the finisher of it, Heb. xii. 2.

As to the _second_ particular, namely, what believers should do for
getting the guilt of their daily failings and out-breakings taken away
by Christ; or how they should make use of Christ for this end, I shall,
for clearing of it, propose those things to consideration:

1. We would beware to think, that all our after actual transgressions
are actually pardoned, either when Christ died, or when we first
believed in Christ, as some suppose; for sin cannot properly be said to
be pardoned before it be committed. David was put to sue out for pardon,
after his actual transgression was committed, and not for the mere sense
and feeling of the pardon, or the intimation of it to his spirit, when
he cried out, Psalm li. 2, "Blot out my transgressions, wash me," &c;
and verse 9, "Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my
iniquities;" and verse 14, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness." Sure when
he spoke thus, he sought some other thing than intimation of pardon to
his sense and conscience; for that he desired also, but in far more
clear expressions, verse 8, "Make me to hear joy and gladness," &c.; and
verse 12, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation," &c. Scripture
phrases to express remission import this, viz. covering of sin,
pardoning of debts, blotting out of sins, hiding of God's face from sin,
not remembering of them, casting of them behind his back, casting of
them into the sea, removing of sin, Psalm xxxiii. 1, 2. These and the
like phrases, though many of them be metaphorical, yet do all of them
clearly evince, that sin must first have a being before it can be
pardoned. The same is clearly imported by the gospel conditions
requisite before pardon; such as acknowledgment of sin, (1 John i. 9)
which we see was practised by the worthies of old; David, Psalm xxxii.
51. Nehemiah, chap. ix. Ezra, chap. ix. and Daniel, chap. ix. Confessing
and forsaking of it, Prov. xxviii. 13. Sorrowing for it, and repenting
of it, and laying hold on Christ by faith, &c.

The reason why I propose this, is not only to guard against this
Antinomian error, but also to guard the soul from security, to which
this doctrine hath a natural tendency. For if a person once think, that
all his sins were pardoned, upon his first believing, so that many of
them were pardoned before they were committed; he shall never be
affected for his after transgressions, nor complain of a body of death,
nor account himself miser