Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…

Observe, in the Lords prayer, we pray that the Lord would forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. Let him that hath common understanding judge, Do we forgive our neighbours by extinguishing sin in the subject? I forgive you; (i.e.) I take away the ill office you did me: Doth he forgive thus? Alas no! forgiveness is without a man. I have an action against you, perhaps an action at Law; I will let fall my suit, my charges I will forgive, this is forgiveness. God justifieth, who shall condemn? Though God has just cause to proceed against me as a Rebel, yet he is content to let fall his action, to fasten it upon the Cross of his Son, there to fix the Chirographum, the hand-writing against us. He will let fall that which was the ground of a suit against us, all that he could say against us.

Observe, in the Lords prayer, we pray that the Lord would forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespasse against us. Let him that hath common understanding judge, Do we forgive our neighbours by extinguishing sinne in the subject? I forgive you; (i.e.) I take away the ill office you did me: Doth he forgive thus? Alas no! forgivenesse is without a man. I have an action against you, perhaps an action at Law; I will let fall my suit, my charges I will forgive, this is forgivenesse. God justifieth, who shall condemn? Though God has just cause to proceed against me as a Rebel, yet he is content to let fall his action, to fasten it upon the Crosse of his Sonne, there to fix the Chirographum, the hand-writing against us. He will let fall that which was the ground of a suit against us, all that he could say against us.

That you may understand the thing the better, there are two things, two kinds of righteousness; the one of justification, the other of sanctification. The Holy Ghost distinguisheth them by several terms 1 Cor. 1. ult. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus who is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. You see here are two distinct graces; righteousness and sanctification; they make them but one, sanctification and remission of sins. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Here justification and sanctification is nothing else but justification and glorification; Saint Paul speaks of a thing past, not of the glory to come: (i. e.) sanctification which is inchoate glory. For what is the glory we shall have in heaven but the enlargement of those inherent graces God begins in this world? Here is the seed, there is the crop; here thou hast a little knowledge, but there it shall be enlarged; now thou hast a little joy, there thou shalt enter into thy Masters joy; here some knowledge, but there thou shalt have a full knowledge, and a full measure. Here glory dwelleth in our Land, but there we shall with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord,