Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	believe_v	justify_v	remission_n	4,306	5	10.0145	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42685	The nature of justification opened in a sermon on Romans V. 1. By Mr. Gibbons, sometime preacher at Black-Fryers, London.	Gibbon, John, 1629-1718.	1695 (1695)	Wing G651; ESTC R216248	24,547	32

Law of Works Christ's Satisfaction justieth us formally as our proper legal Righteousness I call it our Righteousness because it becomes imputed to us upon our Believing Faith being our Gospel Title by pleading which we lay claim to all the Benefits accruing from the Merit of Christ's Performance to all Effects Uses and Purposes as if it had been personally our own I call it our legal Righteousness because thereby the Law of God owns it self fully apaid and acquiesceth in it as in full Reparations and Amends made unto it for the injury and dishonour received by the Sin of Man We must plead this against all the Challenges and Accusations of the Law who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect it is Christ that died c. Rom. 8.33 And thus our legal Righteousness required in the first Covenant that of Works is wholly without us in our Redeemer yet imputed upon our Account Thirdly The Gospel justifieth quâ Lex lata 3 3. How the Gospel as it is the Law of Faith for the very Tenour of the Gospel-Covenant is Believe and thou shalt be saved Fourthly Faith justifieth vi Legis latae 4 4. How Faith as it is our Evangelical Righteousness or our keeping the Gospel-Law for that Law suspends Justification upon Believing Faith pretends to no Merit or Vertue of its own but professedly avows its dependance upon the Merit of Christ's Satisfaction as our legal Righteousness on which it layeth hold nor can it shew any other Title to be it self our Evangelical Righteousness but only God's Sanction who chose this Act of believing to the honour of being the Justifying Act because it so highly honoureth Christ so that as a most judicious Pen expresseth it the Act of Believing is as the Silver but God's Authority in the Gospel-Sanction is the King's Coin or Image Stamp'd upon it which gives it all its value as to Justification Without this Stamp it could never have been currant and if God had set this Stamp on any other Grace as Love that then would have been currant and have justified us as Faith doth now Fifthly God justifieth in a proper sense two ways 5 5. How God First As a Legislator Secondly As a Judge 1. As a Legislator enacting by his Soveraign Authority that fweet and gracious Law of the New Covenant by vertue of whose Tenour every Sinner that believes is justified from the Guilt of Sin from which he could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 13.38 39. This Law of Justification by Faith is God's own Act and Deed the great Instrumentum pacis between God and Man he hath proclaimed his Letters Patents the King of Heaven and Earth hath in the Gospel our Magna Charta given his Warrant under his own Broad Seal That he that believeth shall not be condemned 2. As a Judge the God of Heaven may in three respects be said to justifie a Believer First Forthwith upon his Believing God owneth him secretly within himself as a Person justified God esteems and approves of him as in that state unto which he hath by believing a Title good in Law an indefeasible Right a justified Estate emergeth actually as soon as Faith the Law-Title thereunto emergeth as a necessary Resultance by virtue of the Tenour of the Gospel-Law which only justified Virtually Potentially and Conditionally before every Believer in general but now Actually Absolutely and in particular it justifieth him as a Believer when he is so Secondly At the moment of Dissolution God justifieth as the Judge of all the Earth passing a private Sentence and Award unto everlasting Life upon every believing Soul Thirdly But Eminently at the last Day when the Ancient of Days shall take the Throne and in open Court before the whole Creation by publick Sentence for ever acquit and discharge Believers at that great and last Assizes Sixthly 6 6. How Works Shall I need to add that Works are said to justifie us Jam. 2.4 because they justifie our Faith or demonstrate before God and Man and to our own Consciences that our Faith is not a dead and barren but a true and living one by its fruitfulness in well-doing Seventhly 7 7. How the Spirit But I must not forget Lastly That the Spirit of God is said to justifie us 1 Cor. 6.11 and that two ways First Directly by working Faith in the Heart which is one of the Fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 Now Causa causae est etiam causa causati the Spirit justifieth as it is the Author of the justifying Grace Secondly Reflexibly The Divine Spirit clears up Justification to a Believer's Conscience by discovering the truth of Faith by working Assurance and by sealing a Believer to the day of Redemption The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirits that we are the Children of God and if Children then heirs c. Rom. 8.16 17. Thus I have at length done with my first Task the opening of the Point which finds its self summed up in this Definition Justification is a judicial act of God as Law-giver and Judge of the world graciously discharging a Believer for the sake of Christ's satisfaction from the condemnation of the Law of Works by the tenour of the Gospel-Law or New Covenant which requireth of accepteth from imputeth unto sinners faith in Christ Jesus as their righteousness see Rom. 3.25 6 7 8. Rom. 4.5 Phil. 3.9 Vse Refut To improve it now which was my other Task by way of Refutation I infer against the Antinomians First That Justification is not from Eternity 1. Because a person must be charged with Guilt before he is justified or discharged but nothing can be before Eternity if discharg'd from Eternity when was he charged what from Eternity too then he will be at once eternally charged with and discharged from Guilt which if any excuse from a Contradiction they are much wiser than I am 2. My Text convinceth them actual Faith is not from Eternity therefore not Justification before God for if Faith justifie us not before God but only at the Bar of Conscience then there will be no Justification at God's Bar at all once mention'd in Scripture for Works do it at Man's Bar. What is it I wonder that justifieth from Eternity Not God's Decree to justifie for then his Decree to glorifie would make Glorification from Eternity too but Decreta Dei nihil ponúnt actu in subjecto God's Decrees are immanent Acts and pass nothing actually upon the Creature 3. A justified person was actually under Condemnation whil'st he was an Unbeliever Rom. 3.18 He that believeth not is condemned already but he could not be at all Condemned if justified from Eternity 4. Saint Paul expresly affirms that the believing Corinthians were not once but now were justified 1 Cor. 6.11 Such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus c. Secondly I infer against them that

propounded become reconcileable unto God actually it is of force to all that have but to none that want the Conditions of it Now the keeping this Gospel-Covenant God expects from us in person tho' by the Assistance of his Spirit which he hath promised to give to them that humbly and earnestly ask it of him Luke 11.1 To affirm that Christ hath kept the Gospel for us too is to utter the most self-contradicting Blasphemy and Absurdity imaginable as if he could repent or believe in himself free except or cancel our Obligation to obey the Moral Law by his own obeying it as if Christ had so done all that nothing remains to be done on our part Such strange extreams do some Men run into that to avoid Justification by Works by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are as yet extravagant on the other hand thinking the Grace of God cannot be free except the Sinner become either a senseless Statue meerly passive or which is yet worse have a writ of ease to be quite idle or which is worst of all a License to Sin by Prerogative Let the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chastise this Insolence Rom. 6.15 shall we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace God forbid If Christ had obeyed the Law for us in the sense of paying a Debt or discharging a Bond the Apostles answer could not stand Rom. 3.31 Do●●e them make void the Law through Faith yea we establish the Law When a Believer breaks the Law he Sins for sin is the transgression of the Law nay he cannot break it willfully but he breaks the very Gospel-Covenant one Condition whereof is sincere Obedience and the guilt of that sin lieth upon him unpardoned until by hearty Repentance and fresh Applications by Faith to the Blood of sprinkling which are the only Titles good in Law the only Gospel-claims to Pardon he hath sued out a new Pardon for actual Remission is only of past Sins Rom. 3.25 according to the Tenour of the New Covenant which is a perpetual Law of pardoning repenting and believing Sinners whomsoever whensoever but as such Neither was Christ's suffering like the cancelling of a Bond a total discharge of us from suffering the Penalty threatned in the Law we die still and Afflictions are Punishments still True indeed upon Christ's Satisfaction made God and he are agreed that a believing Sinner should not be punished with the everlasting destructive Penalty threatned for whosoever believes shall not perish Joh. 3.16 but they are not that he shall not be for he is punished with the temporal corrective Punishments of the threatning as Sickness and natural Death yet even these through infinite Goodness so ordering and disposing it prove much more a Benefit than a Penalty to a Believer Use 2. What cause have we then with the lowest and profoundest Humility to adore the Majesty of the living God First To adore his Holiness Reverence those eyes of his that are purer than that they can endure to behold iniquity Hab. 1.13 Let this God be thy dread and awe Dare not to make a mock of Sin tremble at the horrid Guilt and sinfulness of the least Sin look upon it as an Affront and Treason against an Eternal Majesty as worthy the Curse of the Law and the Wrath of an Almighty God as that which could not be expiated at a lesser rate than the Blood of God Acts 20.28 Secondly To adore his Wisdom in finding out such a person to satisfie his Justice as our Redeemer consider here that God could not suffer could not die nay could not properly satisfie himself for it had not been a Satisfaction to his Justice at all but meer Mercy and so no Justification of a Sinner but meer Pardon if the person satisfying had been only God Again consider that a meer Creature could never satisfie as I before demonstrated a meer Creature had perish'd in the Attempt would have been overwhelm'd and crush'd to pieces with that insupportable Load the guilt of Sin and the wrath of God The person therefore that must fatisfie must neither be Finite nor Infinite neither the Creature nor the Creator neither God nor Man yet must be both Here now the Understandings of Men and Angels must have been tryed to all Eternity and lost for ever in a bottomless Gulf ●● Horrour and Amazement to find out such a Person O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Rom. 11.33 see also Ephes 1.7 8. fully hereunto Thirdly To adore the Infinite Riches of his Grace Rom. 3.24 in Justification and here consider 1. God might have let man alone seized the forfeiture as the Tree fell it might have lain for ever what obliged God to accept of Satisfaction 2. The Redeemer hath trodden the Wine press alone what ever was done in this Satisfaction he did it Of the People there was none with him The Sinner hath not the least hand in it could not pay one Christ paid every one to the utmost farthing Thirdly It was the Judge himself who contrived this way to Justifie us and it was at his cost he gave his Son herein God commended his Love to us as Abraham once did his faith to God in that he spared not his Son his only begotten Son whom he Loved So that if we rightly weigh it it will appear that by how much the Satisfaction is the fuller by so much the pardon is the freer by how much his Justice is the more by so much too is his mercy the more glorified and still still infinitely the more are we obliged Use 3. Consol Here 's unspeakable comfort for every humble though doubting Soul every contrite Spirit that Hungers and Thirsts after Righteousness First Consider how full Satisfaction Christ hath made he is able to save to the utmost all that come to God through him he is the beloved Son in whom the Father is well-pleased all power is committed into his hands God hath exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance and Remission of sins Secondly Consider he inviteth thee as a Sinner to come in unto this Gospel-righteousness in the general tenour of his Proclamation Whosoever believes c. If any man Sin we have an Advocate with the Father c. 1 Joh. 2.1 2. An whosoever excludes none that excludes not himself Thirdly Consider Christ assures thee that art the Person I now speak to he who is the Truth assures thee thou shalt be welcome Mat. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest c. This is your very case Hark the Master calleth you will you not be of good courage and Go when he saith Come he that never yet cast out any that came unto him that never will he saith so himself Thou maist believe him he never broke his Word yet he will not begin with thee he cannot deny himself Fourthly Consider those standing Monuments of Gods free