Another thing in sin is, God is dishonoured. Why? ' If I be a father, where is my honour ? if I be a master, where is my fear ?' saith God in that same Mai. i. 6. He accounts obedience his honour, therefore dis- obedience is dishonourable to him. ' He that offers me praise, glorifies me,' saith he, ' and to him that orders his conversation aright, will I shew the salvation of the Lord,' Ps. 1. 23. Now the ordering of a man's con- versation, which is an actual and real praising of God, this is a glorifying of God ; when a man orders his conversation amiss, when he disorders his
I
sin's antidote. 265
conversation, and walks in a sinful course against the rule and against God, he dishonours God. Now, when God forgives sin, he doth put up all injuries done to his honour, and accounts him now as a raan that had never dishonoured him at all. And that is the first thing.
2. Secondly, Consider sin as it is a breach of the lau-. So it is said of sin, * It is a transgression of the law.' The law is the bond that binds all men ; sin leaves a man in this bond. Now the law laps a twofold bond upon a man.
1. A bond of duty ;
2. A bond of misery ; if he shall neglect and fail in his duty.
(1.) The first is, a bond of duty, that is, a bond of obedience. Every man is bound by the law to obedience, to obey God according to that will which he hath manifested and revealed in his law. Now when a man fails, the bond is forfeited, he remains now under this bond, to expect all the danger that will follow upon the neglect of obedience ; and therefore sin is called a debt: 'Forgive us our debts,' Mat. vi. 12. So that when God forgives a man's sins, he deals with him as a merciful creditor doth with his debtor, that though he were indebted to him, yet when he forgives him, he accounts it as if he were not in debt ; and him, as if he had paid all, and there remains no more reckonings between them : so that God releases the bond now in respect of obedience, in the first sense, that is, in respect of that obedience, that should have been performed in time past ; as it is, Kom. iii. 25, ' he is our reconciliation through faith in his blood, to declare the righteousness of God in the remission of the sins that are past ;' that is, those sins that were committed before, they are now forgiven, and a man is acquitted even from that obedience that is due to the law for the time past. That is the first thing, that whereas he failed in the breach and transgression of the law, his disobedience is not imputed, it is not accounted, and he remains as if he had obeyed the law for the time past, though he had not obeyed it all.
(2.) But then, secondly, there is something u-herein a vian is bound for the time to come ; that is, he is bound now to the curse of the law : ' Cursed is every one that continues not in all that is written in the law to do it,' Gal. iii. 10. Now when God remits sin, he frees a man from that curse ; all that should have followed upon his neglect or failing in his obedience, ' He hath freed us from the curse of the law,' saith the apostle, ' inasmuch as he was made a curse for us,' Gal. iii. 13. So that, put all this together, and you now see what it is to have sin remitted. It is, for a man to be released and freed from all that guilt under which he was held, by which he was bound over to judgment for dishonour done to the majesty and glory of God ; for rebellion against the sovereignty of God, for trangressing the law of God, and that curse under which he was bound ; he is freed from all, so that God beholds a man now as one that had not at all dishonoured himself, or rebelled against him ; God looks upon a man now, as a man that had not transgressed his law, or been under the curse and censure of the law in any point. So that you see there is a perfect and total forgiving and passing by of all sin, and a releasing of a man of the punishment of sin. When a man obtains this favour, to have his sins remitted him, this is that we call remission of sins. But now for the sense, there be two questions that must be answered.
Quest. 1. The first is. Whether this remission of sins be all the benefit ve have in this new covenant b;/ the blood of Christ? So it seems to be here, as if there were no other benefit but this ; * This is the blood of the new
26G sin's antidote.
testament, shed for many, for the remission of sins.' There he names nothing but remission of sins.
Ans. 1. I answer, This is not all the benefit, though this include all the rest, and therefore it is only named. You shall find sometimes that this is left out : Jer. xxxi. 14, ' This shall be the covenant,' saith the Lord, ' that I will make with them ; I will be their God, and I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me :' and there is no mention of remission of sins there. There sanctification is mentioned without justifi- cation ; here again remission of sins is mentioned without the working of fear in their hearts ; here is justification without sanctification, and so in that place of the Acts, x, 43.