Again, where this conviction of righteousness is, it answers all objections. The doubting heart will object this and that, but the Spirit of God shews an all-sufficiency in Christ's obedience ; and that sets the soul down quietly in all crosses, and calms it in all storms in some degree. Where the soul is convinced of the righteousness of Christ, there the conscience demands boldly : ' It is God that justifies, who shall condemn ? It is Christ that is dead, and risen again, and sits at the right hand of God. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ?' Bom. viii. 33. So that a con- vinced conscience dares all creatures in heaven and earth. It works strongly and boldly. I shall not need to enlarge this. You know whether you are convinced.
Use. To end the point, I beseech you, labour to live by this faith. Here is an evidence if we can live by it. How is that ? Every day to make use of the ' righteousness of Christ,' as every day we run into sin. Be sure we have our consciences sprinkled with the blood of Christ ; that as we increase new guilt, so we may have a new pardon. Therefore every day labour to see God as reconciled, and Christ as our advocate with the Father. Christ is now in heaven. If we sin, make use of him. This should be the life of a Christian, to make use of Christ's righteousness. AVhen you find nature polluted, go to God, and say. Lord, my nature, though foul in itself, yet is holy and pure in Christ. He took the weak- ness of the human nature unto him, that he might communicate the worih and efficacy of his divine nature unto me. And for my actions, I am a sinner ; but Christ hath fully discharged all my debts, and is now in heaven. He hath performed all righteousness for me. Look not upon me as in myself, but look upon me in Christ. He and I are one. This should be
THE saint's pkivilege. 3G5
every day's exercise, to see ourselves in Christ, and so see him and our- selves one. I should enlarge the point further, but I will speak a word of the reason.
What is the reason why the Comforter may and shall convince of right- eousness ? ' Because I go to the Father.' What strength is there in that reason ? Why this : Christ took upon him to be onr surety ; and he must acquit us of all our sins ere he can go to his Father. If one sin had been unsatisfied for, he could not have gone to his Father ; but now he is gone to his Father, therefore all our sins are satisfied for. So that now the ascen- sion of Christ is a sufficient pledge to me that my person is accepted, and my sins pardoned ; because he is gone to his Father, to appear before the Father for us, which he could not have done had he not fulfilled all righteousness.
But wherefore did he go to the Father ? Why, to make application of what he had wroiKjht. If Christ should not have gone to the Father, he could not have sent the Holy Ghost to us. Therefore there is great use of this going to his Father. Satan pleads before God we are such and such. Ay, but saith Christ, I have shed my blood for them; and there he perfumes all our weak prayers. If we were not imperfect, what need we a Mediator in heaven ? Therefore he is gone to heaven to dis- annul all Satan's accusations, and to provide a place for us. Die when we will, our place is ready.
Then again, he is gone to the Father to clothe us with a siveet relation, to make the Father our Father. For he saith, John xx. 17, 'I go to my Father and to your Father,' so that he is not ashamed to call us brethren. By virtue of this, we may go to God and call him Father ; and when we die, we may without presumption say, ' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' Luke xxiii. 46 ; for the Father loves us as he loved Christ, with one and the same love, though in a far different degree. What a comfort is this, that when we die, we go to our Father that is better than any earthly father. Therefore it should joy us when the time of our departure comes. We see old Jacob, when he saw the chariots come out of Egypt, how his heart leaped because he should go to see his son Joseph, Gen. xlv. 27, so when death is sent to transport us to Christ, to heaven, had we a strong faith we should be exceeding glad.
And let us learn here the art of faith from Christ. * I go to the Father,' saith he. There was a great deal of time yet to pass, no less than forty days after his resurrection, before he went to the Father, yet he saith, ' I go to the Father,' to shew that faith presents things future as present, faith sees heaven as present, and the day of judgment as present, and doth affect the soul as if they were now existent. If we had a spirit of faith, it would thus present things far off as nigh at hand. Therefore when we meet with anything that may make our way to heaven seem long or troublesome, exercise your faith, and make your term present to your spirits. Though remote from sense, say, I go to the Father. What, though I go through blood and a shameful death, yea, perhaps a tormentful death, yet I go to the Father ! When a man is once persuaded that God is his Father in Christ, it will make him walk to heaven before his time.