him to us with so dreadful and so ireful a countenance, that a man
in temptation and under guilt shall hardly be able to lift up his
face to God.

But now, to think really that he is my Advocate, this heals all. Put
a vizor upon the face of a father, and it may perhaps for a while
fright the child; but let the father speak, let him speak in his own
fatherly dialect to the child, and the vizor is gone, if not from
the father's face, yet from the child's mind; yea, the child,
notwithstanding that vizor, will adventure to creep into its
father's bosom.

Why, thus it is with the saints when Satan deludes and abuses them
by disfiguring the countenance of Christ to their view: let them but
hear their Lord speak in his own natural dialect--and he doth so
indeed when we hear him speak as an advocate--and their minds are
calmed, their thoughts settled, their guilt vanished, and their
faith revived.

Is Christ Jesus the Lord my advocate with the Father? Then awake, my
faith, and shake thyself like a giant; stir up thyself and be not
faint: Christ is the advocate of his people; and as for sin, which
is one great stumble to thy actings, O my faith, Christ has not only
died for that as a sacrifice, nor only carried his sacrifice unto
the Father into the holiest of all, but is there to manage that
offering as an advocate, pleading the efficacy and worth thereof
before God against the devil for us.

The modest saint is apt to be abashed, to think what a troublesome
one he is, and what a make-work he has been in God's house all his