Gouge: In The Order Of The Application Of Redemption Justification Precedes Sanctification

Justification in order goeth before sanctification…Sanctification presupposeth justification: they who are sanctified may rest upon it, that they are cleansed and justified. For sanctification is a fruit of justification…Admirable is the comfort, which the Saints in this world reap hereby. For their sanctification being imperfect, and the flesh abiding in them, and lusting against the spirit: yea sin being present with them when they would do good, they are oft forced to complain and cry, O wretched man that we are: who shall deliver us from this body of death(Rom 7:24)? If they had no other ground to fasten the anchor of their hope upon but their sanctification, it could not hold them fast enough against the tempest of Satan’s temptations. But in that their sanctification is a fruit and evidence of their justification, they take heart to themselves, and thank God that with the mind they themselves serve the Law of God, though with the flesh the Law of sin. And thus upheld and comforted, they continue to strive against sin, till it be clean rooted out of them, as well as remitted.

William Gouge, The First Treatise: The Scriptural Basis for Domestical Duties, in Of Domestical Duties (1622), 28 (HT: Inwoo Lee).

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