Page:Believer exalted in imputed righteousness.pdf/19

 to ſay with the church, Surely in the Lord have I righteouſneſs and ſtrength. Others will go further than bare morality: they will abound in the duties of religion, read, hear, pray, communicate, run from ſermon to ſermon, from ſacrament to ſacrament, and upon theſe things they reſt; all theſe things are good in their proper place, but if you build your hope of acceptance here, you are ſtill upon a covenant of works bottom, ſeeking righteouſneſs, as it were by the works of the law; and while you do ſo, you do but ſeek the living among the dead. All your works are but dead works, till you be in Chriſt; and they will but ſtand as cyphers in God's reckoning, till you be brought to ſubmit to this righteouſneſs, by which alone guilty ſinners can be exalted. Others rely upon a mixt kind of righteouſneſs: they will freely own that their duties and performances will never exalt them into favour and acceptance with God; but, O, ſay they, it is Chriſt and our duties Chriſt and our prayers, he and our tears and repentance, that muſt do it. But believe it, Sirs, Chriſt and the idol of ſelf will never cement. Theſe old rotten rags will never piece in with the white and new robe of the righteouſneſs of the Son of God; and if you adventure to mingle them together, Chriſt ſhall profit you nothing. Gal. v. 2. 3. 4. Others again, they will pretend to renounce all their works and duties, and own with their mouths that it is by faith in Chriſt only that they hope to be accepted; but tho' they own this with their mouth, yet ſtill their hearts cleave faſt unto the covenant of works; they were never thro' the law dead to the law.