Prayer - Bunyan - VIII - Section II continued

Required reading
Prayer by John Bunyan (Available from Amazon or free here) - Continue Section II (Throne of Grace) by continuing Chapters 5 and reading all of the second subpoint (The natural qualifications of Jesus Christ to be our high priest).

My summary
Bunyan now looks at the natural qualifications of Jesus Christ to be our high priest.  Jesus:
(i) is of a nature not foreign to that of man - he is a man;
(ii) is one with a relative sympathy;
(iii) experienced temptations and infirmities wherewith he was exercised in the days of his humiliation;
(iv) is the head and we are his members.

Then Bunyan gives us another five natural qualifications, but these ones are named as peculiar qualifications.  Jesus is:
(i) holy;
(ii) harmless to those that come to God by him;
(iii) undefiled;
(iv) separate from sinners;
(v) higher than the heavens.

Thus with such a high priest, 'Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.'

What grabbed me
Today Bunyan gives us a really good illustration of Jesus' love for every part of his body.  I think it is worth quoting in full: 'I love to play the child with little children, and have learned something by so doing. I have met with a child that has had a sore finger, yea, so sore as to be altogether useless; and not only so, but by reason of its infirmity, has been a hindrance to the use of all the fingers that have been upon that hand. Then have I begun to bemoan the child, and said, " Alas ! my poor boy, or girl, has got a sore finger ?" "Ah!" quoth the child, with water in its eyes, who hath come to me to be bemoaned. Then I have begun to offer to touch the sore finger. "O!" saith the child, "pray do not hurt me." I then have replied, "Canst thou do nothing with this finger ?" No," saith the child, " nor with this hand either." Then have I said, "Shall we cut off this finger, and buy my child a better, a brave golden, finger ?" At this the child has started, stared in my face, gone back from me, and entertained a kind of indignation against me, and has no more cared to be intimate with me. Then have I begun to make some use of that good sermon which this little child has preached unto me; and thus have I gone on: "If membership be so dear, if this child has such tenderness to the most infirm, and the most useless of its members : if it counts me its friend no longer than while I have a mouth to bemoan, and carriages that show tenderness to this useless finger; what an interest doth membership give one in the body, and what compassion hath the soul for such a useless thing, because it is a member ?" And turning all this over to Jesus Christ, then instead of matter and corruption, there presently comes honey to me out of the child's sore finger. I take leave to tell you now how I use to play. And though I have told this tale upon so grave a truth as is the membership of Christians with their Head, yet bear with me. No child can be so tender of its sore finger, as is the Son of God of his afflicted members; he cannot but be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.'

Even a child knows to care for his wounded body, how much more the infinitely wise Son of God!

Next week's reading
Conclude Section II (Throne of Grace).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.