1. Man fallen, lay under the power and guilt of* sin : he was ' dead in trespasses and sins, and liable to the wrath of God,' Eph. ii. 1-3. So man was both unholy and guilty.
2. Christ came to free us from both these. The guilt: Eph. i. 7, ' In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins ; ' and the power : Titus iii. 5. ' He hath saved us by the washing of regeneration and ren?wing of the Holy Ghost.' To be freed from guilt, and delivered from hell and wrath to come, is a blessing for which we can never be sufficiently thankful ; but to be freed from sin, that is the greater mercy, and therefore ' he hath sent his Son to bless you, in turning every one of you from your sins.'
3. To be turned from sin implies our whole conversion. Though one part only be mentioned, the term from ivhich, yet the term to wldch is implied ; that we are turned to God as well as turned from sin ; to God, as our happiness, and our supreme Lord, that we may love him, and be happy in being beloved by him. Acts xxvi. 18,
4. That remission of sins is included in our conversion to God. The meaning is, that he may turn you from your unbelief and im- pcnitency, and so make you capable of his pardon and mercy ; for so it is explained, ver. 19, ' Eepent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,' &c. Without sound repentance the Mediator's blessing will not be had ; and when Christ came to save us from wrath, his way was to turn us from sin. These two must not be severed : ' God hath exalted him to be a prince and Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins,' Acts v, 31. You see, then, what is meant by the blessing the Mediator offers, — to be turned from our sins.
II, It is a blessed thing to be made partakers of this benefit. Blessedness imports two things : negatively, a removal of evil ; and positively, a fruition or enjoyment of some great good. When we are turned from our sins, there is both,
1, An immunity from, or a removal of, the great evil, and that is sin.
[1.] The great cause of offence between God and us is taken out of the way : Isa. lix. 2, ' Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and have hidden his face from you.' Sin makes the distance between you and God, that you cannot delight in God, nor God in you. You cannot delight in God, for your hearts are alienated from him. You are become ' enemies in your mind by wicked works.' Where sin reigns, man is an enemy to God ; partly through carnal prepossession : there is something takes up his heart, and diverts it from God: 1 John ii, 15, ' If any man love the world, how dwelleth the love of the Father in him ? ' His heart is taken up with another love. And partly through carnal liberty : we cannot enjoy our lusts with that freedom and security, by reason of the restraints of his law,
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tliat would curb us and cut us short of our desires ; and partly through slavish fear. We hate those whom we fear. A condemning God can never be loved by a guilty creature. We look upon him as one that will call us to an account for our sins. Now, all these reasons concur to show us, that till sin be taken away, we cannot love nor delight in God, neither can God love us and delight in us. God will not have communion with us while we are in our sins. Christ, when he came to bring us to God, he came not to make any change in God, to make God less holy, but to make us holy and amiable in his sight. The reasonable nature cannot digest this conceit, that the holy God should take sinners into his bosom without any change. Would it become the governor of the world to be indifferent to good and bad, the holy God to be a friend to sinners ? The new nature in lis showeth the contrary ; for that causes an abomination and abhor- rence both of impurity and the impure ; as Lot's righteous soul was vexed with the Sodomites. And we are told, Prov. xxix. 27, ' An unjust man is an abomination to the just, and he that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked.' If a man be sanctified but in part, he cannot delight in the wicked freely to converse with them. He hath a hatred, not of enmity so as to seek their destruction, not a hatred opposite to good-will — that is contrary to the nature of grace, which is made up of love — but a hatred of abomination, which is contrary to the love of complacency ; he cannot take any delight in him. Now, then, without a manifest reproach to the holy God, we cannot imagine he should admit sinners into an intimate communion with him : ' Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity,' Ps. v. 5. God said to the prophet, Jer. xv. 19, ' Let them return unto thee, but return not thou to them.' God will not return to us in our sins, but we must come off from our sins to him.