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The Holy Spirit and the Heart of Christ
And this Spirit is still in our preaching and in your hearts, in hearing, in praying, etc., and persuades you of Christ's love to this very day; and is in all these the pledge of the continuance of Christ's love still in heaven unto sinners. All our sermons and your prayers are evidences unto you, that Christ's heart is still the same towards sinners that ever it was, for the Spirit that assists in all these comes in his name, and in his stead, and works all by commission from him. And do none of you feel your hearts moved in the preaching of these things, at this and other times? And who is it that moves you? It is the Spirit who speaks in Christ's name from heaven, even as himself is said to 'speak from heaven' (Heb. 12:25). And when you pray, it is the Spirit that idites your prayers, and that 'makes intercession for you' in your own hearts (Rom. 8:26), which intercession of his is but the evidence and echo of Christ's intercession in heaven. The Spirit prays in you, because Christ prays for you. He is an intercessor on earth, because Christ is an intercessor in heaven. As he did take off Christ's words, and used the same that he before had uttered, when he spake in and to the disciples the words of life, so he takes off Christ's prayers also when he prays in us; he takes but the words as it were out of Christ's mouth, or heart rather, and directs our hearts to offer them up to God. He also follows us to the sacrament, and in that glass shows us Christ's face smiling on us, and through his face his heart; and thus helping of us to a sight of him, we go away rejoicing that we saw our Saviour that day.
(Thomas Goodwin,
The Heart of Christ, pp.36-37)