THOUGH I have insisted long, and may insist yet some while upon this great privilege, the forgiveness of sins, yet ye may know that I am not upon an unnecessary subject. I am upon a subject that will be found absolutely necessary for you, to make your testament comfortably with, and with the cordials thereof ye may digest any bitterness that occurreth in your empty pilgrimage.
These general heads, on which I am now treating, want not their ground in the text and context. That which is pardoned (to which I have spoken), the text tells that it is iniquity: “There is forgiveness with thee of these iniquities, which if thou mark, who can stand?” The author of this benefit of pardon is expressly held out in the text, “There is forgiveness with thee,” and the benefit itself, the nature whereof I am now inquiring after, is held out in that term of forgiveness, “There is forgiveness with thee.” Now concerning this, having cleared negatively, what it is not, I told you particularly, that pardon takes not away the filth and being of sin, but the guilt of sin. God, in pardoning the sinner, remits the offence done to Him by the violation of His law, and restores the pardoned sinner to His favour, and exempts him from the deserved punishment of sin. And in pursuance of this, I spoke to two of four questions, which are needful to be discussed, for clearing the nature of remission. 1. I cleared to you, that though guilt be inseparable from the filth of sin, yet the sinner might be pardoned, though the filth of sin remain; and how that his pardon did not take away the desert of sin, considered in itself, but that it takes away that desert and guilt, as it results on the person sinning, so far as it never taketh effect on him; so that, though the person who fled unto Christ for refuge be troubled, not only with the pollution, but with the guilt of sin, yet he needs not be afraid, for it takes no effect against him, since he has betaken himself to the city of refuge. And to confirm this, I gave you several scriptural expressions of pardon, which may quiet the conscience, and be ground of peace; that although the filth of sin, and the inherent desert of sin remain, yet pardon is a real security to the pardoned sinner. 2. Another case or question which I spoke unto was, that seeing pardon frees the pardoned man from obligation to punishment, whether or not doth, or may, the Lord pursue a pardoned justified man with any chastisement or punishment for sin. And there, not to resume what I spoke unto you the last afternoon, I gave you some grounds of refutation of the Popish doctrine, who will have the fault or guilt remitted when the punishment is retained; which is to say, that sin is remitted, and it’s not remitted. And upon the other hand, I cleared to you against the Antinomians, how that, as all trouble came in by the door of sin, the Lord may and doth chasten the pardoned sinner upon the account of sin; partly to prevent sin, partly to rouse him up to repentance when he hath sinned, and partly to set sinners on their feet, that they may be rightly affected with sin when it is pardoned, and that they may be excited to make a right use of pardon.
There remain yet other two questions or cases to be cleared, anent the nature of remission of sin, to which I shall now briefly speak, as the Lord will give.
- The third case or question in order to this is whether the truth of pardon depends upon the intimation thereof to our hearts, yea, or no, as when a sensible sinner is fallen down at God’s foot-stool, in the confession of sin, and crying for pardon through Christ, yet he finds nothing like a pardon intimate to his conscience. In this case the question is, whether hath he ground to doubt, that neither hath he repented of sin, nor gotten a pardon from God for it. The general answer to this is, that pardon, and God’s intimation of pardon to the conscience, are not to be confounded. The apostle (1 Cor. ii. 12) gives a general rule concerning all supernatural gifts, that when we have received these things freely of God, we must receive the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God. It’s one thing to get these supernatural gifts gifted to us, another thing to get the Spirit which is of God, to know they are given us; and this hath place particularly in the matter of pardon of sin, for the pardon of sin is a sentence already past in the Word of God in favour of all believers and penitents in Christ, so that no sooner doth the penitent sinner flee unto Him and look unto Him, as to the brazen serpent, for pardon and cure, but as soon as that pardon becomes his, before he can subsume (conclude) “I am fled unto Christ for pardon, and am pardoned.” His direct act of faith draws out pardon, before he can reflect and pass a judgment on that, his pardon. And hence, when Nathan hath pronounced that David’s sin is pardoned him (2 Sam. xii. 13), yet in the 51st Psalm he cries instantly for mercy, for pardon, and blotting out of his transgression. Why? Though he was pardoned in the court of heaven, yet he was not pardoned in the court of his own conscience. The intimation of pardon was suspended and kept up. And hence is that which I named before, Matt. ix. 2, “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.” It’s one benefit to him to have his sins forgiven him, and another benefit to be of good cheer on that account: therefore, as Christ tells him that his sins are forgiven him, so He must bid him be of good cheer. Thus ye see the truth of a penitent’s pardon depends not on the intimation thereof to his conscience.
But this wakens up another case or question, the following forth whereof will deduce this more distinctly, and that is, how it comes, and for what end it is, that a child of God cannot get it discerned and closed with, that he is pardoned. For clearing of this case, we should look first to ourselves, and then to a wise hand of God suspending the intimation of pardon. If we look to ourselves when we are pardoned, we cannot discern it because of our weakness, that cannot discern our happiness; we are blind and discern not our happiness, discern not our health; we confound the reality of pardon with the sense and feeling of pardon, and we will not believe pardon, except we feel the effects of pardon. And it is also because we are ignorant of getting pardon through the satisfaction of another. When we are brought to be sensible for sin and to look to Christ for pardon, and God hath spoken pardon, we are like the sea, which being raised by a storm, doth tumble awhile after the storm is over, and there is a calm. These are some hints on our part why the pardoned sinner gets it not discerned that he is pardoned. But if we look to God, He may have a holy hand in keeping up the intimation of pardon upon several accounts.
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The Lord would have us looking more to His Word, wherein pardon in the Gospel is holden out to us on Gospel terms, and less to sense. He would breed us to grip the promise while sense come, and to grip the promise that sense may come. And they that will suspend all assurance of pardon until it be sensibly intimated, the Lord in His holy providence keeps up the intimation of pardon from them, to teach them to pay more due respect to His Word, and to seek and feed upon the consolation that depends upon pardon promised and pronounced therein, that by following His method by faith, they may come to sensible intimation of pardon.
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The Lord may keep up the sensible intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned man, that He may learn him to look upon pardon not as a necessary result and effect of his repentance, but as a free gift of God, which though the Lord will not bestow without repentance, yet He doth not bestow it for repentance; therefore doth He suspend the intimation of pardon from the penitent man, that he may learn to look less to his repentance, and more to the free grace of God in obtaining of pardon.
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The Lord sees it fit to keep pardoned sinners in suspense as to the sense of pardon, or the intimation of it, that He may let them see that when He is provoked by their sinning it is not so easy to recover themselves and get into His favour. Therefore, though He has pardoned them, yet He will keep them at the back of the door, as to the intimation of it; partly, that they may be put to repent how bitter a thing it is to depart from God and to raise a cloud betwixt Him and them; and partly, that they may be affrighted to dally with sin again. He will have them to know that though He give them mercy, it is not so easy to bring a delinquent in court and favour again.
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The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from the penitent and pardoned sinner for this, among other ends, that he may be fit for sympathy with others that may come in the like case with himself. He may cause his reconciled people feel the bitterness of departing from Him, and may suffer them to lie in the sense, and under fears, of their unreconciled condition as to the intimation of pardon, that they may bear burden with others that come to be in their case.
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The Lord keeps up the intimation of pardon from them, that He may set them on work to repent more, that they may search out sin more, and repent more for their sin, and for the sinfulness that is in their sin, that possibly as yet they have not laid well to heart. These reasons of suspending the intimation of pardon, even where pardon is really past, were they well pondered by us, we might get a better account of our pardon and the petitions we put up for it.
And particularly to speak a word here to them, who though they are in the use of the means, running to the open fountain and serious to know the mind of God as to the pardon of their sin, and their being in favour with God, yet can find no intimation thereof. Beside what general directions they may gather from that which I have spoken, I shall offer three or four words further. Thou that art a sensible sinner in the use of the means, fleeing to the remedy, yet can find no warmth or sweetness, through gripping to the promise of pardon—thou findest nothing like that, “Son, or daughter, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,” for such, I say, as thou art, I offer these four words of direction. 1. I would have such persons looking upon it as a mercy, that they are not deluded as to the matter of their pardon, as many are who never doubt of it. I confess they are in an error on the one hand; but the error of the other hand, that doubts not of pardon, is the more dangerous. Thy continuing doubtful is dishonourable to God, and thou impedeest and provokest Him to suspend thy comfort: but the other that doubts not of pardon, they are deluded; they take it for granted that they are pardoned, or desperately they will take their venture whether they be pardoned or not; and therefore thou that art kept in exercise about the intimation of pardon, ought to bless God that thou art not in the error of these self-deluders. 2. I would recommend to such, that they would justify God whatever He do; that is David’s remark, Psalm li. 4, “That he might be justified when he speaks, and clear when he judges.” If thou fall a-carping and quarrelling, that will not shorten thy distress, it may well provoke God to hide His face even more, till thou learn to justify Him. 3. I would recommend to them that are about the means using for pardon, and yet cannot win to the intimation of it, that they would look well to their repentance, and there are four things to be looked to in repentance. 1. They should look well that it be sincere, that it be repentance for sin as sin, and not a ruing for it, as it is disgraceful to them and prejudicial; many beguile themselves with a ruing for sin, and never repent sin. 2. They should look if their repentance be universal for all sin, which is another mark of sincere repentance; see that thou be not seeming to rue over one sin, while thou art hugging another in thy bosom. 3. They should labour to have their repentance deep and thorough. I mean not to recommend to any a trade of discouragement, but any who read in what plight David was, Psalm xxxii., Psalm xxxviii. and Psalm li., they will readily find that the repentance of the generality is not thorough. 4. They should look to it if their repentance be constant. It is marked of Christ, that, “When he was in an agony, he prayed more earnestly” (Luke xxii. 24). So such as are suspended and kept at the door, while they are about the work of repentance, they should be more fervent, and hold on in the work of repentance. 5. They should stick well by faith. There is a word to this purpose, Isai. i. 10, “Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light,” no intimation of comfort, “Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.” In this case, faith closing with the promise of pardon must be stuck by, and to help you to stick by faith in such an exigent, I would have you considering partly, (1) that many a pardon is past in heaven, whereof the sensible sinner wants the comfort. (2) When faith is the exercise that thou hast no will to make use of, I would have thee to consider, that it is a notable refutation of temptation, to go and mourn over thy atheism and unbelief, and for that thou hast such an aversion to the way of faith, whereby only thou canst win to the shore. (3) Consider that it is a most cleanly and noble act of faith, in despite of Satan’s temptations, and the fears of thine own conscience over the belly of unbelief, to cast thyself in the arms of Christ, and in the bosom of the promise, and if thou perish, thou perish. There thou castest thyself, and there thou leavest thyself.
Now to come to the fourth, or last case or question I proposed to be spoken to, Whether pardon of sin be a revocable or irrevocable sentence? That is, whether when a pardoned sinner falleth in a new sin, his new guilt cancelleth all former pardon till he repent all over again, and get a renewed pardon for all. It is to no purpose here to trouble you with the differences betwixt the canonists and the school-men, betwixt Gratian and his glossator, in this matter. That which lies in our plain road in clearing this question I shall reduce to five brief assertions. 1. It is to be granted, and experience witnesseth it, that in the case of new guilt, Satan by temptation may be ready to cast all loose, to call in question all former pardons, so to a man’s sense, all former iniquities may come to remembrance; and it may come in question, whether or not they have been pardoned, which is a proof of the saints’ tenderness, though it be clogged with a mistake. Their pardon may fall under debate, as we see in David and Job—in David, Psalm xv. 7, who prays “That God would not remember the sins of his youth”; and in Job xiii. 26, whose temptation is, “Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the sins of my youth.” He looks on sins long ago pardoned, as pursued by God. 2. It is to be granted, that as Satan by temptation, and saints through their own weakness, may bring former pardon in question, so the Lord in His providence may see it good to concur in something like that; He may, though He do not recall pardon, yet bring pardoned sins to memory, open these unripe graves, and hold their heads over them, when they fall in the committing of new folly. And this the Lord doth partly that He may affect the sinner the more, when he reflects on his guilt against God, that hath pardoned him so; and partly, that the sinner may thereby be excited to vomit up by repentance his new contracted guilt; all terrors for former guilt recurring, he may not dally therewith anymore; and partly he calls former guilt to remembrance, that He may make the sinner afraid to be adding to that account. 3. This is a thing to be yielded to, that is, that however it stand with a man as to the pardon of bygone sin, yet God allows him no consolation in the pardon of sin, so long as he wallows in new provocations without repentance. Be his pardon revocable or not revocable, it shall be all a matter to him, if he study not tenderness in his walk. And any man that is going on in new provocations and doth bless himself in former pardon, I shall not say that he is blessing himself with a lie, but sure he is blessing himself with a false comfort in his right hand. 4. This must be granted, that as the school-men say, sins that are pardoned do recur upon the commission of new guilt, not formally considered as in themselves, but in so far as these former sins that were pardoned are virtually contained in the ingratitude that is in that new guilt. That is, though formerly pardoned sins return not upon the delinquent, yet there is so much of ingratitude to God in new contracted guilt, that in some respect the sinner may be accounted no less guilty, as if all the former guilt were contained in that one provocation. But when these four must be granted, yet in the fifth place it is still to be held, that a pardon past by God is a sentence irrevocable; it is a sentence not made void, nor cancelled by any new guilt. It is one of these gifts of God that are given “without repentance,” and this is clearly intimated to you in these Scriptures that I gave you before, while I shew you how satisfactorily the Scripture speaks of the pardon of sin, as it is looked on by God; how it is called “A blotting out of sin,” “A covering of it,” “A putting it out of his sight,” “A casting of it behind his back,” and “In the depth of the sea”; and so, “As though it be sought for, it shall not be found,” and how, speaking of pardoned iniquities, He says, “He so blots them out, that he does not remember them”; and “He will forgive their iniquities so, as that he will remember their sin no more.” These Scriptures evince, that pardon once past is irrevocable. As for these Scriptures the canonists and Lutherans urge, as Ezek. xviii. 24, 26, “That when a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and doth according to all the abominations of a wicked man, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned, he shall die in his sin.” That would seem to make all void, but the answer is easy, that either the text speaks of a temporary righteousness of a man that was never pardoned, and from which he may totally and finally fall away; or if it speak of true righteousness in the pardoned man, it holds only by way of supposition, that, “If the righteous man should fall away, his righteousness should not be mentioned”; and this supposition says nothing to the possibility of the thing, but is a blessed means to prevent his falling away. There is another word, Matt. xviii. 32, spoken of, “The wicked servant that had his debt forgiven him, and had no compassion on his fellow-servant and was delivered to the tormentors,” that the ancients trouble themselves much about, and speak of a baptismal remission, that is gotten in baptism; but that text is a parable, and a parable is not to be strained beyond its scope. Parables are like pictures wherein are many flourishes, which are not lineaments of the thing portrayed. The scope of that parable is, to prove that Christ will pardon the sins of none, but such as forgive others; and such as will not forgive others, though they seem pardoned folk, they will find their sins retained; and that this is the scope, is clear from Christ’s explaining it, and no more.
From this that I have been speaking about the irrevocableness of pardon, there are some uses that I intended to have spoken to, which I shall name and close. One is, that as they who have been pardoned, and can reflect how much they have been humbled for particular sins before they attained to pardon, they should walk tenderly, for fear of wakening old sores and the guilt that God hath covered with the veil of pardon, as they would not have these laid in their dish, and be made to look upon these unripe graves of abominations. And another word that I intended to have spoken to, is, that a sensible child of God, though he fall in new guilt, is not obliged to look upon former guilt, which hath been pardoned, as unpardoned, though he ought to be humbled for, and repent the present guilt. If Satan, and the conscience, and God in His holy providence, call to remembrance sins pardoned, and waken them about his ears, the sensible man in that case should not question former pardon, though readily there is some unpardoned sin, where these bygone counts are back-speared (questioned again), that should be sought out and mourned for; yet all are not to be looked on as unpardoned, but as beacons and warnings, to make conscience of repentance, for unpardoned sin, that we may get that breach cemented, and that wound bound up again. God bless what ye have heard!
(To be continued.)