This supposes a person to be under a law, and to have violated it; accordingly sin is described as the _transgression of the law_, 1 John iii. 4. The law of God, in common with all other laws, is primarily designed to be the rule of obedience; and in order thereunto, it is a declaration of the divine will, which, as creatures and subjects, we are under a natural obligation to comply with; and God, as a God of infinite holiness and sovereignty, cannot but signify his displeasure in case of disobedience; and therefore he has annexed a threatening to his law, or past a condemning sentence, as that which is due for every transgression: this divines sometimes call the sanction of the law, or a fence, with which it is guarded, that so, through the corruption of our nature, we may not conclude, that we may rebel against him with impunity: this the scripture styles, _The curse of the law_, Gal. iii. 10. So that guilt is a liableness to the curse or condemning sentence of the law, for our violation of it: this is sometimes called a debt of punishment, which we owe to the justice of God, for not paying that debt of obedience which was due from us to his law. Thus, when our Saviour advises us to pray, that our sins may be forgiven; he expresses it by _forgiving us our debts_, Luke xi. 4. Matt. vi. 12. so that forgiveness, as it is a freeing us from guilt, discharges us from the guilt of punishment which we were liable to. There is a twofold debt which man owes to God; one he owes to him as a creature under a law; this is that debt of obedience, which he cannot be discharged from; and therefore, a justified person is, in this sense, as much a debtor as any other. There is also a debt which man contracts as a criminal, whereby he is liable to suffer punishment; this alone is removed in justification.