8.  And as for the condition requisite to renewed pardon, viz. faith and repentance, Christ is the worker of both.  For he is a prince exalted to give repentance, first and last, Acts iv. 30; and as he is the author of faith, so he is 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 miserable upon that account, as Paul did, Rom. vii. 24; nor shall he ever pray for remission, though Christ has taught all to do so, in that pattern of prayer; nor shall he act faith upon the promise of pardon made in the covenant of grace for after transgressions, or for transgressions actually committed, Jer. xxxi. 34, and xxxiii. 8.  Heb. viii. 12; and so there shall be no use made of Christ for new pardons, or remissions of new sins.