Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	good_a	law_n	transgression_n	4,529	5	10.4346	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

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

Cor. 15.24 28. that this State I say of our Redeemer's Humiliation is entirely look'd upon by God as the valuable Consideration wherein his Justice with Honour acquiesceth and rests satisfied It hath two Parts First His taking the form of a Servant at his Incarnation Secondly His management of and deportment in that State First His Incarnation and this presents God with a double Satisfaction whereby he may with Honour entertain Thoughts of Love to Mankind 1. In that Humane Nature is in Christ unstained with either Original or Actual Sin for by his Divine Conception by the Holy Ghost he received of his Virgin-mother a pure undeflowred Virgin Humane Nature the second Adam revives the Innocency of the first those Eyes could without Disparagement behold his Manhood which are purer than to behold Iniquity and even in their sight though no other Flesh living could yet this Flesh must be justified 2. In that Humane Nature is in him dignified with Union to the Divine and is become the Seat and Mansion of the Godhead so that how loathsom soever Sin hath rendred it in us yet in him it is highly exalted even as highly as the Divine Nature in him was abased for the Humane Nature ascends just in the same proportion as the Divine descended that is to the utmost possibility for God could stoop no lower than to become a Man nor Man rise higher than to be personally one with God Thus you see Christ's entring into his State of Humiliation hath rendred the Nature of Man very considerable again in the fight of God so that he can now with Honour exercise good Will towards it Secondly His management of this State consists in his active and passive Righteousness By his active Righteousness I mean his Obedience to the whole Law to the Ceremonial in being Circumcised Baptized keeping the three yearly Feasts c. To the Moral in not committing one Sin or neglecting one commanded Duty even to Subjection to his Parents and paying Tribute to Caesar By his passive Righteousness I mean all that he suffered in his Life time as the meanness of his Birth and Education his Persecution by Herod in his Infancy after by the Scribes and Pharisees his Hunger and Temptation in the Wilderness his Poverty and Straits he had not where to lay his Head in a word He was all his life long in all things tempted as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 but especially what he suffered at his Death First In his Body he was scourged spit upon crowned with Thorns and at length Crucified which was 1. A cruel Death the Latin Cruciari to be tormented is derived à cruce from being crucified 2. A reproachful one Gal. 3.13 Heb. 13.13 it was the Roman Death for Slaves and Malefactors But Secondly Most of all he suffered in his Soul witness those Expressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26.37 Mark 14.33 add his bemoaning himself to his Disciples in the following words and his passionate Prayer thrice repeated Abba Father if it be possible let this cup pass Add further yet his sweating drops of Blood in that bitter Agony which so spent him in the Garden that an Angel was sent to comfort him but above all his desertion upon the Cross witnesseth that he suffered unutterably in his Soul when he cryed My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The Socinians are here puzzled to give any tollerable Account how the infinitely good God could find in his Heart to exercise his only begotten Son that never sinned with all these Horrours in his Soul for certainly it stood not with his Goodness had not Christ as the second Adam been a publick Person a Representative on whom the Lord hath laid the iniquities of us all Isa 53.6 But if we consider which they deny that Christ was then satisfying his Father's Justice we need not wonder at those Horrours and Consternations of the Manhood for he knew the vastness of his Undertaking the numberless Numbers and aggravations of Sins the dreadful weight of his Father's Wrath the sharpness of that Sword Zech. 13.7 which he was going now to feel not that God was angry with Christ upon the Cross quoad affectum no he never more dearly loved him but quoad effectum and Christ's infinite Abhorrence of the Sins he bore and that infinite Zeal wherewith he was inflam'd to vindicate the Honour of Divine Justice Now his infinite love to his Church struggling with all these produc'd those Agonies and overcame them all when he said It is finished Joh. 19.30 we meet him next triumphing in his Resurrection But here to resolve that great Question whether Christ's passive Righteousness alone or Active and Passive jointly are the matter of Christ's Satisfaction which Believers plead at God's Bar for their Justification and which being accepted by God as a Plea good in Law is said to be imputed viz. in a Law-sense for Righteousness Let these Reasons be weighed by such as do disjoyn them First Each of them hath its proper Interest in and its respective Contribution towards the satisfying the injur'd Honour of God's Law For the Honour of God's Law is the Equity of both its Parts its Command and its Threatning Christ's active Righteousness honours the Equity of the first which Man had dishonoured by his Disobedience but the great God-man hath repaired the Honour of God's Commandments by yielding a most perfect Obedience to every one of them and therein proclaimed the Law to be holy just and good Then Christ's passive Righteousness in like manner honours the Equity of the Threatning for as by Obeying he acknowledged God's Authority to make a Law and his unexceptionable Righteousness in every single Branch of the Law made so by Suffering he proclaimeth that Man is bound to keep it or if he do not to bear the Penalty He himself dies to justifie that the Sinner is worthy of Death and offers himself upon the Cross as a Sacrifice to the Divine Justice and hereby he hath proclaimed Sin to be exceeding sinful and God to be so jealous a God as rather than Sin should go unpunish'd and his Justice wants its Glory the Righteous Eternal Son of God must be made an Example what guilty Man had deserved Thus God by two equal Miracles of everlasting Astonishment to be adored hath satisfied both his contending Attributes and rendred each of them Triumphant in making his Righteous Son an Example of his Sin-avenging Justice that guilty Sinners repenting and believing might be made Examples of his Sin-pardoning goodness In the second place as each hath its respective Interest in satisfying the injur'd Law so neither of them can be any where severed from the other and those which God hath so indissolubly joyned let none part asunder for Christ's active Righteousness was every where passive because all of it done in the form of a Servant for in our Nature he obeyed the Law but in his very Incarnation he was Passive for therein he suffered