there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: Then ho is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.' This great benefit consists of two parts, as I observed before.

FIRST, The pardon of sin, Acts xiii. 38, 39. Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.' The sinner having this act of grace passed in his favour, is fully indemnified as to all crimes committed by him against the honour and law of the King of heaven, so as they shall never be charged upon him any more.

shew,

1. What pardon is.

2. The properties of it.

Here I shall

3. Its many sweet names, that discover the nature of it. First, I shall shew what pardon is. It is not the taking away the nature of sin, pardoned sin is still sin; God justifies the sinner, but will never justify his sin. Nor is it the removing of the intrinsic demerit of sin; it still deserves condemnation, though it shall never actually condemn the sinner, Rom. viii. 1. Nor is it a simple delay of the punishment, a reprieve is no pardon.

There are four things to be considered in sin. (1.) The reigning power of it, which is broken in regeneration and sanctification, Rom. vi. 14. (2.) The blot and stain, which is taken away in tho gradual advances of sanctification, 1 Cor. vi. 11. (3.) The indwelling power, which is removed in glorification, Heb. xii. 23. (4.) The guilt, which is taken away in pardon.

Guilt is an obligation to punishment. The guilt of an unjustified sinner is an obligation lying upon his head, to bear the wrath and eternal vengeance of God, to satisfy justice for the breaking of his law. It is a bond binding him to go to tho prison of hell, and lie there till he hath paid the utmost farthing of his debt of sin, 2 Thess. i. 9. It arises from the sanction of the law, Gen. ii. 17. So that the sinner, like Shimei, having broke his confinement, is a man of death.

Pardon is the taking away of this guilt, this dreadful obligation. While the criminal stands bound with the cords of guilt for execution, a pardoning God says, 'Deliver his soul from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom, Job xxxiii. 24. Pardon cuts the knot, whereby guilt ties sin and wrath together, cancels the bond obliging the sinner to pay his debt, reverses the sentence of condemnation, and puts him out of the law's reach.

Secondly, I am to show the properties of this pardon.—These are chiefly three. It is,

1. Full: Micah vii. 19. Thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.' Col. ii. 13.- Having forgiven you all trespasses.' All the man's sins are pardoned together. God gives no half-pardons; it suits not either the riches of his grace, nor the sinner's necessity. For one leak will sink the ship, and so will one unpardoned sin damn the soul, Great and small sins, sins against. the gospel and the law, the most and least heinous, in the happy hour of pardon, sink down all together into the sea of the Redeemer's blood, Jer. l. 20. And every sin is fully pardoned.

As to the question, Whether all sins, past, present, and to come, are pardoned together and at once in justification? As to sins past and present, there is no difficulty, they are all at once pardoned. As to sins to come, a justified person, being in Christ, can never more incur the guilt of eternal wrath, but only the guilt of fatherly chastisements, so that the pardon before described needs never be renewed. And the only pardon a justified person has to seek is that of the guilt of fatherly anger with the intimation of the other pardon. For if a justified person could ever again be liable actually to the eternal wrath of God for his sin, then either he must fall from his union with Christ, which is indissoluble, or he may be in Christ, and yet under condemnation, Rom. viii. 1. Besides, a person once in Christ is no more under the dominion of the law, and therefore cannot be under its curse, Rom. vi. 14. and vii. 4*.

2. Free: So says the text, Being justified freely, Col. ii. 13. It is free to us, though to Christ it was the price of blood. What have we to give for a pardon? Could we weep as many tears as the sea has drops, afflict ourselves as many years as the world has stood minutes, it would not buy a pardon, since it is not infinite, Psal. xliv. 8. Our best duties are but rags, and cannot cover the menstruous rags, and would but cover one unclean thing with another; the sins of our unrighteousness with the sins of our righteousness. The sinner never pays for it, nor can pay for it, Isa. xliii. 24, 25.

3. Unalterable and irrevocable. Temporal mercies are lent, but pardon is given; it is a grace-gift, (Rom. xi. 29.), that God never repents of bestowing. When God writes a sinner's pardon, whoever quarrel it, conscience, Satan, &c. God says, What I have written, I have written. Come after what will, it must stand for ever. No following misdemeanors can take it off, Jer. xxxi. 34. ' I

See the author's Miscellaneous Questions, quest. 2.

will forget their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.' Isa. liv. 9. I have sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee, &c. A child of God may lose the sense of his pardon, but the pardon itself is written in the Mediator's blood, and so is one of those same mercies mentioned, Isa. lv. 3.

Thirdly, Farther to shew the nature of pardon of sin, it has many sweet names, discovering its nature. And,

1. It is a blotting out of sin: 'Leven I,' says Jehovah, 'am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake,' Isa. xliii. 25. This is an allusion to a creditor, who, when he discharges a debt, scores it out of his count-book. Sin is a debt, the worst of debts. We cannot pay it, we cannot escape the hands of our creditor. And, alas! we are ready to deny our debt, will not come to count and reckoning, as long as we can get it shifted. So the debt stands in God's book. But the sinner being apprehended, as said is, he is brought to count and reckoning. God produces the large account. The sinner's heart falls at the sight; he falls down, confesses his debt, and his inability to pay, flies to the great Cautioner, saying, Undertake for me,'—Psal. cxix. 122; and Christ says, All thy wants be upon me. Then God takes the pen, dips it in the Mediator's blood, and cross-scores all the sinner's account, Acts iii. 19. Col. ii. 14.

2. A not imputing of sin, Psal. xxxii, 2, ' Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.' This is a metaphor from merchants, who, when a rich friend undertakes for one of their poor debtors, charge their accounts no more upon him; they will seek him no more for it. God took Christ's single bond for the debt of all that would put themselves in Christ's poor roll by faith. So as soon as a sinner comes to Christ by faith, and gives in his name as a broken man unable to pay his debt, accepting of Christ as Cautioner, God imputes sin no more to that man. What accounts have been taken on by the sinner, he leaves the Son to clear with his Father. This is sustained in the court of heaven: the Creditor and the Cautioner take the matter between them, and the debt is charged no more on the sinner.

3. A taking of the burden of sin from off the sinner, Psal. xxxii. 1. Hos. xiv. 2. Sin is a heavy burden, a burden increasing every day, to the unpardoned sinner. It sunk down the angels from their first habitation, and is a weight that they and the damned in hell are wrestling under at this day, but unable to get it off. The unawakened sinner finds it not; but when the conscience is awakened, it burdens the sinner all over; it is a burden on his head, on his spirit, on his back. In the day of pardon, the sinner falls

down under his burden, looks to Christ the great Burden-bearer, and God comes and takes his burden off his back, and bids him stand upright. And none else can do it, Numb. xiv. 17, 18, 19.

4. A washing of the sinner, 1 Cor. vi. 11. 'But ye are washed.' They that have unpardoned guilt on them, they have not only a heavy, but a foul, filthy burden on them.—And they must be washed and thoroughly washed, for it sticks closely to the soul, Psal. li. 2. 'Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.' Hence the Lord offers, Isa. i. 18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' In the day of pardon, the Lord sprinkles the sinner with the Mediator's blood, and he is made clean, yea dips him in that fountain, Zech. xiii. 1; and he is purged and purified from all sin, 1 John i. 7.

Rom. iii. 25.

5. A dismissing or remission of sin, Matth. vi. 12. God does not only take it away, but sends it away. The sinner's guilt is laid over on Christ, as the scape-goat who bears it away never to return on the sinner. Sin is a strong tie, whereby the sinner is bound down to the pit, so as he cannot lift up his head to the Lord with true confidence. Pardon brings a relaxation to the sinner, cutting asunder these cords of death. It is a sending sin, away from the sinner, back to the devil from whence it came.

him up

6. The dispelling of a thick cloud, Isa. xliv. 22. Sin is a cloud rising from below: a watery cloud, a black cloud, a thick cloud : which once drowned the whole world, except those in the ark. It hangs night and day over the head of the unpardoned sinner, go where he will. He cannot see the face of God through it; it vails his mercy, wraps in blackness of darkness, that he can have no communion with heaven. But pardon, like the shining sun, breaks through the cloud, and dissolves it; and like a mighty wind, there is a breathing from the throne of grace, that rends the cloud and scatters it, be it never so thick; so that all the sinner's guilt as a cloud vanishes away, and appears no more. Thus the soul is restored to the light of God's countenance, and may look up with confidence and joy, Job xxxiii. 24, 26.

7. A casting of sin behind the Lord's back, Isa. xxxviii. 17. David says, 'his sin was ever before him,' Psal. li. 4. before him as the accuser stood before the accused face to face. Praying for pardon, he prays God would hide his face from it, Psal. li. 9. A pardoning God will not look on the sin of the sinner that is in Christ, Numb. xxiii. 21. 'He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel.' The Lord sitting on a throne of grace,

to which the believer carries his process from the throne of strict justice, when Satan gives in his bill or libel against the believer, takes it and casts it away behind his back, as not to look on it, nor charge him with it.

8. A casting it into the depths of the sea, Mie. vii. 19.—O the fulness of that expression! He will not cast them into a brook or river, what falls in there may be got up again perhaps; but into the sea, where we reckon a thing dead that falls. But there are some shallow places in the sea; he will cast them into the depths of the sea, these devouring depths. But what if they sink not? he will cast them in with force and power, that they shall go to the ground, and sank as lead in the ocean of the blood of Christ.

9. A covering of sin, Psal. xxxii. 1. This is an allusion to what the Lord commanded the Israelites in their camp in the wilderness, Deut. xxiii. 14. It is the same word in the Hebrew. It is a covering of it so as to hide it, that it shall not appear. Sin is the worst of pollutions, but a pardon spreads a cover over it, that it shall not appear any more. God condemned sin in the flesh of Christ, Rom. viii. 3. and therefore, as soon as the soul takes hold of Christ, the word of pardon goes out of the King's mouth, and sin, like the face of Haman, in such a case, is covered never to see the light any

more.

10. Lastly, which crowns all, a not remembering of sin, Jer. xxxi. 34. What can be said more to shew the fulness of pardon? Many forgive, but they will never forget the offences done them: but our God, when he pardons, not only forgives, but as it were forgets the injury done to his glory by the sinner. It is true, God's perfections cannot admit a proper forgetting; but the believer's sins are forgotten in law; there is an irreversible act of oblivion passed upon them all in the court of heaven; and God will not only not exact the punishment of them, but will treat believers as kindly as if they had never offended him. Looking on them through Christ, he beholds them without spot.

Behold the way to be secured against sin's finding you out in wrath. O unspeakable benefit! Well may we sing and say with David, Psal. xxxii. 1, 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.'

SECONDLY, The acceptation of the person as righteous in the sight of God. God justifying a sinner does not only pardon his sin, but accepts and accounts his person righteous in his sight, 2 Cor. v. 21. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' Rom. iv.