First, then, I infer that the souls saved by Christ are themselves in a most deplorable condition. Oh, what ado, as I may say, is here before one sinner can be eternally saved! Christ must die, but that is not all; the Spirit of grace must be given to us; but that is not all; Christ must also ever live to make intercession for us. And as he doth this for all, so he doth it for each one. He interceded for me, before I was born, that I might, in time, at the set time, come into being. After that, he also made intercession for me, that I might be kept from hell in the time of my unregenerate state until the time of my call and conversion. Yet again, he then intercedes that the work now begun in my soul may be perfected, not only to the day of my dissolution but unto the day of Christ; that is until he comes to judgment. (Phil 1:6) So that, as he began to save me before I had been, he will go on to save me when
I am dead and gone, and he will never leave to save me until he has set me before his face forever.
But, I say, what a deplorable condition has our sin put us into, that there must be all this ado to save us. Oh, how hard is sin got out of the soul when once it is in! Blood takes away the guilt; inherent grace weakens the filth; but the grave is the place, at the mouth of which, sin, as to the being of sin, and the saved, must have a perfect and final parting. (Isa 38:10) Not that the grave of itself is of a sin-purging quality, but God will follow Satan home to his own door; for the grave is the door or gate of hell, and will there, where the devil thought to have swallowed us up, even there by the power of his mercy make us, at our coming thence, shine like the sun, and look like angels. Christ, all this while, ever lived to make intercession for us.
Second, Hence, also, I infer that as Satan thought he struck home at first, when he polluted our nature, and brought our souls to death, so he is marvelous loath to lose us and to suffer his lawful captives now to escape his hands. He is full of fire against us, full of the fire of malice, as is manifest 1. Not only by his first attempt upon our first parents but behold, when the Deliverer came into the world, how he roared. He sought his death while he was an infant; he hated him in his cradle; he persecuted him while he was but a bud and blossom. (Matt 2) When he was come to riper years, and began to manifest his glory, yet, lest the world should be taken with him, how politicly did this old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, work? He possessed people that he had a devil, and was mad, and a deceiver; that he wrought his miracles by magic art and by the devil; that the prophets spoke nothing of him, and that he sought to overthrow the government which was God’s ordinance. And, not being contented with all this, he pursued him to the death, and could never rest until he had spilled his blood upon the ground like water. Yea, so insatiable was his malice, that he set the soldiers to forge lies about him to the denial of his resurrection, and so managed that matter that what they said has become a stumbling block to the Jews to this very day. (John 10:20, 7:12, Matt 9:34, John 7:52, Luke 23:2, Matt 28:11-15).
