Let us come to the second thing, reatus, the guilt of sin. There is reatus culpce, the guilt of sin ; and reatus paence, the guilt of punish- ment. Beatus culpce, is the applying the law to the fact, and both to the person that hath committed it. Suppose that such a fact is a sin, because such a law forbiddeth it, and that I am guilty of such a transgression against the law of God ; sure it is that this is not taken away ; my faulty act is an oflfence, and I am an offender. We cannot be reputed never culpable, to have omitted any duty, or committed any sin ; for the new covenant is not set up to make us innocent, but pardonable upon certain terms ; and we come to God as to our offended governor, pleading not as innocent, but as sinners, desiring that, in the behalf of Christ, our sins may be forgiven to us. Then there is reatus poenoe, which resulteth from the sanction of the law, binding us over to suffer such penalties as the law hath determined. Now this may be understood, quoad meritum, vel quoad eventum ; according to the merit of the action, what the action in itself deserveth, which is condemnation to punishment. This Christ hath not taken away, and never intended to take away ; for every sinful action is in se el merito operis damnabilis in itself, and by the desert of the work damnable ; it doth deserve dam- nation ; but quoad eventum, as to the event and effect : ' There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ,' Rom. viii. 1. By the law of grace there is a discharge from the sentence of the law, and so from an obligation to punishment. This will be made clear and plain to you by considering what is required of us in suing out our pardon. We must confess the sin : 1 John i. 9, ' If we confess and forsake our sins, he is just and righteous to forgive us our sins.' We must confess the guilt and desert of sin by God's righteous law : 1 Cor. xi. 31, 'For if we would jiulge ourselves, we should not be judged.' There must be a self-accusing and self-judging. In self-accusing we confess reaium culpce ; in self-judging we confess recdum poence ; without either of which there would not be that humiliation and
16 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. [SeR. IX.
brokenness of heart which the scripture calleth for, and is necessary for us in our entrance into the gospel covenant, and in our whole deal- ing with God about pardon. Or else these acts must be performed very perfunctorily, and not in reality and truth, if there be not a ground in the nature of the thing ; for if the guilt of the fault were utterly dissolved, how can I heartily accuse myself of such and such sins before the Lord ? or if the guilt of punishment were so far dissolved that my actions did not in their own nature, and by the righteous law of the Lord, deserve such condemnation and punishment, how could I broken-heartedly confess myself as deserving the greatest evil which his law hath threatened ? Well, then, pardon is not a vacating the action, or making a thing not done which is done, or a denial of the fault as if it were no fault, nor an annulling of the desert of punishment, but a remission of the punishment itself due to us by the law of nature. This is that, then, which the law of grace or new covenant doth ; every penitent believer is actually and really pardoned and discharged from the penalty, which the law of nature maketh his due debt : Mat. vi. 12, * Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.' Our debt is the obligation actually to suffer the full punish- ment of the law.
Now we will consider the third thing in sin, that is poena, the punishment, and that is either temporal or eternal.
[1.] To begin with the last, eternal punishment. We are discharged from that as soon as we have an interest in Christ ; for then our state is altered, and God doth pardon all our past sins, and make us heirs of eternal life : Gal, iii. 13, ' Christ hath delivered us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.' The curse of the law may be taken actively or passively. Actively, it is nothing else but the sentence of the law, or of God the judge, condemning the transgressors of the law, and pronouncing them accursed : ' For cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,' Gal. iii. 10 ; which curse must not fall to the ground, but be taken off by some valuable compensation, that the honour of God's government may be secured, and that is done by Christ in being made a curse for us. Passively, it signifieth all those punishments which are, or have been, or shall be, or may be inflicted on the transgressors of the law ; but chiefly the final curse, which is called ' Wrath to come,' from which Christ hath delivered us, 2 Thes. i. 10 ; which consists in two things, poena damni and j9cewa sensus ; the loss of God's eternal and blessed presence, and of the vision and fruition of him in glory : Mat. xxv. 41, ' Depart from me, ye cursed.' They are banished from the presence of the Lord, and cast into utter torment. The pain, when we fall immediately into the hands of an angry offended God : Heb. X. 31, ' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' Now sin is remitted to all them that take sanctuary at the Lord's grace. We deserve it, but he hath actually discharged us from it by his new covenant ; such is his mercy and grace to us in Christ.