and make us deeply sensible of our own vileness and baseness. For how infinitely detestable must our sins be in his eyes, when, notwithstanding all his kindness and benevolence towards us, he keeps us at such a distance from him, and will not be prevailed with, without some powerful intercession, so much as to hear our prayers, or to have any kind of communication or intercourse with us? And accordingly you find, that when the three friends of Job had treated him so despitefully and uncharitably, God, to manifest his displeasure against them, commands them to make use of Job's mediation, Job xlii. 7. My wrath, saith he to Eliphaz, is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath therefore take unto you seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering, and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept; lest I deal with you after your folly: as if he should have said, That you may see how ill I resent your severe and cruel usage of that good man, know, that if you offer to address to me immediately for yourselves, I will certainly throw your prayers back upon your faces: as therefore you hope to be restored to my favours, go to that injured friend of yours, and beseech him to mediate for you, and I will hear him, though I will not hear you. And after the same manner doth God manifest his high displeasure against our sins, that he will not suffer us to approach him immediately, to present our petitions to him with our own hands, but will have them all presented to him by a hand that is more acceptable to him than our own, and not

only so, but by the greatest and most acceptable hand in the world, even that of his own eternal Son, the Son of his essence and delight, in whom he is for ever well pleased. For it is through him alone that we have access to the Father, whom our sins have so horribly incensed against us, that no advocate in heaven or earth, less great and less dear to him than his own Son, can prevail with him, to be reconciled to us upon our most unfeigned repentance, or so much as to accept of our humble supplications. O good God! what a woful distance have my sins made between thee and me, that notwithstanding the infinite goodness and benignity of thy nature, I cannot be admitted to thee, nor expect any favour at thy hands upon any less powerful interest or application than that of thine only be gotten Son! But, O stupid creature that I am, to make light of those sins that have so highly incensed thee against me, that none in heaven or earth but only that dearly beloved Son can prevail with thee to cast a propitious eye on me, or so much as to give me access to the footstool of the throne of thy grace!

III. This way of God's communicating his favours to us, through the intercession of Christ, is also most apt to secure us from presuming upon God's mercy, while we continue in our sins. There is no one thing doth more universally obstruct the reformation of men, than their confident presumption, that God will be merciful to them, notwithstanding they persist in their rebellions against him: for all men have a natural notion of the infinite goodness and benevolence of the divine nature, together with which all bad men have a natural desire to sin withVOL. II. Ff

out disturbance: when therefore their conscience begins to clamour against their wickedness, and to vex and persecute them for it, the mercy of God is the usual sanctuary they fly to. Peace, froward conscience, cry they; God is a most gracious and merciful Being, hard to be provoked, and easy to be pacified fear not, therefore, his mercy is infinitely greater than my faults; and I am sure so good a God as he is can never find in his heart to destroy his creature and offspring for such peccadillos as these. With such presumptions as these they commonly lull their consciences asleep, and so sin on securely in despite of all the threats and warnings of heaven that thunder about their ears. Now to prevent such presumptions as these, and dash them quite out of countenance, there is no consideration in the world can be more effectual than this, of God's communicating his mercies to us through the intercession of our Saviour: for if, notwithstanding the goodness of his nature, he will not be propitious to us, no, not upon our repentance, without being moved thereunto by the powerful intercession of his own Son, how can we ever expect that he should be propitious to us whether we repent or no? Is it likely he should be more indulgent to us for our own sake, than he is for his Son's sake and our own together? or that, when all that his Son can obtain for us is to receive us into favour in case we will lay down our arms, that we by our own interest should prevail with him to receive us while we persist in our obstinacy and rebellion? In short, if our repentance, which is the best thing we can render him, be not sufficient to move him to pardon us, without being seconded and enforced with the powerful oratory of

our Saviour's intercession, what should move him, when we have neither repentance nor a Saviour to intercede for us? For our Saviour will not intercede for us, unless we repent; and our repentance will not prevail for us, unless he intercede: what hope have we therefore, while we continue impenitent, when our repentance itself, which is the best thing we can do to move God to be propitious to us, is insufficient without Christ's intercession; and when, without our repentance, Christ will not intercede for us? and if the tears of a penitent supplicant will not prevail with him, without an intercessor, what hope is there that the efforts of an impenitent rebel should? But suppose we might reasonably presume upon the benignity of God's nature, that he will be propitious to us, notwithstanding our impenitence, yet it is to be considered, that now he has placed the dispensation of his mercy in the hand of a Mediator, who is not left to dispose of it arbitrarily, as he shall think fit, but is confined and limited to dispose of it only to penitent offenders: for Christ's trust can extend no farther than to dispense God's mercy to us upon the terms of that covenant of which he is Mediator, which covenant proposes mercy to us only upon condition of our repentance. So that now we can expect no mercy from God, but what passes through the hands of Jesus our Mediator, who cannot, without violating his trust, dispense the mercy of God to us, except we repent and amend for now God cannot dispense his mercy to us immediately, without displacing his Son from his mediatorship; and his Son cannot dispense his mercy to us unconditionally, without transgressing the bounds and limits that are prescribed to him. And

therefore since God hath restrained himself to dispense his mercy only through his Son, and restrained his Son to dispense it only to penitents, for us to presume upon the mercy of God while we continue impenitent, is the greatest nonsense in the world: it is to suppose either that God will cancel the economy of his mercy for our sakes, and resume the dispensation of it immediately into his own hands, merely to favour and encourage us in our rebellion against him; or that Christ will betray the trust which his Father hath reposed in him, and dispense his mercy to us contrary to his orders; that is, either that God the Father will depose his Son for our sakes, or that God the Son will be unfaithful to the Father for our sakes, both which suppositions are equally absurd and blasphemous. Whilst therefore God proceeds with us in this established method of granting his mercy to us only through his Son, and confining his Son to dispense it to us only upon the conditions of the new covenant; to flatter ourselves with hopes of mercy while we continue impenitent, is to presume both against reason and possibility.

IV. This way of God's communicating his favours to us, through the mediation of Christ, is also most apt in itself to encourage us to approach him with cheerfulness and freedom. For it is a natural effect of guilt to suggest to men's minds dreadful and anxious thoughts of God, and whilst we are under such thoughts of him, how is it possible for us to approach him immediately, and without any friend or advocate to introduce and speak for us, with any cheerfulness or freedom? For with what confidence can I address to an incensed and offended God,