is forgivenness with God and this is it in the Text for verse 3. he sayeth If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity Who can stand But verse 4. Forgivenness is with thee That is it ye have Mat. 9.2 Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee Now for this Pardon the nature of it and the terms upon which it is attained it will come in in the own proper place to be spoken to Here I am upon consideration of the thing remitted and that that I shall pitch upon is That there is a remission of sin attainable by sinners in the due order It 's a blessed Article of our Creed the remission of sins When I spoke of the remission of sin I spoke of the remission of all sins great and small in their nature and number There is forgivenness with God for iniquities I confess there is an exception made Math. 12.31 32. All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven Heb. 10.26 They that sin afer they have received the knowledge ef the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin And 1 John 5.1 There is a sin unto death But the sin against the holy Ghost needs not trouble the sensible sinner that would fain have pardon It is true it should warn all to beware of malicious sinning against light and having sinned to beware of running away from God but the sensible sinner that is seeking peace and pardon needs not to be afraid of it That sin is therefore irremissible because the sinner comes not to seek pardon but if thou hast the sense of sin and if it be thy desire and endeavour to repent and to have pardon it is an evidence that thy sin is not that unpardonable sin But that I may make something of this I shall deduce it in two or three Branches The first whereof shal be 1. That small sins need Pardon 2. That gross sins are Pardonable 3. A word to the consideration of the persons whose sins are pardonable 1. The smallest of sins needs a pardon we are not as Papists would charge us Stoicks who affect a parity and equality of all sins we grant there are different degrees of sins and different degrees of punishment A beating with many stripes and a beating with few stripes Luke 12.47 48. But yet when we assert this difference we dare not with them assert venial sins that deserves not everlasting Wrath without repentance and fleeing to Christ for refuge sure the Apostle tells us Rom 6.23 The wages of sin is death What death look to the opposition and it will clear it but the gift of God is eternal life if the Gift of God be eternal life the wages of sin must be eternal death that he sayes it of sin indefinitly it 's equivalent to an universal the wages of sin is death so that they must take away the nature of sin from these sins they call Venial or grant the wages thereof is death and likewise Mat. 12.36 Christ tells that Every idle word that men speak they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment And an idle word might seem a small sin well then if the smallest sin needs a pardon look that we do not practically make a distinction of mortal and venial sins even gross men if they fall into gross out-breakings it will affect them somewhat when they do not heed their ordinary escapes Godly persons also are culpable here a scandalous sin will affect them and so it should but how little are they affected with wanderings of mind in holy duties idle words and thoughts habitual distance from God and is not that a practical distinguishing of sin It is true none can in repentance distinctly overtake all their failings for Psal 19.12 Who can understand his errors Yet we ought to do what we can to overtake them and if we cannot overtake them be at Gods Foot-stool with them mourning over them in the bulk But 2. as the smallest of sins needs a pardon so the â—rossest of sins are pardonable in the due order There is forgivenness with him for iniquities as in the Text and Isai 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will aboundantly pardon He will pardon greatest sins in their nature and kind and hence David saith Psal 25.11 Pardon mine iniquity for it is great And Isai 1.18 The Lord sayes Come now and let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red as crimson they shall be as wool And these great sins are pardonable in the due order whether they be done in ignorance as Paul's persecution was 1 Tim. 1.13 I was a blasphemer a persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief Or whether they be committed through the power of temptation even against light as Peter's threefold denyal of his Master was yet not being malicious it 's pardoned Again as great sins for nature and kind are pardonable so great sins for the multitude and number of them when they are like a cloud and a thick cloud he will blot them out Isai 44.22 I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and sins And that word Isai 55.7 He will aboundantly pardon In the original it is he will multiply to pardon one and moe a multitude of them and Psal 40.11 12. David pleads for mercy for innumerable evils for iniquities that are moe than the hairs of his head And as God pardons great sins for kind and many for number so frequent relapsing in these sins which I may speak to afterward Jer. 3.1 She that hath played the harlot with many lovers is allowed to return And he that bade Peter Mat. 18.22 Forgive his brother not only seven but seventy times will much more do so to his penitent People renewing their repentance But when I say he will pardon great sins I would have it well applyed It is not to embolden any body to sin thou that so improves this Doctrine does turn the grace of God into wantonness and thou that ventures on sin because God is merciful to pardon great and many sins and thinks thou may take a whelps fill of sin and then go and repent and get mercy the woful shift that many follow O! remember that Repentance is not in thine own hand nay I will say more thou bears a sad evidence of one that will never get the grace to Repent but that abuse of this doctrine being laid aside ye shall while I am upon the explication of this great Article of Faith take a word or two of Inference in the by And 1. It may be great encouragement to sensible sinners thou who art sensible of thy sins thy Dyvour-bill of great and many sins if thou come
manifested to them as they stand in need of it for if he have mercy he shall compassionat them in their misery if plenteous redemption be with him He shall redeem Israel from all their iniquities If he have authority and power to redeem it shall undoubtedly be evinced in actual redeeming of them Now there remains a 4th Observation to be spoken to That it is the great and peculiar ground of hope and encouragement to God's Israel that he will redeem them from all their iniquities which is the very words of the Text He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities Therefore let Israel hope in the Lord This Point though it be rich and full in it self yet I may be the more brief in the handling of it That on the 4th Verse I spoke at great length to that Doctrine concerning forgiveness of sins I shall therefore here first Explain the Point a little as it is held out in the Text and then speak to some Inferences and Uses from it What we say in Explication of the Point may be reduced to 4 Heads 1. More generally ye would consider That it is a great encouragement to God's people that guilt sin and iniquity needs not mar their hope in God for though Israel have sinned and though their sins here be called iniquities and though there be an all of these iniquities notwithstanding all that the Spirit of God makes it here evident Israel may hope in God for He shall redeem them from all their iniquities By the Covenant of Works iniquity getting once place all hope is forefault that bargain being once broken it is everlastingly and irrecoverably broken But here is the Gospels glad news and great encouragement That iniquities if folks be seeking redemption from them needs not hinder hope in God That when as it is Rom. 3.20 By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight For by the law is the knowledge of sin That Verse 21. There is a righteousness of God without the Law manifested being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets that affords ground of hope that when Israel hath trespassed against God Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing Ezra 10.2 In a word these are no small part of the glad news of the Gospel That there is any trysting betwixt God and sinful man That every step in guilt is not a step into utter despair That man upon every failing has not done everlastingly with any ground of hope to the sight of God's face in favour That 's the first and chief part of the glad news of the Gospel 2. Consider what it is that God does in reference to iniquity which gives ground of hope to Israel He redeems from iniquity Now as ye heard from Verse 4. There is in iniquity these two The guilt or offence done to God and the obligation to punishment resulting thereon And there is the dominion power and tyranny of sin which it exexcises over the sinner where it once gets access Now redemption from both these is the work of God by Christ He redeems from the guilt of sin by the price and merit of his death by that infinite compleat and sufficient ransom which he hath payed to Justice to appease the wrath of God and to restore the guilty sinner to favour with him and he redeems from the dominion power and tyranny of sin by the power and vertue of his death and to this may be applyed that of Tit. 2.14 He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works He gave himself for us not only by his death to expiat the guilt of sin but that he might break the bonds of iniquity and make us a purified and peculiar people to himself zealous of good works I shall not need here to obviat the Socinians cavillations who from this phrase of redeeming from iniquity would obscure the truth of the satisfaction of Christ as if the term Redemption did not import a satisfaction or paying of a price for say they We are redeemed from the iniquity and power of Satan to whom no satisfaction is payed But that is but a mistake of the import of the phrase for as it is spoken of in reference to God it imports constantly a ransom as Job 33.24 Deliver him from going down to the pit I have found a ransom and 1 Joh. 2.2 He is the propitiation for our sins but when it is spoken in reference to sin or Sathan it is improperly taken and is a redemption by force as if a person arrested for debt in prison when the principal Creditor were satisfied his Cautioner should break the fetters that is redemption from sin and as if he should deliver him from the Jaylor by giving him a broken Head that 's redemption from Sathan 3. Ye would consider the universality of this Redemption and this is also in the Text He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities holding forth the universal extent of their Redemption which for your better understanding ye shall shortly take up under these three 1. He redeems his people from the guilt of all their sins for as on the one hand there is no sin so little that God will pass over without a satisfaction There is no venial sin that needs not a satisfaction to Justice and that merits not condemnation for Rom. 6.23 The wages of sin is death even eternal death which is opposed there to eternal life the gift of God So on the other hand no sins of his people are so hainous though they be iniquities as in the Text though they be scarlet and crimson coloured sins as Isai 1.18 But if God in Christ be made use of they shall be redeemed from them He will blot out as a thick cloud their transgressions and as a cloud their sins when they return to him for he hath redeemed them Isai 44.22 So he will redeem them from the guilt of all their iniquities 2. This universal all may be understood in relation to the power of iniquity that where he falls in on the sinner he redeems from the bondage and slavery of all sin and when that work is rightly undertaken in his strength the sinner is a slave to no iniquity he balks none he spares no Zoar no Delila no darling sin when he comes to redeem and subdue the iniquities of his people all that is iniquity he puts them to take it to task to have a respect to all his commands Psal 119.6 And to esteem all his precepts concerning all things to be right and to hate every false way verse 128. A study of universal Mortification is that which he puts them on to when he will redeem from iniquity And 3. The universal all may be extended yet further even to all the degrees of iniquity that not only doth he redeem his people from the guilt and from the power and dominion of all
down and examine what they are owing and what is it that engadges a Man either to essay to be an Athiest I say essay to be one for he will never be one in earnest or turn Voluptuous and drown himself in sensual pleasures but to hold down the eye of his Conscience that would call him to compt and reckon Again when an ill Debtor is brought to think upon his accounts how ashamed and afraid may he be not knowing when he shall be seised upon turned out of all he hath and put in Prison And though impenitent sinners will not let it light that they have any fears yet their Consciences can bear them Witness to many over-castings of heart upon apprehension of what may be the close of their Course Again ill Debtors are full of dilators shifts and delayes they will promise fair but will not perform and so it is with sinners that are not thinking on Repentance in order to Pardon They will take fair in hand many have that much good Nature Civility or Policy to take with a reproof and say they will mend and repent they will cast off the course they are in and do better but all these are dilators to give the Creditor fair weather without satisfaction And further to add no more an ill Debitor loves not his Creditor yea often hates him and though impenitent sinners dare not say they do not love God yet what spightful and hateful thoughts do often rise up in their hearts against God Why they cannot get this done and that done but they must be accounted sinners and cited to appear before the Judgment Seat of God to undergo a sentence of punishment and is that good thus to repay him so because he craveth this Debt All these Resemblances contribute to make it out that man is a Debtor and sin is a debt that he cannot satisfie Are they not fools then that make a sport at Sin as Solomon says Prov. 14.9 Fools make a mock at sin but they would sport at leasure if they considered what a debt this debt of sin is Men in their right wits have so smarted under it and the consequences of it that their hearts have been smitten and withered as grass and they have forgotten to eat their bread Psal 102.4 They have had no soundness in their flesh because of Gods anger nor rest in their bones because of their sins Their iniquities have been a burden too heavy for them their wounds have stinked and been corrupt because of their foolishness Psal 38.3 c. And where art thou that art lying under that Debt and never thinks of putting it off Certainly thou must be under a distraction And this leads me to the third Thing in Order that I proposed to be spoken to that is That sin being a great Debt and a debt we cannot satisfie a man lying under it if he be sensible of it will look upon it as the sadest posture and plight he can be in Sin will be a most heavy burden to a sensible man and I shall in short make it out in a five-fold respect what a woful plight an un-pardoned criminal and debtor is in 1. An un-pardoned Man is a dead Man a gone man as the Lord tells Abimilech Gen. 20.3 Behold thou art but a deadman for the woman which thou hast taken for she is another mans wife Every unpardoned man is a dead man he is like a condemned Malefactor the sentence is pronounced upon him the day of his death is appointed though he eat and drink and sleep he is reckoned a dead man 2. An unpardoned man is capable of no good thing Isai 59 1.2 Behold the Lords hand is not shortned that it cannot save neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear but your iniquities have separated betwixt you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear And Jer. 5.25 Your iniquities have turned away these things and your sins have withholden good things from you They have turned away the good things ye had and have withholden other good things from coming to you so that the unpardoned man is capable of no good and all the good that he gets is but a snare to him The good things he hath are feeding and fatting him to destruction 3. An unpardoned man is in a woful plight because all that he doth till his person be reconciled and taken into favour with God how good soever it be in it self is sin and an abomination to God He may do many good turns that are good upon the matter but would ye have the Scriptures verdict of them as they come from him read Prov. 15.18 Prov. 21.4 and 28.9 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination the plowâ—ng of the wicked is sin He that turns away his ear from hearing of the Law even his prayer shall be abomination Whence it is clear all the good that an unpardoned man does is sin 4. An unpardoned man is in a pitiful plight because to him there is no comfortable bearing of trouble but where the pardon of sin is it sustains a man under trouble and makes him bear it cheerfully Men that never trouble themselves to repent and seek pardon they had need of much fair weather for unpardoned guilt will have a dreadful Eccho in a storm to them Of the pardoned man it 's said Isai 33.34 The inhabitant shall not say I am sick for the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquities A man's being forgiven his iniquity will make him forget that he is sick and will make him bear trouble comfortably which an unpardoned man cannot get done And 5 an unpardoned man is in a woful plight because death will have a terrible aspect upon him To the pardoned man death is a friend a Messenger sent to call him home a Chariot sent to carry him to heaven but to the unpardoned man death is the King of Terrors the wages and cursed fruit of sin O! the sweet sight of Christ and of pardon that meets the pardoned man at Death and Judgment somewhat whereof is hinted in these Words Acts 3.19.26 Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ who before was preached unto you But O! what a dreadful lying down and rising out of the Grave will the unpardoned man have So ye have heard that as all have sinned so sin is a Debt that hath need of pardon the non-forgiveness whereof puts and keeps a man in a most wofull condition and being so I proceed to the 4th and last thing I proposed to be spoken to here that is that sin being a debt and such a debt as can only be taken away by pardon and forgivenness then it might be good news the chiefest of good news to the man sensible of sin that iniquity will be forgiven That there
sin God remits culpam but not paenam That is he remits the fault or guilt so as not only he may chasten which we grant but as he reserves a punishment by way of satisfaction for sin to be undergone by the pardoned sinner They distinguish in this betwixt mortal and venial Sins for mortal sins they grant that the free Grace of God turns eternal punishment into a temporal which the sinner must undergo for venial sins which they say deserves not eternal punishment but temporal all that temporal punishment they will have the pardoned man to sustain it Hence is their Doctrine of Pennances in this life and of Purgatory after death when Pennances are not undergone here where they will have pardoned sinners to make satisfaction of sin for this Doctrine it would be but troublesome to you to hear all that might be said against it though we should but touch on it and therefore passing that groundless distinction of mortal and venial sins ye shall notice these five anent that their Doctrine 1. That as the bulk of Popish Religion is nothing but a well contrived Policy or Interest of State so this Doctrine of Pennance and Purgatory is nothing else but a Politick Device to make gain for maintaining their Kitchin Pomp Pride and Luxury which as I told you the last day Caesar Borgia the Son of Alexander the sixth makes to appear who while he had lost 100000 at the Dice past it in a sport saying These are the sins of the Germans meaning that thereby they had purchased remission of Sins for here the policy lies Once perswade folk that they must do Pennances to satisfie for sin or to go to Purgatory what will they not do while they are alive or their Friends for them when they are dead to mitigat that satisfaction that is their Market and then pay well and come to Heaven without either Pennance or Purgatory so that their Doctrine in this is a perfect cheat 2. In this their Doctrine they corrupt the Doctrine of the antient Church which was not so very sound for 〈◊〉 they have a trick of retaining antient Names of things under which they bring in new Errors so in this particular of Pennances and Indulgences used by the antient Church who while they were a distinct Society were very strict and severe in requiring publick Pennance and Satisfaction for Scandals some they held many years in making their Repentance some they held all their life but afterward when the World came in to the Church and the Emperors imbraced Christianity and they with other great Ones were too thin-skin'd and would not submit to Discipline the Church did degenerat from their strictness and shortned their Indulgences but the antient Church their Pennances were not to satisfie God for sin but the Church they were not for privat and secret sins but for publick and scandalous offences And the Church willing to gratifie great persons did mitigat these severities to many But the Papists retaining the Name they will have these Pennances a satisfaction to God for sin and their Indulgences to assoil folk in the Court of Heaven A 3d thing to be considered in that their Doctrine which is very unhansom for them to maintain these Pennances which they call satisfaction what are they They are their Fastings their Ave Marias and Pater-nosters their Pilgrimages and Peregrinations their Charity to the poor or for a Religious use their Self-scourgings and Whippings now I enquire what are these They are either Commanded Duties or not If they be not Commanded Duties how can they be satisfaction for sin for will God be satisfied with that which he doth not require Who required these things at your hand If they be Commanded Duties how can they make a punishment of them that is a dreadful Solecism in their Religion that Commanded Duties that should be the joy and rejoicing of folks hearts should be turned to Punishments and except they be punishments they cannot be satisfaction so that they have a bad impression of these things which they look upon as Duties while they make Commanded Duties punishments for sin And a 4th Word I say to that their Doctrine is this That to admit of satisfaction for sin either as to temporal or eternal punishment for it is a blasphemous imputation on Christ's Satisfaction as if any thing needed to be added to the Ocean of his Merit who hath satisfied the Justice of God both as to the Temporal and Eternal Curse due to his own Elect for their sins And a 5th I shall say to their Doctrine is That it is contradictory to it self for what is the guilt of sin as contra-distinct to the stain of sin that is removed It is not the potential guilt the desert of sin for that is inseparable from sin it is only the actual ordination to punishment Now to say God remits the guilt and retains the punishment of sin it is to say that he remits and retains that he pardons and doth not pardon that he takes away actual ordination to punishment that he craves the debt which he hath forgiven This is sufficient to refute the Papists on the one hand in what they hold anent the pardon of sin Upon the other hand the Antinomians run on another extream and say that pardoned justified persons fall not so much as under chastisement let be a proper punishment for sin And they will have all Afflictions that come upon the Godly to be meer tryals of their Faith and no more and think that it is a legal Spirit that teacheth folk while they are under the Rod to search out sin and to be humbled for it all that a man is called to do in that case say they is to maintain his Faith in adhering to the Love of God in Christ for whatever Affliction come it is not for sin and it is no wonder they maintain the Saints cannot fall under affliction for sin or chastisement for sin seing they maintain God sees no sin in them To clear the mind of God in this particular There are some things that must be granted as truths and there are some other things to be cautioned against as error The truths that are to be granted may be reduced to these four words 1. That justified persons never meet with condemnation what temporal lots soever they meet with and though they be not secured against the cross yet they are secured from condemnation 2. That a pardoned and justified child of God doth never come under the wrath of God though justified persons may come under Gods Fatherly displeasure yet they are never more objects of divine wrath as others though they may often meet with Fatherly and Divine displeasure as children they come not under wrath as enemies 3. That pardoned and justified sinners never fall under proper punishments for sin or afflictions to satisfie for their faults though for other ends they may as to invite them to repentance and to be humbled for