Image of God It s essence is a Living Spirit It s essential faculties are 1. A Vital Activity or Power 2. An Vnderstanding 3. A Will. 13. His Rectitude which is Gods Moral Image on him consisteth 1. In the promptitude and fortitude of his Active Power 2. In the Wisdom of his Vnderstanding 3. In the Moral Goodness of his Will which is its Inclination to its End and Readiness for its Duty 14. Being created such a creature by a meer resultancy from his Nature and his Creator he is related to him as his Creature and in that Unity is the subsequent Trinity of Relations 1. As we are Gods Propriety or his Own 2. His Subjects 3. His Beneficiaries and Lovers all comprized in the one title of his children And at once with these Relations of man to God it is that God is as before related to man as his Creator and as his Owner Ruler and Chief Good 15. Man is also related to his fellow creatures below him 1. As their Owner 2. Their Ruler 3. Their End under God which is Gods Dominative or Honorary Image upon man and is called commonly our Dominion over the creatures So that by meer Creation and the Nature of the creatures there is constituted a state of communion between God and Man which is 1. A Dominion 2. A Kingdom 3. A Family or Paternity And the whole is sometime called by one of these names and sometime by the other still implying the rest 16. Gods Kingdom being thus constituted his Attributes appropriate to these his Relations follow 1. His Absoluteness as our Owner 2. His Holiness Truth and Justice as our Ruler 3. And his Kindness Benignity and Mercy as our Father or Benefactor 17. And then the Works of God as in these three Relations follow which are 1. To Dispose of us at his pleasure as our Owner 2. To govern us as our King 3. To love us and do us good and make us perfectly happy as our Benefactor and our end 18. And here more particularly is to be considered 1. How God disposed of Adam when he had new made him 2. How he began his Government of him And 3. What Benefits he gave him and what he further offered or promised him 19. And as to the second we must 1. Consider the Antecedent part of Gods Government which is Legislation and then herafter the consequent part which is 1. Judgment 2. Execution And Gods Legislation is 1. By making our Natures such as compared with objects Duty shall result from this Nature so related 2. Or else by Precept or Revelation from himself besides our Natures 1. The Law of Nature is fundamental and radical in our foresaid Relations to God themselves in which it is made our natural duty 1. To submit our selves wholly to God and his disposal as his own 2. To obey his commands 3. And to receive his mercies and thankfully to return them and to love him But though as Gods essential principles and his foresaid Relations are admirably conjunct in their operations ad extra so our Relative obligations are conjunct yet are they so far distinguishable that we may say that these which conjunctly make our Moral duty yet are not all the results of our Relation to a Governour as such but the second only and therefore that only is to be called the Radical Law in the strict sense the other two being the Moral results of our Rectitude The duty of subjection and obedience in general arising from our Natures related to our Creator is the radical governing Law of God in us But yet the same submission and gratitude and love which are primarily our duty from their proper foundations are secondarily made also the matter of our subjective duty because they are also commanded of God 2. The particular Laws of Nature are 1. Of our particular duties to God or of Piety 2. Or of our duties to our selves and others 1. Acts of Justice 2. And of Charity These Laws of Nature are 1. Vnalterable and that is where the nature of our persons and of the objects which are the foundations of them are unalterable or still the same 2. Or mutable when the Nature of the things which are its foundation is mutable As it is the immutable Law of immutable nature that we love God as God and that we do all the good we can c. because the foundation of it is immutable But e. g. the Law against Incest was mutable in nature For nature bound Adams children to marry each other and nature bindeth us since ordinarily to the contrary 2. The revealed Law to Adam was superinduced The parts of Gods Law must also here be considered 1. The introductive Teaching part for Gods teaching us is part of his ruling us and that is Doctrines History and Prophecy 2. The Imperative part commands to do and not to do 3. And the sanctions or motive parts in Law and execution which are 1. Promises of Beneficial Rewards 2. Threatnings of hurtful penalties 20. Gods Laws being thus described in general and those made to Adam thus in particular the next thing to be considered is mans behaviour in breaking those Laws which must be considered in the Causes and the Nature of it and the immediate effects and consequents 21. And next must be considered Gods consequent part of Government as to Adam viz. his judging him according to his Law 22. And here cometh in the Promise or the first edition of the New Covenant or Law of Grace which must be opened in its parts original and end 23. And then must be considered Gods execution of his sentence on Adam so far as he was unpardoned and so upon the world till the end 24. And next must be considered Gods enlargements and explications of his Covenant of Grace till Christs Incarnation 25. And next mens behaviour under that explained Covenant 26. And Gods sentence and execution upon them thereupon 27. Then we come to the fulness of time and to explain the work of Redemption distinctly And 1. It s Original the God of Nature giving the world a Physician or a Saviour 2. The Ends 3. The constitutive Causes Where 1. Of the Person of the Redeemer in his Essence as God and Man and in his perfections both essential and modal and accidental 28. And 2. Of the fundamental works of our Redemption such as Creation was to the first Administration viz. his first Vndertaking Interposition and Incarnation being all presupposed 1. His perfect Resignation of himself to his Father and submission to his disposing Will 2. His perfect subjection and obedience to his Coverning Will 3. His perfect Love to him 4. And the suffering by which he exprest all these The three first meriting of themselves and the last meriting as a satisfactory Sacrifice not for it self but for its usefulness to its proper ends 29. From this Offering once made to God Christ acquired the perfecter title of a Saviour or Redeemer or Mediatour which one contained
man to God to love him and be beloved by him so the true use of Faith in Jesus Christ is to be as it were the bellows to kindle love or the burning-glass as it were of the soul to receive the beams of the Love of God as they shine upon us in Jesus Christ and thereby to enflame our hearts in love to God again Therefore if you would live by Faith indeed begin here and first receive the deepest apprehensions of that Love of the Father Who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And by these apprehensiâ—ns stir up your hearts to the Love of God and make this very endeavour the work and business of your lives Oh that mistaken Christians would be rectified in this point how much would it tend to their holiness and their peace You think of almost nothing of the life of Faith but how to believe that you have a special interest in Christ and shall be saved by him But you have first another work to do You must first believe that common Love and Grace before mentioned John 3.16 2 Cor. 5.19 20.14 15. 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2.9 And you must believe your own interest in this that is that God hath by Christ made to all and therefore unto you an act of oblivion and free deed of gift that you shall have Christ and pardon and eternal life if you will believingly accept the gift and will not finally reject it And the belief of this even of this common Love and Grace must first perswade your hearts accordingly to accept the offer and then you have a special interest and withall at the same time must kindle in your souls a thankful love to the Lord and fountain of this grace and if you were so ingenuous as to begin here and first use your Faith upon the foresaid common gift of Christ for the kindling of love to God within you and would account this the work which Faith hath every day to do you would then find that in the very exciting and exercise of this holy Love your assurance of your own special interest in Christ would be sooner and more comfortably brought about than by searching to find either evidence of pardon before you find your love to God or to find your love to God before you have laboured to get and exercise it I tell you they are dangerous deceivers of your souls that shall contradict this obvious truth that the true method and motive of mans first special love to God must not be by believing first God 's special love to us but by believing his more common love and mercy in the general act and offer of grace before mentioned For he that believeth Gods special love to him and his special interest in Christ before he hath any special love to God doth sinfully presume and not believe For if by Gods special love you mean his love of complacency to you as a living member of Christ to believe this before you love God truly is to believe a dangerous lie and if you mean only Gods love of benevolence by which he decreeth to make you the objects of his foresaid complacency and to sanctifie and save you to believe this before you truly love God is to believe that which is utterly unknown to you and may be false for ought you know but is not at all revealed by God and therefore is not the object of Faith Therefore if you cannot have true assurance or perswasion of your special interest in Christ and of your justification before you have a special love to God then this special love must be kindled I say not by a common Faith but by a true Faith in the General Love and Promise mentioned before Nay you must not only have first this special love but also must have so much knowledge that indeed you have it as you will have knowledge of your special interest in Christ and the love of God for no act of Faith will truly evidence special grace which is not immediately and intimately accompanied with true love to God our Father and Redeemer and the ultimate object of our Faith Nor can you any further perceive or prove the sincerity of your Faith it self than you discern in or with it the Love here mentioned For Faith is not only an act of the Intellect but of the Will also And there is no volition or consent to this or any offered good which hath not in it the true nature of Love and the intention of the end being in order of nature before our choice or use of means the intending of God as our end cannot come behind that act of Faith which is about Christ as the chosen means or way to God Therefore make this your great and principal use of your Faith to receive all the expressions of Gods Love in Christ and thereby to kindle in you a love to God that first the special true belief of Gods more common love and grace may kindle in you a special love and then the sense of this may assure you of your special interest in Christ and then the assurance of that special interest may increase your love to a much higher degree And thus live by Faith in the work of Love Direct 7. That you may understand what that Faith is which you must live by take in all the parts at least that are essential to it in your description and take not some parcels of it for the Christian Faith nor think noâ— that it must needs be several sorts of Faith if it have several objects and hearken not to that dull Philosophical subtilty which would perswade you that Faith is but some single physical act of the soul 1. If you know not what Faith is it must needs be a great hinderance to you in the seeking of it the trying it and the using it For though one may use his natural faculties which work by natural inclination and necessity without knowing what they are yet it is not so where the choice of the rational appetite is necessary for it must be guided by the reasoning faculty And though unlearned persons may have and use Repentance Faith and other graces who cannot define them yet they do truly though not perfectly know the thing it self though they know not the terms of a just definition and all defect of knowing the true nature of Faith will be some hinderance to us in using it 2. It is a moral subject which we are speaking of and terms are to be understood according to the nature of the subject therefore Faith is to be taken for a moral act which comprehendeth many physical acts Such as is the act of believing in or taking such a man for my Physician or my Master or my Tutor or my King Even our Philosophers themselves know not what doth individuate a physical act of the soul Nay they are not
Radii Lumen are thought a fit similitude by many But the Motion Light and Heat is a plain impression of the Trinity on that noble element of fire That holy man Ephraem Syrus in his Testament useth the phrase in his adjuration of his Disciples and the protestation of his own stedfastness in the doctrine of the Trinity against all Heresies By that three-named fire of the most holy Trinity or Divine Majesty as another Copy hath it And by that infinite and sole one Power of God and by those three subsistences of the intelligible or intellectual fire And as it is a most great and certain truth that this sacred Trinity of Divine Principles have made their impress communicatively upon the frame of nature and most evidently on the noblest parts which are in excellency nearest their Creatour so it is evident that in the creatures LOVE is the pregnant communicative principle So is Natural Love in Generation and friendly Love in benefiting others and spiritual Love in propagating knowledge and grace for the winning of souls What I said of the Scripture use of the word is found in 1 John 5.5 6 7 8. Heb. 9.14 1 Cor. 12.2 3 4. Rom. 1.4 John 1.32 33. 3.5 34. 6.63 Gen. 1.2 Job 33.4 2 Cor. 3.17 18. Luke 4.18 Micah 3.8 Isa 11.2 61.1 Direct 2. The more excellent measure of the Spirit given by Christ after his ascension to the Gospel Church is to be distinguished from that which was before communicated and this Spirit of Christ is it which our Christian Faith hath special respect to Without the Spirit of God as the perfective principle nature would not have been nature Gen. 1.2 All things would not have been good and very good but by the communication of goodness And without somewhat of that Spirit there would be no Moral Goodness in any of mankind And without some special operations of that Spirit the godly before Christs coming in the flesh would not have been godly nor in any present capacity of glory Therefore there was some gift of the Spirit before But yet there was an eminent gift of the Spirit proper to the Gospel times which the former ages did not know which is so much above the former gift that it is sufficient to prove the Verity of Christ For 1. There was use for the speciall attestation of the Father by way of Power by Miracles and his Resurrection to own his Son 2. The Wisdom and Word of God incarnate must needs bring a special measure of Wisdom to his Disciples and therefore give a greater measure of the Spirit for illumination 3. The design of Redemption being the revelation of the Love of God and the recovery of our Love to him there must needs be a special measure of the Spirit of Love shed abroad upon our hearts And in all these three respects the Spirit was accordingly communicated Quest Was it not the Spirit of Christ which was in the Prophets and in all the godly before Christs coming Answ The Spirit of Christ is either that measure of the Spirit which was given after the first Covenant of Grace as it differeth from the state of man in innocency and from the state of man in his Apostacy and condemnation And thus it was the Spirit of Christ which was then given so far as it was the Covenant and Grace of Christ by which men were then saved But there was a fuller Covenant to be made after his coming and a fuller measure of Grace to be given and a full attestation of God for the establishment and promulgation of this Covenant And accordingly a fuller and special gift of the Spirit And this is called The Spirit of Christ in the peculiar Gospel sense Quest How is it said Joh. 7.37 that the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified Answ It is meant of this special measure of the Spirit which was to be Christs special witness and agent in the world They had before that measure of true grace which was necessary to the salvation of Believers before the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ which was the Spirit of Christ as the Light before Sun-rising is the Light of the Sun and if they died in that case they would have been saved But they had not the signal Spirit of the Gospel settled and resident with them but only some little taste of it for casting out Devils and for Cures at that time when Christ sent them by a special mission to preach and gave them a sudden special gift Luke 9.1 10.17 Quest How is it said of those baptized Believers Acts 19. that they had not heard that there was a Holy Ghost Answ It is meant of this eminent Gospel gift of the Holy Ghost as he is the great Witness and Agent of Christ and not of all the graces of the Holy Ghost Quest Was it before necessary to have an explicite belief in the Holy Ghost as the third person in the blessed Trinity and as the third principle of the divine operations and were the faithful then in Covenant with him Answ Distinguish between the Person and the Name No Name is necessary to salvation else none could be saved but men of one language To believe in the Holy Ghost under that Name was not necessary to salvation nor yet is for he that speaketh and heareth of him in Greek or Latine or Sclavonian c. may be saved though he never learnt the English tongue But to believe in the Energetical or operative or communicative Love of God was alwaies necessary to salvation considered in the thing and not only in the Name As it was to believe in his Power and his Wisdom And to believe which is the first and which the second and which the third is not yet of absolute necessity to salvation while they are coequal and coessential and it was necessary to the Jews to believe that this Love of God did operate and was communicated to the faithful not upon the terms of innocency according to the first Covenant but to sinners that deserved death and upon terms of mercy through the Covenant of Grace which was made with lapsed man in order to his recovery through a Redeemer Direct 3. All that is efficiently necessary to our salvation in or of God is not objectively necessary to be known And such a measure of the knowledge of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is necessary to save us as is necessary objectively to sanctifie us under the efficiency of the said Spirit And all the rest is not of such necessity And therefore as under the Gospel the Spirit is Christs great Witness as well as Agent in the world it is more necessary now to believe distinctly in the Holy Ghost in that relation than it was before Christs coming in the flesh There is a great deal of the Divine Perfection which causeth our salvation unknown to us As the Sun will shine upon us and the
and the everlasting miseries of the damned in Hell being the due effects or punishment of sin are the second cause of our necessity of pardon And therefore these also must be thought on seriously by him that will seriously believe in Christ 4. The Law of God which we have broken maketh this punishment our due Rom. 3. 5. 7. And the Justice of God is engaged to secure his own honour in the honour of his Law and Government Direct 2. Vnderstand well what Christ is and doth for the Justification of a sinner and how not one only but all the parts of his office are exercised hereunto In the dignity of his person and perfect original holiness of his natures divine and humane he is fitly qualified for his work of our Justification and Salvation His undertaking which is but the Divine Decree did from eternity lay the foundation of all but did not actually justifie any His Promise Gen. 3.15 and his new Relation to mâ—â— thereupon did that to the Fathers in some degree which his after-incarnation and performance and his Relation thereupon doth now to us His perfect Obedience to the Law yea to that Law of Mediation also peculiar to himself which he performed neither as Priest or Prophet or King but as a subject was the meritorious cause of that Covenant and Grace which justifieth us and so of our Justification And that which is the meritorious cause here is also usually called the material as it is that matter or thing which meriteth our Justification and so is called Our Righteousness it self As he was a sacrifice for sin he answered the ends of the Law which we violated and which condemned us as well as if we had been all punished according to the sense of the Law And therefore did thereby satisfie the Law-giver and thereby also merited our pardon and Justification so that his Obedience as such and his Sacrifice or whole humiliation as satisfactory by answering the ends of the Law are conjunctly the meritorious cause of our Justification His New Covenant which in Baptism is made mutual by our expressed consent is a general gift or act of oblivion or pardon given freely to all mankind on condition they will believe and consent to it or accept it so that it is Gods pardoning and adopting instrument And all are pardoned by it conditionally and every penitent Believer actually and really And this Covenant or Gift is the effect of the foresaid merit of Christ both founded and sealed by his blood As he merited this as a mediating subject and sacrifice so as our High Priest he offered this sacrifice of himself to God And as our King he being the Law-giver to the Church did make this Covenant as his Law of grace describing the terms of life and death And being the Judge of the world doth by his sentence justifie and condemn men as believers or unbelievers according to this Covenant And also executeth his sentence accordingly partly in this life but fully in the life to come As our Teacher and the Prophet or Angel of the Covenant he doth declare it as the Fathers will and promulgate and proclaim this Covenant and conditional Pardon and Justification to the world and send out his Embassadours with it to beseech men in his Name to be reconciled to God and to declare yea and by sacramental investiture to seal and deliver a Pardon and actual Justification to Believers when they consent And as our Mediating High Priest now in the Heavens he presenteth our necessity and his own righteousnesses and sacrifice as his meritâ— for the continual communication of all this grace by himself as the Head of the Church and Administrator of the Covenant So that Christ doth justifie us both as a subject meriting as a sacrifice meriting as a Priest offering that sacrifice as a King actually making the Justifying Law or enacting a general Pardon as a King sententially and executively justifying as a Prophet or Angel of the Covenant promulgating it as King and Prophet and Priest delivering a sealed Pardon by his Messengers And as the Priest Head and Administrator communicating this with the rest of his benefits By which you may see in what respects Christ must be believed in to Justification if Justifying Faith were as it is not only the receiving him as our Justifier It would not be the receiving him as in one part of his office only Direct 3. Vnderstand rightly how far it is that the righteousness of Christ himself is made ours or imputed to us and how far not There are most vehement controversies to this day about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in which I know not well which of the extreams are in the greater errour those that plead for it in the mistaken sense or those that plead against it in the sober and right sense But I make no doubt but they are both of them damnable as plainly subverting the foundation of our faith And yet I do not think that they will prove actually damning to the Authors because I believe that they misunderstand their adversaries and do not well understand themselves and that they digest not and practise not what they plead for but digest and practise that truth which they doctrinally subvert not knowing the contrariety which if they knew they would renounce the errour and not the truth And I think that many a one that thus contradicteth fundamentals may be saved Some there be besides the Antinomians that hold that Christ did perfectly obey and satisfie not in the natural but in the civil or legal person of each sinner that is elect representing and bearing as many distinct persons as are elect so fully as that God doth repute every Elect person or say others every Believer to be one that in Law sense did perfectly obey and satisfie Justice himself and so imputeth Christs Righteousness and satisfaction to us as that which was reputatively or legally of our own performance and so is ours not only in its effects but in it self Others seeing the pernicious consequences of this opinion deny all imputed Righteousness of Christ to us and write many reproachful volumes against it as you may see in Thorndikes last works and Dr. Gell and Parker against the Assembly and abundance more The truth is Christ merited and satisfied for us in the person of a Mediator But this Mediator was the Head and Root of all Believers and the second Adam the fountain of spiritual life and the Surety of the New Covenant Heb. 7.22 1 Cor. 15.22 45. and did all this in the nature of man and for the sake and benefit of man suffering that we might not suffer damnation but not obeying that we might not obey but suffering and obeying that our sinful imperfection of obedience might not be our ruine and our perfect obedience might not be necessary to our own Justification or Salvation but that God might for the sake and merit of this his perfect obedience and
after pardon that your faith may be firm and powerful and quieting especially consider the following grounds 1. Gods gracious Nature proclaimed even to Moses as abundant in mercy and forgiving iniquitys transgressions and sins to these and upon those terms that he promiseth forgiveness though he will by no means clear the guilty that is will neither take the unrighteous to be righteous nor forgive them or acquire them in judgment whom his Covenant did not first forgive 2. The merciful Nature and of our Redeemer Heb. 2.17 3. How deeply Christ harh engaged himself to shew mercy when he assumed our nature and did so much towards our salvation as he hath done Heb. 8 9. 4. That it is his very office and undertaking which therefore he cannot possibly neglect Luke 19.10 2.11 John 4.42 Acts 5.31 13.23 5. That God the Father himself did give him to us and appoint him to this saving office John 3.16 18. Acts 5.31 13.23 Yea God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing to them their trespasses 2 Cor. 5.18 19. And God made him sin that is a sacrifice for sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him that is might be the publick instances of Gods merciful Justice as Christ was of his penal Justice and this by a righteousness given us by God himself and purchased or merited for us by Christ 2 Cor. 5.21 yea and be renewed in holiness and righteousness according to his Image 6. That now it is become the very interest of God and of Jesus Christ himself to justifie us as ever he would not lose either the glory of his grace or the obedience and suffering which he hath performed Isa 53.19 Rom. 5.12 13 18 19 c. Rom. 4. throughout 7. Consider the nearness of the Person of Christ both to the Father and to us Heb. 1 2 3. 8. Think of the perfection of his sacrifice and merit set out throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews 9. Think of the word of Promise or Covenant which he hath made and sealed and sworn Heb. 6.17 18. Titus 1.2 10. Think of the great seal of the Spirit which is more than a Promise even an earnest which is a certain degree of possession and is an executive pardon as after shall be declared Rom. 8.15 16. Gal. 4.6 11. Remember that Gods own Justice is now engaged for our Justification in these two respects conjunct 1. Because of the fulness of the merits and satisfaction of Christ 2. And because of his Veracity which must fulfil his promise and his governing or destributive Justice which must judge men according to his own Law of Grace and must give men that which he himself hath made their right 2 Tim. 4.7 8. 1 John 5.9 10 11 12. 12. Lastly Think of the many millions now in Heaven of whom many were greater sinners than you and no one of them save Christ came thither by the way of innocency and legal Justification There are no Saints in Heaven that were not redeemed from the captivity of the Devil and justified by the way of pardoning grace and were not once the heirs of death John 3.3 5. Rom. 3 4. Upon these considerations trust your selves confidently on the grace of Christ and take all your sins but as the advantages of his grace Direct 9. Remember that there is somewhat on your own parts to be done for the continuing as well as for the beginning of your Justification yea somewhat more than for the beginning even the faithful keeping of your baptismal Covenant in the essentials of it and also that you have continual need of Christ to continue your Justification Many take Justification to be one instantanious act of God which is never afterwards to be done And so it is if we mean only the first making of him righteous who was unrighteous As the first making of the world and not the continuance of it is called Creation but this is but about the name For the thing it self no doubt but that Covenant which first justified us doth continue to justifie us and if the cause should cease the effect would cease And he that requireth no actual obedience as the condition of our begun Justification doth require both the continuance of faith and actual sincere obedience as the condition of continuing or not losing our Justification as Davenant Bergius Blank c. have well opened and I have elsewhere proved at large As Matrimony giveth title to conjugal priviledges to the wife but conjugal fidelity and performance of the essentials of the contract is necessary to continue them Therefore labour to keep up your faith and to abide in Christ and he in you and to bring forth fruit lest ye be branches withered and for the fire John 15.2 3 7 8 9 c. And upon the former misapprehension the same persons do look upon all the faith which they exercise through their lives after the first instantanious act as no justifying faith at all but only a faith of the same kind but to what use they hardly know Yea they look upon Christ himself as if they had no more use for him either as to continue their Justification or to forgive their after-sins when as our continued faith must be exercised all our lives on the same Christ and trust on the same Covenant for the continuation and perfection of that which was begun at the time of our Regeneration Col. 1.23 1 John 2.24 Heb. 3.6.12 13. Heb. 6.11 12. 10.22 23. Direct 10. Vnderstand that every sin which you commit hath need of a renewed pardon in Christ and that he doth me prevent your necessity of such pardon And therefore you will have constant need of Christ and must daily come to God for pardon by him not only for the pardon of temporal chastisements but of everlasting punishments Of the sense of this I shall say more anon the proof of it is in the fore recited Promises and in all those texts of Scripture which tell us that death is the wages of sin and call us to ask pardon and tell us on what terms it may be had Direct 11. Yet do not think that every sin doth put you into a state of condemnation again or nullifie your former Justification For though the Law of nature is so far still in force as to make punishment by it your natural due yet the Covenant of Grace is a continually pardoning act and according to its proper terms doth dissolve the foresaid obligation and presently remit the punishment and as its moral action is not interrupted no more is our justified state There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 8.1 John 3.16 18. 1 John 5.11 12. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins 1 John 2.1 2. If we confess our sins be