Gods own language, and call them as he doth; to hate them, as he doth; to judge our selves, that he may not judge us; to punish sin our selves, that he may not punish us for it; and, as it is enjoyned in Auricular confession, to lay open and naked, as near as we can, every circumstance before him. For this is the true method of reckoning with God, and casting up our ac∣counts, the true valuation of our debts. Thus we may hide our sins by revealing them; we may diminish them by addition; by making them great we may make them little, and by making them many make them none at all; and so fit and prepare our selves to receive illapsum misericordiae, the sweet dew and influence of Gods Mercy in a plenary absolution, in the forgive∣ness and remission of our sins. And so I pass to that which, when we first enter'd upon this Petition, we reserved for the clause and shutting up of all, and for the last thing to be consider'd, to wit, What is meant by Remission and Forgiveness of sins.
When we say, Forgive us our trespasses, we beg of God, that although he may most justly, yet he will not punish us for our sins, but so remit them, as to free us from that death which is the only wages due unto sin; in a word, that he will justifie us freely by Faith in Christ, and impute to us, as he did to Abraham, faith for righteousness. The people of Israel when they saw that Moses delaid to come down out of the mount, began to murmur against God, and to refuse him for their leader, calling unto Aaron, Up, make us Gods which shall go before us. And they had a God fit for them. Nam pro∣cessit eis bubulum caput, saith Tertullian, For they had an oxe (or rather a calves) head to lead them. So when men will not follow that way which God and Religion leads them, nor rest satisfied with the SIC SCRIPTUM EST, Thus it is written, commonly they make them Gods of their own, and have some such idol as the Israelites had, some phansie of their own, to go before them. Est haec perversitas hominum, salutaria excutere; Such is the folly and perversity of men, to examine those things which are tender'd to them for their health; to question their physick, not to take it down; and when a pearl is laid open before them, not to buy it, but ask what it is. There is no point more plain, and yet none hath been more stumbled at then the doctrine of Justification and Remission of sins. No sooner was this seed sown by the Author and Finisher of our Faith, but the Devil ming∣led his tares with it, which were ready to choak it. Ebion and Cerin∣thus, denying the Divinity of Christ, and conceiving that it dwelt in him indeed, but so as in one of the Prophets, though in a more eminent manner, conceived also that we had not remission of sins by Christ alone, but by the observation of the Law. The Manichees thought cujusvis esse credere, that it was a matter of no great difficulty to believe, and that faith was as easie as a thought; and therefore that severity of life, contempt of the world, and to sell and forsake all that we have, were wrought out with care and solicitude; were that which would make us acceptable before God, and make us stand upright at the great day of tryal. Neither did these monsters only blemish this doctrine, but it received some stain also from their hands who were its stoutest champions. Not to mention Clemens Alexandrinus, Theophilus, Cyprian, Hilary, and others, St. Augustine, that great pillar of the truth, and whose memory will be ever pretious in the Church, though he often interpret the word Justification for Remission of sins, yet being deceived by the likeness of sound in these two words JUSTIFICARE and SANCTIFICARE, doth in many places confound them both, and make Justification to be nothing else but the making of a man just. So in his Book De Spiritu & Litera, c. 26. interpreting that of the Apostle, Being justified freely by his grace, he makes this discant. Non ait PER LEGEM, sed PER GRATIAM; He doth not say by the Law,