THE NECESSITY OF HAVING CHRIST FOR OUR ADVOCATE.
Fourth. The necessity of the Advocate's office in Jesus Christ appears plainly in this plead about the judgments, distresses, afflictions, and troubles that we meet withal in this life for our sins. For though, under this office, Christ fully takes us off from the condemnation that the unbelievers go down to for their sins, yet he doth not thereby exempt us from temporal punishments, for we see and feel that they daily overtake us; but for the proportioning of the punishment, or affliction for transgression, seeing that comes under the sentence of the law, it is fit that we should have an Advocate that understands both law and judgment, to plead for equal distribution of chastisement, according, I say, to the law of grace; and this the Lord Jesus doth.
Suppose a man for transgression be indicted at the assizes; his adversary is full of malice, and would have him punished sorely beyond what by the law is provided for such offense; and he pleads that the judge will so afflict and punish as he in his malicious mind desireth. But the man has an advocate there, and he enters his plea against the cruelty of his client's accuser, saying, My lord, it cannot be as our enemy would have it; the punishment for these transgressions is prescribed by that law that we here ground our plea upon; nor may it be declined to satisfy his envy; we stand here upon matters of law, and appeal to the law. And this is the work of our Advocate in heaven. Punishments for the children's sin come not headlong, not without measure, as our accuser would have them, nor yet as they fall upon those who have none to plead their cause. Had He smote the children according to the stroke wherewith he hath smitten others? No; "in measure when it shooteth forth," or seeks to exceed due bounds, "thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind" (Isa 27:8).
"Thou wilt debate with it," inquiring and reasoning by the law, whether the shootings forth of the affliction (now going out for the offense committed) be not too strong, too heavy, too hot, and of too long a time admitted to distress and break the spirit of this Christian; and if it be, he applies himself to the rule to measure it by, he fetches forth his plumb line, and sets it among his people, (Amos 7:8; Isa 28:17), and lays righteousness to that, and will not suffer it to go further; but according to the quality of the transgression, and according to the terms, bounds, limits, and measures which the law of grace admits, so shall the punishment be. Satan often says of us when we have sinned, as Abishai said of Shimei after he had cursed David, Shall not this man die for this? (II Sam 19:21).
But Jesus, our Advocate, answers as David, What have I to do with thee, O Satan? Thou this day art an enemy to me; thou seekest for a punishment for the transgressions of my people above what is allotted to them by the law of grace, under which they are, and beyond what their relation that they stand into my Father and myself will admit. Wherefore, as Advocate, he pleadeth against Satan when he brings in against us a charge for sins committed, for the regulating of punishments, both as to the nature, degree, and continuation of punishment; and this is the reason why, when we are judged, we are not condemned, but chastened, "that we should not be condemned with the world" (I Cor 11:32). Hence king David says, the Lord hath not given him over to the will of his enemy (Psa 27:12).
And again, "The Lord hath chastened me sore; but he hath not given me over unto death" (Psa 118:18). Satan's plea was, that the Lord would give David over to his will, and to the tyranny of death. No, says our Advocate, that must not be; to do so would be an affront to the covenant under which grace has put them; that would be to deal with them by a covenant of works, under which they are not. There is a rod for children; and stripes for those that transgress. This rod is in the hand of a Father and must be used according to the law of that relation, not for the destruction, but correction of the children; not to satisfy the rage of Satan, but to vindicate the holiness of my Father; not to drive them further from, but to bring them nearer to their God. But,
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