7. Error 5: God sees no Sin in Believers.
(2.) He also enjoins it upon them, That they mourn for their sins, Isa.
22.12. expresses his great delight in contrition and brokenness of spirit for sin, Isa. 66.2, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit." Christ himself pronounces a blessing upon them that mourn, Matt. 5.4. Justified Paul mournfully confesses his former blasphemies, persecutions, and injuries done against Christ, 1 Tim. 1.13. So did Ezra, Daniel, and other eximious saints.
Objection. Yes, say some, they did indeed confess their sins committed before their justification, but not their after-sins.
Reply. According to Antinomian principles, I would demand, If all the elect were justified from eternity, what sins any of them could confess which they had committed before their justification? Or, if they were justified from the time of Christ's death, what were the sins any of us have to confess who had not a being, and therefore had not actually sinned long after the death of Christ? But I hope none will deny, that the mournful complaints the apostle makes for sin, Rom.
7.23,24. were after he was a sanctified and justified person.
(3.) It is not the will of Christ to exempt any justified person upon {572} earth from the duty of praying frequently and fervently for the remission of his sins. This the most eminent saints upon earth have done. The greatest favourites of heaven have freely confessed, and heartily prayed for the remission of sin, Dan. 9.4 19. And that the gospel gives us no exemption from this duty, appears by Christ's injunction of it upon all his people, Matt. 6.12.
Error 5: God sees no Sin in Believers Error 5. To give countenance to the former error, they say, That God sees no sin in believers, whatsoever sins they commit;
and seek a covert for this error from Numb. 23.21. and Jer. 50.20. In the former place it is said by Balaam, "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor seen perverseness in Israel." And in the other place it is said, "In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve."
Refutation. Now that this opinion of the Antinomians is erroneous, will appear four ways.
1. By its repugnancy to God's omniscience.
2. By its inconsistency with his dispensations.
3. By its want of a scripture-foundation.
4. By its contradictoriness to their own principles.
It is true, and we thankfully acknowledge it, that God sees no sin in believers as a judge sees guilt in a malefactor, to condemn him for it; that is a sure and comfortable truth for us: but to say he sees no sin in his children, as a displeased father, to correct and chasten them for it, is an assertion repugnant to scripture, and very injurious to God. For, (1.) It is injurious to God's omniscience, Psalm 139.2, "Thou" (saith holy David), "knowest my down-sitting, and my up-rising, and understandest my thoughts afar off, and art acquainted with all my ways." Job 28.24, "He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heavens." Prov. 15.3, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." Psalm 33.14,15, "From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth; he fashioneth their hearts alike, he considereth all their works." He that denies that God seeth his most secret sins, therein, consequentially denies him to be God.
(2.) This assertion is inconsistent with God's providential dispensations to his people. When David, a justified believer, had sinned against him in the matter of Uriah, it is said, 2 Sam. 11.27,
"the thing that David had done displeased the Lord:" and, as the effect of that displeasure, it is said, chapter 12.15. "The Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick."
Among the Corinthians some that should not be {573} condemned with the world, were judged and chastened of the Lord for their undue approaches to his table, 1 Cor. 11.32. Now, I would ask the Antinomians these two questions. Question 1. Whether it can be denied, that David, under the Old Testament, and these Corinthians under the New, were justified persons; and yet the former stricken by God in his child, with its sickness and death; and the latter in like manner smitten by God in their own persons; and both for their respective sins committed against God; and yet God saw no sin in them? Did God smite them for sin, and yet behold no sin in them?
Beware lest in ascribing such strokes to God, you strike at once both at his omniscience and justice. Question 2. How God, upon confession and repentance, can be said to put away his people's sins
(as Nathan there assures David he had done) when in the mean time he saw no sin in him either to chastise him for, or to pardon in him?
Do you think that God's afflictions, or pardons, are blindfold acts, done at random? How inconsistent is this with Divine dispensations.
(3.) This opinion is altogether destitute of a scripture-foundation; it is evident it hath none in the only places alleged for it. It hath no footing at all in Numb, 23.21. Grave and learned Gataker hath learnedly and industriously vindicated that scripture from this abuse of it by Antinomians, in his treatise upon that text, entitled, God's eye upon his Israel; where, after a learned and critical search of the text, he telleth us, it soundeth word for word thus from the original;
"He hath not beheld wrong against Jacob, nor hath he seen grievance against Israel." So that the meaning is not, that God did not see sin in Israel, but that he beheld not with approbation the wrongs and injuries done by others against his Israel; and shews at large, by divers solid reasons, why the Antinomian sense cannot be the proper
sense of that place, it being cross to the main tenor of the story, and truth of God's word; which shews, that God often complained of their sins, often threatened to avenge them; yea, did actually avenge them by destroying them in the wilderness; nay, Balaam himself, who uttered these words unto Balak, did not so understand them, as appears by the advice he gave to Balak, to draw them into sin, that thereby God might be provoked to withdraw his protection from them.
And for Jer. 50.20, it makes nothing to their purpose. Many expound the sin there sought after, and not found, to be the sin of idolatry, which Israel should be purged from by their captivity, according to Isa. 27.9. But the generality of sound expositors are agreed, that by the not finding of Israel's and Judah's sin, is meant no more, but his not finding those bonds or obligations {574} against them to eternal punishment which their sins had put them under.
(4.) In a word, this opinion clashes with their other principles. For they say, that though there was pardon and remission under the old covenant (which they allowed to be a covenant of grace) yet it was but gradatim, and successively, as they offered sacrifices. If a man had sinned ignorantly, until he brought a sacrifice, his sin lay upon him, it may be a week, a month's distance between before they could have their pardon. Vide Dr. Crisp of the two covenants, p. 256, 257.
Now I demand, If this were the state and case of all God's Israel under the Old Testament, why do these men affirm, that God can see no sin in a believer? and why do they expound the words of Balaam so contradictory to this their other opinion? For they will not deny but God sees unpardoned sins in all; and here is a week, or month, or more time allowed between the commission and remission of their sin. And so much of the fifth Antinomian error.