Though David had the sins of murder and adultery pardoned, yet this

pardon did not make David a righteous person in those acts, for it was

murder and adultery still, and the change was not in his sin, but in

his soul and state'.

'The demerit of sin is not taken away.  As pardon does not alter sin's

nature, so neither doth it alter sin's demerit, for to merit damnation

belongs to the nature of it; so that we may look upon ourselves as

deserving hell, though the sin whereby we deserve it be remitted.

Pardon frees us from actual condemnation, but not, as considered in our

own persons, from the desert of condemnation.  As when a king pardons a

thief, he doth not make the theft to become formally no theft, or to be

meritoriously no capital crime.  Upon those two grounds of the nature

and demerit of sin, a justified person is to bewail it, and I question

not but the consideration of this doth add to the triumph and

hallelujahs of the glorified souls, whose chief work being to praise

God for redemption, they cannot but think of the nature and demerit of

that from which they were redeemed'.

'The guilt of sin, or obligation to punishment, is taken away by

pardon.  Sin committed doth presently by virtue of the law transgressed

bind over the sinner to death; but pardon makes void this obligation,

so that God no longer accounts us persons obnoxious to Him.  Peccatum

remitti non aliud est quam non imputari ad poenam.*  It is revoking the

sentence of the law against the sinner; and God renouncing upon the

account of the satisfaction made by Christ to His justice, any right to

punish a believer, doth actually discharge him upon his believing from

that sentence of the law under which he lay in the state of unbelief;

and also as He parts with this right to punish, so He confers a right

upon a believer humbly to challenge it, upon the account of the

satisfaction wrought by his surety.  God hath not only in His own mind

and resolution parted with this right of punishing, but also gives an

express declaration of His will; "God was in Christ reconciling the

world unto Himself", 2 Corinthians 5:19, i.e. openly renouncing, upon

Christ's account, the right to punish; whence follows the non -

imputation of sin, Not imputing their trespasses unto them.  The

justice of God will not suffer that sin which is pardoned should be

punished; for can that be justice in a prince to pardon a thief, and

yet to bring him to the gallows for that fact?  Though the malefactor

doth justly deserve it, yet after a pardon and the word passed, it is

not justly inflicted.  God indeed doth punish for that sin which is

pardoned.  Though Nathan by God's commission had declared David's sin

pardoned, yet it was declared, "The sword shall never depart from thy

house"' (2 Sam. 12:10).

*

Durant lib. 4. dict. 1. q.7.  For sin to be pardoned is nothing else

but not to be imputed in order to punishment.

Other phases of this gracious theme will necessarily demand an

exposition, but these find their place in such articles as Sacrifice7;

Atonement (p. 29); Redemption7; Justification by Faith (p. 410); and

Sanctification7, all of which are deeply concerned with the forgiveness of sin.

Found.  This word has a wide range of meanings, but we will not stay to

examine them all.  We speak of a thing being found after it has been lost,

and this very gracious aspect of the word is set forth in parable form in

Luke 15, where the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son are