Riches of mercy to men in misery, or, Certain excellent treatises concerning the dignity…

For the first, namely what it is to condemn. It is taken ¹diversly, either in foro publico (as in our courts) when one is guilty of some offence against the Law, and so is bound over by sentence of condemnation to suffer for it. Or else in foro conscientiae, in the court of Conscience, as here before God, and it is nothing else but to have a Conscience guilty of sin, and for that to be judged of God to Eternal punishment: even to be separated from the Love of God in Christ for ever and ever; And all this presupposeth a guiltiness for sin that justifies the Judgement of God in regard of the just sentence of condemnation. Now who shall make the true believer guilty before God, being once in Christ? The answer is made by the Apostle, There is not one that can.

1. 11.

Now for the second thing observed, namely that those ¹which come to believe, while they were in a state of Nature and under the curse of the Law, were in an estate of ⟨p. 146⟩condemnation, This is proved Eph. 2. 3. Among whom we also (faith the Apostle) had our conversation, &c. And were by nature the children of wrath as well as others. As he also telleth those believing Romans, Rom. 6. 17. Of this their own conscience is witness against them. The Law of God is the bill of indictment, God the Judge, the Devil the executioner, and hell the prison from whence it is impossible to escape until they come soundly to believe in the Lord Jesus.

Now for the second thing observed, namely that those ¹