་ Saviour's death. By the intercession of Christ all the obstacles to our salvation are removed, as they respect our offended God; by the intercession of the Spirit all the difficulties are taken away which arise from our own frail and corrupt hearts. Christ pleads above, the Spirit pleads below. By the one we are taught to pray, by the other our prayers are accepted. Accordingly the Holy Ghost was of old promised as a Spirit of grace and of supplications: and, because we are sons, God is said to have sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, (or as it is in the 8th chapter of the Romans, whereby we cry), Abba, Father. Gal. iv. 6. This last expression will precisely explain the term Intercession before us: for, as by the blessed Spirit crying in our hearts, Abba, Father, is obviously meant his enabling us so to cry; in like manner his making intercession for us, is designed to describe his enabling us to intercede and pray for ourselves. The aid which we derive from this gracious assistance of the Holy Spirit will further appear, if we attend to the last words of our text, WITH GROANINGS WHICH CANNOT BE UTTERED. These groanings-these heart-felt supplications-are the effect of the gracious movement of the divine Spirit on our hearts. Ardent importunity and fervent desires in prayer are the fruit of his intercession. There would appear to be a reference in these words, to what the Apostle had just before spoken of the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain together for deliverance *. In this earnest longing the true Christian largely partakes. Ourselves also, adds the Apostle, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. And in this, the Spirit itself helpeth our infirmities, making intercession for us with groanings not to be uttered, filling us with desires and pantings of the whole soul after God, which no words can adequately express. Sin has disordered all the creation. A curse mingles with every pleasure; the irrational creatures are subjected to vanity; and the uncon * The whole passage is very remarkable—so remarkable, that the full and satisfactory explanation of it has hitherto presented a difficulty to the greatest Divines. For the carnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Rom. viii, 19-23. verted mass of mankind may be said to wait, as it were, with piteous and touching misery, for the manifestation of the sons of God. But Christians especially, who have an actual and spiritual sense of all the evil around them, who see the full malignity and mischief of sin, and who have already some pledge and earnest of the future deliverance, labour as in strong pangs to accelerate the promised rescue; and, when thus employed, the Holy Spirit prompts their desires and intercedes for them by those sighs and breathings which he excites after the redemption to which he seals them, and for the enjoyment of which they therefore long with intense faith and fervency *. These unutterable groanings will be better understood, if we consider the general state of difficulty and conflict in which the Christian, in consequence of sin, is involved. For, what are all the infirmities of the sincere Christian, what are all his defects in prayer, what all his trials in this earthly tabernacle, but the effect of that general state of ruin into which man's sin has plunged both himself, and the whole creation, so to speak, with which he stands connected? The aid therefore of the blessed Spirit is seen chiefly in the humble but fervent expression of these painful feelings. The Chris See Whitby in loc, tian in this world is in a state of conflict. Every thing combines to make his devotions partake largely of the language of depression and grief. He has to contend with the corruption of a desperately wicked heart; he has to resist the temptations to unbelief and despair which Satan presents; he has to keep under his body and bring it into subjection. Besides this, he has to perform the duties of his station, to ascend in affection to God, to walk in the love of Christ, to exercise faith in an unseen world, and to aim in all things at the divine glory. He has further to bear with the infirmities of others, to witness the disorder which sin has brought into families and neighbourhoods and kingdoms, to behold the contempt that is put upon the astonishing remedy provided for fallen men in Christ Jesus, and to see his fellow-sinners rush into eternity with heedless and desperate determination. Then his own conscious feebleness and mistakes, his sense of indwelling sin, his shame and confusion for his small proficiency in the ways of God and duty-all these topics, connected with the thoughts of heaven and of his Saviour's presence there, make him groan being burdened, not for that he would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. And when the Holy Spirit is pleased espe cially to help his weaknesses in prayer and in ་ tercede for him, so that he knows what to pray for, and how to pray with somewhat of right affections, he expresses his desire to depart and be with Christ in fervent aspirations which God only can fully understand. Then, with the importunity of the man in our Lord's parable who begged the three loaves, he perseveres in his earnest suit. Then, like the royal Prophet, he follows hard after God. Then, like Jacob, he says with holy boldness, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. These impassioned sighs and expectations are utterly unknown to the irreligious world; nor can they be fully explained in words. They are regarded however by God who searcheth the heart. A man must be born from above before he can attain any just conceptions of prayer in general, and much less of these mysterious breathings of the devout penitent. They are not the fruit of impatience or self-will; but they are the humble and yet eager feelings of a soul which breaketh out for the very fervent desire which it hath always unto God's judgments. They do not flow forth so much in copious and fluent expressions, as in broken sentences and detached ejaculations, which imply more than we can find terms to utter. They may not even be framed into words, but conveyed to heaven in the sighs and throbs of a contrite heart. And the penitent is perhaps |