cised, without the prejudice of justice or holiness, and justice be preserved entire, without any obstruction to the exercise of mercy.

3. The grace and love of God that in this matter the Scripture reveals to be exercised, in order unto the forgiveness of sinners, consists principally in two things: 1. In his holy eternal purpose of providing a relief for lost sinners. He hath done it, to the praise of the glory of his grace; Eph. i. 6. 2. In the sending his Son in the pursuit, and for the accomplishment of the holy purpose of his will and grace. Herein most eminently doth the Scripture celebrate the love, goodness, and kindness of God; as that whereby, in infinite, and for ever to be adored, wisdom and grace, he made way for the forgiveness of our sins. John iii. 16. God so loved the world, as he gave his only-begotten Son.' Rom. iii. 24, 25. Whom he hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.' Rom. v. 7, 8. 'God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' Tit. iii. 4. 1 John iv. 8, 9. Herein consists that ever to be adored love, goodness, grace, mercy, and condescension of God. Add hereunto, that in the act of causing our iniquities to meet on Christ, wherein he immediately intended the declaration of his justice; Rom. iii. 25. 'not sparing him, in delivering him up to death for us all;' Rom. viii. 32. There was a blessed harmony in the highest justice, and most excellent grace and mercy. This grace, this goodness, this love of God towards mankind, towards sinners, our adversaries in this matter neither know nor understand; and so indeed what lies in them, remove the foundation of the whole gospel, and of all that faith and obedience, which God requires at our hands.

4. Forgiveness, or the actual condonation of sinners, the pardon and forgiveness of sins, is free; but yet so as it is every where restrained unto a respect unto Christ, unto his death and blood-shedding. Eph. i. 7. 'We have redemption in his blood, even the forgiveness of sins;' iv. 32. God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.' Rom. iii. 25, 26. 'God hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the for

giveness of sins.' It is absolutely free in respect of all immediate transactions between God and sinners.

(1.) Free on the part of God.

[1.] In the eternal purpose of it, when he might justly have suffered all men to have perished under the guilt of their sins. [2.] Free in the means that he used to effect it unto his glory. 1st. In the sending of his Son: and, 2dly. In laying the punishment of our sin upon him. 3dly. In his covenant with him, that it should be accepted on our behalf. 4thly. In his tender and proposal of it by the gospel unto sinners to be received without money or without price. 5thly. In the actual condonation and pardon of them that do believe.

(2.) It is free on the part of the persons that are forgiven; in that, [1.] It is given and granted to them without any satisfaction made by them for their former transgressions. [2.] Without any merit to purchase or procure it. [3.] Without any penal satisfactory suffering here, or in a purgatory hereafter. [4.] Without any expectation of a future recompense; or that being pardoned, they should then make or give any satisfaction for what they had done before. And as any of these things would, so nothing else can impeach the freedom of pardon and forgiveness. Whether then we respect the pardoner or the pardoned, pardon is every way free; namely, on the part of God who forgives, and on the part of sinners that are forgiven. If God now hath besides all this, provided himself a lamb for a sacrifice; if he hath in infinite wisdom and grace found out a way, thus freely to forgive us our sins, to the praise and glory of his own holiness, righteousness, and severity against sin, as well as unto the unspeakable advancement of that grace, goodness, and bounty which he immediately exerciseth in the pardon of sin; are these men's eyes evil, because he is good? Will they not be contented to be pardoned, unless they may have it at the rate of despoiling God of his holiness, truth, righteousness, and faithfulness? And as this is certainly done by that way of pardon which these men propose, no reserve in the least being made for the glory of God in those holy properties of his nature which are immediately injured and opposed by sin; so that pardon itself which they pretend so to magnify, having nothing to influence it but a

mere arbitrary act of God's will, is utterly debased from its own proper worth and excellency. And I shall willingly undertake to manifest, that they derogate no less from grace and mercy in pardon, than they do from the righteousness and holiness of God, by the forgiveness which they have feigned; and that in it both of them are perverted, and dispoiled of all their glory.

But they yet say,' If God can freely pardon sin, why doth he not do it without satisfaction? If he cannot, he is weaker and more imperfect than man, who can do so.'

Ans. 1. God cannot do many things that men can do ; not that he is more imperfect than they, but he cannot do them on the account of his perfection. He cannot lie, he cannot deny himself, he cannot change, which men can do, and do every day.

2. To pardon sin without satisfaction in him who is absolutely holy, righteous, true, and faithful, the absolute, necessary, supreme Governor of all sinners, the Author of the law, and sanction of it, wherein punishment is threatened and declared, is to deny himself, and to do what one infinitely perfect cannot do.

3. I ask of these men, why God doth not pardon sins freely without requiring faith, repentance, and obedience, in them that are pardoned; yea, as the conditions on which they may be pardoned? For seeing he is so infinitely good and gracious, cannot he pardon men without prescribing such terms and conditions unto them, as he knoweth that men, and that incomparably the greatest number of them, will never come up unto, and so must of necessity perish for ever? Yea, but they say, this cannot be ; neither doth this impeach the freedom of pardon. For it is certain that God doth prescribe these things, and yet he pardoneth freely. And it would altogether unbecome the holy God to pardon sinners that continue so to live and die in their sins. But do not these men see that they have hereby given away their cause which they contend for? For if a prescription of sundry things to the sinner himself, without which he shall not be pardoned, do not at all impeach, as they say, the freedom of pardon, but God may be said freely to pardon sin notwithstanding it; how shall the receiving of satisfaction by another, nothing at all being required of the sinner,

have the least appearance of any such thing? If the freedom of forgiveness consists in such a boundless notion as these men imagine, it is certain that the prescribing of faith and repentance in and unto sinners antecedently to their participation of it, is much more evidently contrary unto it, than the receiving of satisfaction from another who is not to be pardoned, can to any appear to be. Secondly, If it be con-. trary to the holiness of God to pardon any without requiring faith, repentance, and obedience in them, as it is indeed; let not these persons be offended, if we believe him when he so frequently declares it, that it was so to remit sin, without the fulfilling of his law and satisfaction of his justice.

Secondly, they say, 'There is no such thing as justice in God requiring the punishment of sin, but that that which in him requireth and calleth for the punishment of sin, is his anger and wrath, which expressions denote free acts of his will, and not any essential properties of his nature.' So that God may punish sin, or not punish it, at his pleasure; therefore there is no reason that he should require any satisfaction for sin, seeing he may pass it by absolutely as he pleaseth.

Ans. 1. Is it not strange that the great Governor, the Judge of all the world, which on the supposition of the creation of it, God is naturally and necessarily, should not also naturally be so righteous, as to do right, in rendering unto every one according to his works?

2. The sanction and penalty of the law, which is the rule of punishment, was, I suppose, an effect of justice, of God's natural and essential justice, and not of his anger or wrath. Certainly never did any man make a law for the government of a people in anger. Draco's laws were not made in wrath, but according to the best apprehension of right and justice that he had, though said to be written in blood. And shall we think otherwise of the law of God?

3. Anger and wrath in God express the effects of justice, and so are not merely free acts of his will. This, therefore, is a tottering cause, that is built on the denial of God's essential righteousness. But it was proved before, and it is so elsewhere.

Thirdly, they say, 'That the sacrifice of Christ was metaphorically only so.' That he was a metaphorical priest, not

one properly so called; and, therefore, that his sacrifice did not consist in his death and blood-shedding, but in his appearing in heaven upon his ascension, presenting himself unto God in the most holy place not made with hands as the mediator of the new covenant.

Ans. 1. When once these men come to this evasion, they think themselves safe, and that they may go whither they will without control. For they say it is true, Christ was a priest, but only he was a metaphorical one. He offered sacrifice, but it was a metaphorical one. He redeemed us, but with a metaphorical redemption; and so we are justified thereon, but with a metaphorical justification; and so, for aught I know, they are like to be saved with a metaphorical salvation. This is the substance of their plea in this matter. Christ was not really a priest, but did somewhat like a priest. He offered not sacrifice really, but did somewhat that was like a sacrifice. He redeemed us not really, but did somewhat that looked like redemption. And what these things are, wherein their analogy consisteth, what proportion the things that Christ hath done, bear to the things that are really so, from whence they receive their denomination, that it is meet it should be wholly in the power of these persons to declare. But,

2. What should hinder the death of Christ to be a sacrifice, a proper sacrifice, and according to the nature, end, and use of sacrifices, to have made atonement and satisfaction for sin? (1.) It is expressly called so in the Scripture; wherein he is said to offer himself, to make his soul an offering, to offer himself a sacrifice;' Eph. v. 2. Heb. i. 3. ix. 14. 25, 26. vii. 27. And he is himself directly said to be a priest, or a sacrificer; Heb. ii. 18. And it is nowhere intimated, much less expressed, that these things are not spoken properly, but metaphorically only. (2.) The legal sacrifices of the old law were instituted on purpose to represent and prepare the way for the bringing in of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, so to take away the sin of the world. And is it not strange, that true and real sacrifices should be types and representations of that which was not so? On this supposition, all those sacrifices are but so many seductions from the right understanding of things between God and sinners. (3.) Nothing is wanting to render it a