The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errors of Papists, Arminians,…The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errours of Papists, Arminians,…

[Being justified by Faith, let us take heed how we sin again, but preserve our peace with God] The words taken this way would much confirm,¹ rather then debilitate our assertion: but I do not judge this so suitable to the scope of the Apostle in this verse; we will take them as they are indicatively or assertively: and first, we may mean by peace, either that reconciliation which is made with God, or the sense and feeling of this, which is nothing but tranquillity, and security of conscience, through the persuasion of Gods favour to us. Now these may be separable one from the other, a believer may be reconciled with God, and in the state of friendship with him, yet he not feel this, or know this, as many passages in Davids Psalms do witness; even as the child in the womb knoweth not the great inheritance, and rich Revenues, it shall be possessed of, or as Hagar did not see the well of water by her, but thought she must perish, till God opened her eyes. There is a seal of the pardon of sin, when yet the proclamation of it is not made in the conscience. If we take peace in the first respect, it is an absolute universal proposition, and true of every justified person; but in the latter sense it is true only of some persons, and at some times, for the sense of Gods favour is a separable privilege from those that are in it.

[Being justified by Faith, let us take heed how we sin again, but preserve our peace with God] The words taken this way would much confirm,¹ rather then debilitate our assertion: but I doe not judge this so suteable to the scope of the Apostle in this verse; we will take them as they are indicatively or assertively: and first, we may mean by peace, either that reconciliation which is made with God, or the sense and feeling of this, which is nothing but tranquillity, and security of conscience, through the perswasion of Gods favour to us. Now these may be separable one from the other, a believer may be reconciled with God, and in the state of friendship with him, yet he not feel this, or know this, as many passages in Davids Psalms do witnesse; even as the childe in the womb knoweth not the great inheritance, and rich Revenues, it shall be possessed of, or as Agar did not see the well of water by her, but thought she must perish, till God opened her eyes. There is a seal of the pardon of sin, when yet the proclamation of it is not made in the conscience. If we take peace in the first respect, it is an absolute universal proposition, and true of every justified person; but in the latter sense it is true only of some persons, and at some times, for the sense of Gods favour is a separable priviledge from those that are in it.