A complete body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…A compleat body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…

(3.) GUILT hath a proper respect unto p• nishment. As it looks back to sin in which i• was contracted, so it looks forward to the penalty which is by it deserved: it is something that intervenes between the fault and the recompense; and because there is a close connection between that and punishment, it is reckoned to it. And there are two things wherein this respect is to be observed, ⟨p. 207⟩1. BY it the person is made obnoxious to punishment. And hence the word is translated, in danger, Mat. 5.22. i• •uts him in the way of it, and lays him open unto it. For, (1.) THERE is an imputation of sin which may be made unto him. He may be charged as a sinner; he is legally such an one; and this imputability is essential to guilt, whether the person have himself really committed it, or in way of exchange taken upon him the person of the sinner, with respect to the law; as Christ hath done for his redeemed, and is accordingly said to be made sin. 2 Cor. 5.21. and so they have their sins laid upon him, Isai. 53.6. All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities •f us all. Or derives it from another by virtue of a legal in-being, as we all do from our first Parents. (2.) HE is hereby fallen under the threatening, and way expect the execution of it. He is come within the reach of it; the threatening indeed is hypothetical, but the supposition is now in regard of him become a position, so that he is certainly comprehended under it; he hath therefore reason to be afraid of the wrath of God; he may read his name among those whom the law of God hath doomed to death, and that he is worthy to dye: he is in the way of it. Rom. 3.16. Destruction and misery are in their ways. 2. THERE is also an obligation lying upon hi• to suffer punishment, and be cannot escape it. The danger before mentioned ariseth from hence; but among men a criminal though exposed, may hope to avoid it, but it is not so here. For, (1.) THE law hath already past the sentence upon him. Guilt is by some defined, to be a sentence put upon a sinner to dye. But then we must remember, that there is a sentence past in the law generally, antecedent to that which is past by the Judge upon trial; and it must refer to this. And indeed it is nothing else but the particular application of this sentence unto him, by his falling under it.