Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

But doth God justify the ungodly? that's a hard speech; we read in the Proverbs, 17.15. He that justifieth the wicked, and condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord.

But doth God justifie the ungodly? that's a hard speech; we read in the Proverbs, 17.15. He that justifieth the wicked, and condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord.

But here we must understand this as we do some other Scriptures; we read in S. Luke 7.22. that the blind see, the lame walk, the dumb speak. It's impossible for a man to be blind and see, to be dumb and speak, all at once; yet take the chief of sinners, suppose Paul, and he was so in his own account; but the act of justification alters him. God justifies the ungodly, that is, him that was even now so; but by the imputation of Christ's righteousness he is made righteous, that is, righteous in God's account. And indeed, justification in S. Paul's acception, importing the remission of sins, the person justified must of necessity be supposed to have been a sinner; otherwise remission of sins would no more concern him, than repentance doth the holy Angels which never offended.

But in proceeding in this point I did reflect a little back. God finds a man with a number of sins, full of sin, and forgives these sins; now I demanded this; how far doth this justification and forgiveness extend? to sins past alone, or to sins past and to come? And I answered that we must consider this matter two ways.