John Bunyan, The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate, Explained (Practical Works, v. 6)
…it is evident that saints neither can, nor dare venture to plead their cause. Alas! the Judge is the Almighty and Eternal God; the law broken is the holy and perfect rule of God, in itself a consuming fire; the sin is so odious, and a thing so abominable, that it is enough to make all the angels blush to hear it but so much as once mentioned in so holy a place as that is, where the great God doth sit to judge. This sin now hangs about the neck of him that hath committed it, yea, it covereth him as doth a mantle; the adversary is bold, cunning, audacious, and can word a thousand of us into an utter silence in less than half a quarter of an hour. What then should the sinner (if he could come there) do at this bar to plead? Nothing, nothing for his own advantage. But now comes in his mercy; he has an Advocate to plead his cause. �If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.�