 1.--"We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous."

There is no settlement to the spirit of a sinner that is once touched with
the sense of his sins, and apprehension of the justice and wrath of God,
but in some clear and distinct understanding of the grounds of consolation
in the gospel, and the method of salvation revealed in it. There is no
solid peace giving answer to the challenges of the law and thy own
conscience, but in the advocation of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners.
And therefore the apostle propones it here for the comfort of believers
who are incident to be surprised through the suddenness of sin, and often
deceived by the subtlety of Satan, whose souls' desires and sincere
endeavours are to be kept from iniquity, and therefore they are made to
groan within themselves, and sometimes sadly to conclude against
themselves, upon the prevailing of sin. Here is the cordial, I say. He
presents to them Jesus Christ standing before the bar of heaven, and
pleading his satisfaction in the name of such souls, and so suiting forth
an exemption and discharge for them from their sins. So he presents us
with the most comfortable aspect, Christ standing between us and justice,
the Mediator interposed between us and the Father, so there can come no
harm to such poor sinners, except it come through his sides first, and no
sentence can pass against them, unless he succumb in his righteous cause
in heaven.

The strength of Christ's advocation for believers consists partly in his
qualification for the office, partly in the ground and foundation of his
cause. His qualification we have in this verse, the ground and foundation
of his pleading in the next verse, in that "he is the propitiation for our
sins," and upon this very ground his advocation is both just and
effectual.

Every word holds out some fitness, and therefore every word drops out
consolation to a troubled soul. "With the Father," speaks out the relation
he and we stand in to the Judge. He hath not to do with an austere and
rigid Judge, that is implacable and unsatisfiable, who will needs adhere
peremptorily to the letter of the law, for then we should be all undone.
If there were not some paternal affection, and fatherly clemency and
moderati