(4.) In a word, this opinion clashes with their other principles For they say, that though there was pardon and remission under the old covenant (which they allowed to be a covenant of grace) yet it was but greidatim, and successively, as they offered sacrifices. If a man had sinned ignorant ly, until he brought a sacrifice, his sin lay upon him, it may be a week, a month'^s distance between before they could have their pardon. Vide Dr. Crisp of the two covenants, p. ^^5^^ 257. Now I demand. If this were the state and case of all God's Israel under the Old Testament, why do these men affirm, that God can see no sin in a believer ? and why do they expound the words of Balaam so contradictory to this their other opinion 1: For they will not deny but God sees unpardoned sins in all ; and here is a week, or month, or more time allowed between the commission and remission of their sin. And so much of the fifth Antinomian error.
Error 6. That God is not angry with the electa nor doth he smite them for their sins ; and to say that lie doth so is an injurious re- fiection upon the justice of Gody who hath reccvvedfull satisfaction for all their sins from the hand of Christ.
There are several mistakes and errors in these assertions ; and I suppose our Antinomians were led into them, (1.) By their abhor- rence of the Popish doctrine, which errs more dangerously in the other extreme ; for they wickedly afjsei't our sufferings to be satis- factory for our sins, which is the ground of Popish penances, and voluntary self-castigations. (2.) From a groundless apprehension, that God's corrections of us for our sins are inconsistent with the fulness of Christ's satisfaction for tliem. Christ having paid all our debts, and dissolved our obligations to all punishment, it cannot consist with the justice of God to lay any rod upon us for our sins, after Christ hath borne all that our sins deserved.
This mistake of the end of Christ's death occasions them to stum- ble into the other mistakes ; they imagine that Christ's satisfaction abolished God's hatred of sin in believers. But this cannot be ; God's antipathy to sin can never be taken away by the satisfaction of Christ, though his hatred to the persons of the redeemed be ; for the hatred of sin is founded in the unchangeable nature of God : and he can as soon cease to be holy as cease to hate sin, Hab. i. 13. Nor was Christ's death ever designed to this end ; though Christ hath satisfied for the sin of believers, God still hates sin in behevers. His hatred to their sins, and love to their persons are not incon- sistent. As a man may love his leg or arm, as they are members of his own body, and notwithstanding that love, hate the gangrene
OF ANTIXOMIAKISM. 575
wliich hath taken them ; and lance or use painful corrosives for the cure of them.
Neither do our Antinomians distinguish as they ought, betwixt vindictive punishments from God, the pure issues and effects of his justice and wrath against the wicked; and his paternal castiga- tions, the pure issues of the care and love of a displeased Father. Great and manifold are the differences betwixt his vindictive wrath upon his enemies, and the rebukes of the rod upon his cliildren. Those are legal, these evangelical. Those out of wrath and h;itred, these out of love. Those unsanctified, but these blessed and sanc- tified to happy ends and purposes to his people. Those for destruc- tion, these for salvation.
To narrow the matter in controversy as much as we can, I shall lay down three concessions about God's corrections of his people.
Concession 1. We cheerfully and thankfully acknowledge tlie perfection and fulness of the satisfaction of Christ for all the sins of believers ; and with thankfulness do own, that if God should cast all, or any of them into an ocean of temporal troubles and dis- tresses ; in all that sea of sorrow there would not be found one drop of vindictive wrath. Christ hath drunk the last drop of that cup, and left nothing for believers to suffer by way bf satisfaction.
Concession 2. We grant also, that all the sufferings of believers in this world are not for their sins ; but some of them are for the prevention of sin, 2 Cor. xii. 7. some for the trial of their graces. Jam. i. 2, d. some for a coofirming testimony to his truths. Acts v. 41. Such sufferings as these have much heavenly comfort con- comitant with them.
Concession 3. We do not say that God's displeasure with his people for sin, evidenced against them in the sharpest rebukes of the rod, is any argument that God's love is turned into hatred against their persons : No, his love to his people is unchangeable. Having loved his own, he loved them to the end, John xiii. 1. Yet notwithstanding all this, three things are undeniably clear, and being thoroughly apprehended, will end this contro- versy.
1. That God lays his correcting rod in this world on the persons of believers.
2. That this rod of God is sometimes laid on them for their sins. S. That these fatherly corrections of them for their sins are re*
concileable to, and fully consistent with his justice, completely satisfied by the blood of Christ for all their sins. 1. That God lays his correcting rod in this world upon the per- sons of believers. This no man has the face to deny that believes ibe scriptures Xo be the wprd of God, or that the troubles of good
576 THE SECOND APPENDIX.
men in this life fall not out by casualty, but by the counsel and di* rection of Divine Providence. He that denies the hand of God to be upon the persons of believers, in this life, in the way of painful chastisements and sufferings, must either ignorantly or wilfully overlook that scripture, Heb. xii. 8. ^' What son is he whom the " father chasteneth not ? but if ye be without chastisement, where- " of all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons." Nor will any sober Christian deny these troubles of believers to be the effects of God's governing Providence in the world, or once ima- gine or affirm them to be mere casualties and contingencies ; for " affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble " spring out of the ground,." Job v. 6. In what Eutopia doth that good man live upon earth, that feels not the painful rod of God upon himself, nor hears the sad laments and moans of other Christians under it ! This sure is undeniable, that the rod of God is every where upon the persons and tabernacles of the righteous ; and if any doubt it, his own sense and feeling may in a little time give him a painful demonstration of it.
2. And for the second, that this rod of God is sometimes laid upon believers for their sins, methinks no sober, modest Christian in the world should doubt or deny it, when he considers, that,
1. God himself hath so declared it.
2. The saints in all ages have freely confessed it to be so.