The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

And doubtless executive pardon is the most perfect and complete, as being the end and perfection of all the rest. Therefore God maketh us just in title by. Covenant-pardon; and therefore he sentenceth us as just, that he may take off all penalty, and give us the felicity due to the righteous; and may use us as those that are made just.

And doubtless executive pardon is the most perfect and compleat, as being the end and perfection of all the rest. Therefore God maketh us just in title by. Covenant-pardon; and therefore he sentenceth us as just, that he may take off all penalty, and give us the felicity due to the righteous; and may use us as those that are made just.

There is much truth in most of the foresaid opinions inclusively, and much falsehood in their several exclusions of all the rest (unless their quarrel be only de nomine, which of all these is fitliest called Justification. For 1. There is no doubt but our pardon, or constituted Justification in Covenant-title, is a virtual sentential Justification. 2. And there is no doubt but God doth esteem them just, that are first made just, and no other (because he erreth not:) And that this estimation is sententia concepta, as distinct from sententia prolata. 3. And it is certain that those Angels that must execute his sentence, must first know it: And it is probable that the Joy [Greek or Hebrew], in the presence of the Angels of God, doth intimate that God useth ordinarily to notify the conver•iod of a sinner to Angels (whether the joy here be meant as Dr. Hammond and others think, Gods Joy signified to Angels, or rather the Angels Joy, by their presence being, in Choro Angelorum, or among them, that is, in them; or both.) 4. And it is granted that God doth usually give some notice of his pardon, at one time or other, more or less to a sinners conscience (though that is too late, too uncertain, too low, and too unequal, and too unconstant to be the great and famous Justification by Faith.) 5. And it is clear, that till death or Judgment, there is no such solemn plenary judicial sentence or declaration as there will be then. 6. And it is certain, that at death and judgment, Christ as Man, a creature, can speak or express himself, as the blessed creatures do to one another. 7 And its certain that God hath a way of expressing himself to creatures, which is beyond our present understandings: But we may conceive of it by the similitude of Light, which in the same instant revealeth millions of things to millions of persons respectively.