Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, Part 2 · Chapter 59 – Chapter 60
CHAP. LIX. How Justification is one indivisible act, not successive, as Sanctification, and yet God dayly pardoneth sinnes.
WEe make no question but we are at once justified, and not by degrees and succession, as wee are sanctified, because justification is a foreinsecall, and Law-change, or judiciall sentence of God, absolving the person of the sinner from all punishment, or obligation to punishment due to him for sinnes, past, present, and to come, according to the rule of revenging, and Law-persuing justice, and that for the alone righteousnesse of the surety Christ, freely imputed, and by faith received of him, a1 Ioh. 1.8.and the bloud of Jesus Christ shall purge you from all your sinnes: bEphes. 1.7.in whom wee have redemption, the remission of our sinnes in his bloud. Now the Scripture no where intimateth a favour of free grace in purging us from sinnes, by halves or quarters, as if some were halfe washen, halfe delivered from the wrath to come; and halfe unwashen, and half under wrath. 2. There is no condemnation to a soule once in Christ, and justified, Rom. 8.1. then there can be no re-acceptation, or second receiving of a soule into the state of a justified person, from the state of an ungodly man, as if he had fallen from the former state, and there can bee no second deliverance from eternall wrath, to be inflicted for a new committed sinne.
Yet doe I not see that one and the same justification negagatively, because it is never retracted, is therefore a successive and graduall worke that groweth more and more, as sanctification doth; for so predestination to glory, which is negatively, one and the same should bee a graduall growing worke; for as no shaddow of change can fall on God, so neither can Predestination be retracted.
Yet is there no cause to deny that sinnes are dayly pardoned, and remitted as they are committed; for God is said to remit sinnes dayly, when he reneweth the sense of the once passed act of attonement, and applyeth what he once did to the feeling and comfort of the beleever, for we never taught that Faith is a cause, or so much as an instrument or condition, without which Christ doth not on the Crosse, by the power of his bloud take away sinnes, now he that denyeth that God by his Spirit reneweth the lively apprehension of this act of attonement, must deny that a beleever can oftner then once lay the weight of his soule, in a filiall recumbencie on God, and with adherence to Christ crucified for pardon of sinne; which were to abolish the dayly exercise of our faith on Christ crucified. 2. God forgiveth sinnes, when he removeth the temporall punishment, and fatherly rod inflicted for sinne. Hence to beare our whoredomes, to beare sinnes, to beare iniquitie, is to beare the punishment of sinnes cLev. 7.…8. The sou…e that eateth shall beare his iniquiti…. Lev 20 19. L…vit. 5.1, 17. Levit. 10.17. Levit. 21.16. Ezec. 18.19, 20. Ezech▪ 4 4. …srael shall beare their iniquitie, Esa…. 53.…1 Christ shall beare their iniquities; that is, he shall bee punished for their iniqu… ties, Levit 20 20. they shall b…re their …, they shall dye, … beareth the iniquity of the holy things of the people.To beare the indi…nation of the Lord, because the Church hath sinned, Micha 7.8, 9. is to beare the temporall punishment: for otherwise the Prophet speaketh of a Church in favour with God, and freed from eternall wrath. The Lord shall be… my light. Thou shalt bee d…mbe because thou beleevest not my word, saith Gabriel to Zacharie, Luke 1.20. then to remove the temporall sword, must bee a forgiving of, and a relaxing from the temporall punishment. So Nathan saith to David, d1 S…m. 12.13. Sinne is dayly r…mitted, … t…mporal… punishment is removed.The Lord also hath put away thy sin. But how maketh he that good? Thou shalt not dye; Hee meaneth, especially a temporall death, as the words following cleare, vers. 14. Howbeit, because by this deed, thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; the child also that is borne to thee shall surely dye. Ergo, his sinne was not fully taken away, in regard of the temporall rod: for the rod did never depart from his house for it, nor doe wee thus adde fuell to purgatory; to say with Papists, that pardoning of sinne, is the taking away of the guilt of sinne, when the punishment remaineth▪ for the Papists have a wicked meaning, that God doth so forgive sins, as he removeth guilt, and remembreth not the sin, but leaveth the sinner also as good as halfe drowned in it, to revenging justice, by suffering for these same sinnes satisfactorie punishment both in this life, and in purgatorie, or the life to come, which we think impious; for only Christs blood is a satisfaction to revenging justice for sinne. 3. The Lords taking away, and pardoning of Davids sinne, is not the Lords justifying of David, because justification is the reall or law-translation, in a forensecall way of a sinner, an ungodly man, an unwashen one from the state of sinne, into the state of grace and favour with God for the imputed righteousnes of Christ, as is cleare, and such were some of you, but yee are washed, e1 Cor. 6.11. Taking away or remitting of sinne, in some se…se, a farre other thing then justification.but yee are sanctified, but yee are justified, so God justifieth the sinner and ungodlie; then by justification the person is washed and translated from a state of ungodlines, of enmity, and received in a court of acceptance and grace, reconciliation and attonement, in a covenant-state with God for Christs imputed righteousnesse, so as this justification is an act of incorporation and ingraffing of a stranger and enemie to be a free Denison, and Burgess, and free Citizen of the new Ierusalem, intituled to all the priviledges and liberties of the brough. Now David was not this way pardoned; for undeniably he, for his person was justified, and all his sinnes pardoned; that is, hee was freed from obligation, to eternall wrath and condemnation; therefore seeing God justifieth but once, as he maketh us heires and Citizens of heaven but once, and yet pardoneth sinnes dayly, justification, and some remitting of sinnes, must be of a wide difference.
CHAP. LX. How sinnes are remitted before they bee committed, how not, and the Antinomian error in this point.
BUt then it may bee said, doe Antinomians soundly affirme that sins are remitted before they be committed? To which I answer, taking remission in a good sense, not in theirs; its true, a beleever when he is justified, is freed from condemnation for these sinnes that are not yet committed: that is, he is put in such a condition, as he shall never come to condemnation; yea, not for these sinnes hee shall hereafter commit: as when a forfeited Father is relaxed from treason, and his lands restored, the Pardon extendeth to the heire in the mothers womb, and not yet borne, yea, possibly not begotten; but this is neither a justifying of the unborne heire, nor a pardoning of the treason, nor a relaxing of the punishment, in a strict and right downe sense; he that is not, and is not capable of guiltinesse and treason, such as is a child, neither begotten, nor borne, is not capable of pardon. But in the Antinomian sense, we judge it abominable, that sinnes are removed, before they bee committed. 1. Because Antinomian remission is the destruction of the being of sinne, and the extirpation of his nature, root, and branch: for so it cannot be sinne, nor can it be against the Law of God, nothing is capable of the grace of free pardon, neither the sinne, or the poore sinner; but by the Antinomian way, the Adulteries, and Murthers of the beleevers, when committed, are neither against Law, nor the Commandement of God, for they are freed from all commanding and obliging power, of either Law or Gospel; so as they cannot sinne or offend God, in contravening of either. 2. It is against common sense, that the being or nature of Adultery, can bee removed, and made nothing, and yet when it is committed, it should offend humane society, and raise an evill report on the name of God and the Gospel. For that which is meere nothing, and hath neither being, nor nature, can neither offend God nor man. But neither Law of God, nor Gospel, doth forbid the Murthers of a beleever, but onelyonly of an unbeleever, by the Antinomian way. 3. Their remission of sinne, before the commission thereof, chargeth confession of committed sinnes with sinnefull lying, craving of pardon with unbeliefe, fearing of sinne with distrust; sorrow for, or feeling of sinne with a worke of Legall bondage, and of the old Adam, as Libertines did, because these committed sinnes are meere fancies against no Law of God.