Three uses of it
Doct. 7. In the next place, out of the manner of delivery of this speech, we may gather thus much, that sin once truly felt is ever unsupportable, none can stand under it. There are three impotencies in sinners: first, they cannot see sin: Ps. 19:12, 'Who can understand his errors.' Secondly, when the Lord causes them to see their sins, they cannot justify themselves; and then, in the third place, they cannot bear the burden of them; for death, the wages thereof, none can bear or endure; nay, God himself cannot endure sin, Amos 2:13— nay, the wounded conscience, which is but a part of the wages thereof in this life, none can endure—but is 'pressed under them as a cart loaden with sheaves.' Christ he could not endure them, but had such sense of them as if he had been quite forsaken: 'My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?' And angels could not bear the burden, but were thrown down to hell thereby, and so angels of light became angels of infernal darkness. Adam could not endure it, till
Christ raised him up by the promise of the blessed seed; and therefore much less can we since the fall, as it appears in Cain, Saul,
Ahithophel, Judas. The earth could not bear Korah and his company, and neither would it bear us if we had our due. Sin is a debt we cannot answer: Job 9:3, 'We cannot answer one of a thousand.'
Three uses of it Use 1. This therefore confutes the papists, who say that Christ hath endured the great punishments; but there are other lighter punishments, which we also must undergo, as purgatory and the like; to whom we say the wages of the least sin is death. That which the angels could not satisfy for, how shall we weak creatures.
Use 2. Secondly, This may put a just defence into the mouths of careful Christians. Let others term them by what names of scorn they
list, such have good ground for what they do. They know what sin is, and have felt the sting thereof; and what they do, they do it in love to their souls. As for them that scorn, they know there is more cause to pity them than envy their estate. Though they can outswagger and outface sin now, which none could undergo heretofore, and though they can with a grace and authority, as they think, censure those that are careful, and themselves swear and profane the holy name of God, shewing thereby a heart full of unbelief and of unreverence,—which is more odious than the sin of swearing,—yet there is a time coming, when God will set their sins in order before them, in such manner that they shall melt away in the sense of the multitude and greatness of them, without hope of relief; when they shall see nothing but vengeance and death before their eyes, and without all manner of hope they shall die.
Quest. But how comes it to pass, will some say, that many nevertheless seem to bear their sins well enough, and live and die without tears?
Ans. I answer, The estate of such may be dangerous, for Christ is not sweet till sin be bitter. But God is infinite in wisdom, not presently burdening every sinner, nor comforting those that shall desire it. For then who would not be good, and who would be ill? And if evermore comforts were present, what need were there of faith? And therefore, this is most especially true at the day of judgment, when the wicked shall be blown away as chaff, Ps. 1:4–6; when there will be a guilty conscience, watching devils, and an angry God. Where shall the wicked then appear? And there must be a hell hereafter, that men may then feel what now they will not believe.
Use of direction. Wherefore let us learn to submit ourselves to the correcting hand of God, saying, 'It is thy mercy we are not
consumed,' Lam. 3:22; considering that this light affliction is nothing to that we deserve, or that Christ suffered for us, or that the damned suffer in hell, or to that joy we have laid up for us in heaven; and therefore as it is in Micah 7:9, 'Let us bear the indignation of the Lord, because we have sinned against him.'
Secondly, Let us justify God. We have deserved affliction. He hath dealt justly with us: Neh. 9:31, seq., 'Righteousness belongeth to him, but to us shame and confusion of face,' Dan. 9:7.
Thirdly, Let us moderate our censure of those that are dejected and out of heart, through sense of sin: Prov. 18:19, 'A wounded spirit, who can bear?' Impute it not therefore to melancholy, or despair and madness, or as Eli unadvisedly did, to drunkenness, when he reprehended Hannah, 1 Sam. 1:14; for can we think it strange, when
God sees sin in his children, that he causes them to see it, and that when they see it they should shew it in their outward gestures? No; it is no light burden, that a man may run away with.
Ver. 4. 'But there is forgiveness with thee.'
This verse contains a blessed appeal. God hath a court of justice, and a tribunal of mercy. If God should examine in justice what we have done, we could not stand: 'but there is mercy or forgiveness with the Lord,' Therefore it is an appeal from the throne of justice to the mercy-seat; and yet this is not so properly an appeal but it admits of limitations. For, first, appeals are used in aid of those that are innocent. Now we by nature are all unclean. Again, appeals are grounded for the most part upon discovery of insufficiency, or of violent indirect courses in the managing of the cause. This can no ways be attributed to God, who is not rigorous nor insufficient, or swayed by indirect means; for he accepts the person of none. Again, an appeal is from an inferior court to a higher. But here it is not so,