Gospel Truth Stated and Vindicated, Chapter 4
CHAP. IV. Of the Elect's ceasing to be Sinners, from the time their Sins were laid on Christ.
REader, I shall premise, 1. Men are sinners, or cease to be sinners, in several distinct Respects: 1. As to the Filth and Obliquity of Sin; with respect to this, they are more or less sinners, according to the degree of their Innocence and Holiness. 2. With some, as to the Guilt of sin, which refers to the Sanction of the Law against Offenders: With respect to this, the Offenders be more or less sinners, as they are forgiven, or not forgiven. 3. As to the Charge of the Fact, which was sinful, with respect to this neither After-sanctification nor Pardon, will deliver a Transgressor from having been a sinner; the Fact was his: The first and last denominate one a sinner most properly: The second denominates a Man punishable, but not a sinner formally.
2. In the whole Scheme of the Doctor's Principles, it's the Elect, as elect, who cease to be sinners: Therefore, when he speaks of a Believer, he doth not mean, he was a sinner before he believed; for he states the time to be when Christ had our sins laid upon him, viz. on the Cross. Having explained the Title of this Chapter, I proceed.
Truth. An elect Person ceaseth not to be a sinner, upon the laying of our sins upon Christ; that is, he remains a sinner, as to the Guilt, till he believes; (if Adult.) He is a sinner, as to the Filth of sin, till he be sanctified. He is a sinner, as to the charge of the sinful Fact he commits, and that even after Pardon and Sanctification: Nevertheless, he is free from the Curse when he is pardoned, and shall be purged from all the Filth of sin when he is perfect in Holiness. And tho' Christ did bear the Punishment of our Iniquity; yet it never was Christ's Iniquity, but ours.
Errour. The Elect upon the Death of Christ, ceased to be sinners; and, ever since their sins are none of their sins, but they are the sins of Christ.
Proved that this is Doctor Crisp's Opinion.
The Doctor puts this Objection. p. 8. Must not he be reckoned to be a sinner while he doth sin? A. I answer, No: Tho' he doth sin, yet he is not to be reckoned a sinner; but his sins are reckoned to be taken away from him, &c. A Man doth sin against God; God reckons not his sin to be his; he reckons it Christ's, therefore he cannot reckon it his. This he endeavours to prove p. 270. If thou hast part in the Lord Christ, (which he thinks all the unbelieving Elect have) all these Transgressions of thine, are become actually the Transgressions of Christ, and so cease to be thine; and thou ceasest to be a Transgressor, from that time they were laid upon Christ, to the last hour of thy Life: So that now, thou art not an Idolater; thou art not a Thief, &c. Thou art not a sinful Person, what sin soever thou committest, p. 271. So that, if you would speak of a sinner, supposing that Person, of whom you speak, to be a Member of Christ (i. e. Elect) you must not speak of what he manifests, but of what Christ was.
Wherein the Difference is not.
The Difference is not, 1. Whether the pardoned Sinner shall be delivered from Condemnation. 2. Nor whether God, for Christ's sake, will deal with a pardoned Sinner, as if he had not been a Sinner. 3. Nor whether Forgiveness doth take away Sin, as to its Obligation to Punishment. 4. Nor whether the Atonement of Christ, when it's applied in its full Effects, will perfectly remove all Punishment, and purge away all Filth and Defilement from the Elect. Each of these I affirm.
The real Difference.
1. Whether, because Christ obliged himself to bear the satisfactory Punishment of our sins, did they therefore become the sins of Christ? This the Doctor affirms, and I deny. Of which I have spoken, Chap. 2. 2. Whether our sins were pardoned when Christ suffered on the Cross? This the Doctor affirms, and I deny: Of this, see ch. 1. and 3. and 12. &c. 3. Whether even they that are Members of Christ, yet if they do sin, are they Transgressors and Sinners; and are the sins they commit, their sins? This the Doctor denies and I affirm.
The Truth proved.
One would think this needed no proof, unless it were a doubt, whether a rational Subject, transgressing the Law of God, be a Transgressor; or that he that doth a sinful Fact is a doer of it; or whether it be his sinfull Fact who doth act it: And yet the Point is included in these plain things. Need I add? 1. Christ teacheth Believers to pray for the Pardon of Sins as their own Sins. Forgive us our Sins, Luke 11. 4. It would be vain to object, they pray for the Manife station of Pardon; for were it so; yet it's for our sins. It would sound strange to pray, Forgive us the sins of Christ.
2. The Saints in Scripture, esteemed their sins to be their own sins, and themselves sinners, when they committed sin, or found its motions: Though our Iniquities testify against us, Jer. 14. 7. As for our Iniquities we know them, Isa. 59. 12. Take away mine Iniquity, Job 7. 21. Lord pardon my Iniquity, Ps. 25. 11. Was it not his own sin that Peter wept for? And whose sin caused the incestuous Man's sorrow? See 1 Joh. 1. 9. Confess our Sins.
3. God reckons mens sins to be their own; he reproves them as theirs; he forgave them as theirs, 1 Joh. 2. 12. Jer. 33. 8. Surely, the few things which God had against Thyatira, were the sins of that Church, Rev. 2. 20. Were they not Laodiceans sins which God calls her to repent of? Rev. 3. 19. and whose sin was that, which Paul wished might not be laid to their charge who deserted him? 2 Tim. 4. 16.
4. Mark what will follow hence: No elect members of a Church is justly censured for offences, and no Christian criminal should be punished; for they are not the sinners; the sin is not theirs. A hundred such consequences naturally proceed from this error, which fully tends to render sin and sinners innocent: Not to say what Popery is in it; as if justification did remove the filth of sin.
Testimonies.
Whatever I shall hereafter cite from the Assembly and Elders at the Savoy, to prove that God fees Sin in Believers, and what Afflictions God brings on Believers for sin, and the Necessity of renewed Pardon, will declare their full consent, and each of these Heads prove the present Truth; of which, see Chap. 1. 6, 17. 18, 19.
The Synod of New England condemn this as a blasphemous Speech of their Antinomians, If Christ will let me sin, let him look to it, upon his Honour be it, P. 19. And also, That if I be Holy, I am never the better accepted of God; if I be unholy, I am never the worse, &c. Dr. Owen of Justif. faith, P. 284. To imagine such an Imputation of our sins to Christ, as that thereon they should cease to be our sins, and become his absolutely, is to overthrow that which is affirmed; for on that supposition Christ would not suffer for our sins. And a few Lines after, he adds, No Non-imputation of sin, as unto Punishment, can free the Person, in whom it is, from being formally a Sinner.
The Grounds of the Dr's. Mistake.
He thinks, because God removes our sins by Pardon, so as to acquit us from Punishment; therefore our sins cease to be ours. Because a pardoned Person is discharged from Condemnation; therefore he thinks, that Person is not to be denominated a Sinner from the Violation of the Precept. Because Christ took upon him to make satisfaction for sin; therefore he thinks no Filth can cleave to the Offender, nor he be a Transgressor by the Offence.
I need not warn thee how the Doctor speaks of laying our sins on Christ, P. 339. and the actual forgiving them, as if they were the same thing; but they differ, as is manifest in Chap. 3.