Works Volume Ñ‚. 8

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ...and be found in him, not having his own righteousness, which was of the law, but that righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, even the righteousness which is of God by faith." He felt the force of the alternative, between the former and the latter righteousness. He knew that the one admitted of no measurement with the other,--and that whatever appearance of worth it had in the eyes of men, when brought to their relative and earthly standard, it was reduced to nothing, and worse than nothing, when brought to the standard of Heaven's holy and unalterable law. Jesus Christ has in our nature fulfilled this law; and it is in the righteousness which He thus wrought, that we are invited to stand before God. You do not then take in a full impression of gospel security, if you only believe that God is merciful, and has forgiven you. You are called farther to believe that God is righteous, and has justified you. You have a warrant to put on the righteousness of Christ as a robe and as a diadem, and to go to the throne of grace with the petition of, Look upon me in the face of Him who hath fulfilled all righteousness. You are furnished with such a measure of righteousness as God can accept, without letting down a single attribute which belongs to Him. The truth, and the justice, and the holiness, which stand in such threatening array against the sinner who is out of Christ, now form into a shield and a hiding-place around him: and while he who trusts in the general mercy of God, does so at the expense of His whole character, he who trusts in the mercy of God, which hath appeared unto all men, through the Saviour, offers in that act of confidence, an homage to every perfection of the Divinity, and has every perfection of the Divinity upon his side. And thus...