First, What is the righteousness here meant ? The Scripture speaks of a two- fold righteousness ; the one legal, the other evangelical.
First, A legal righteousness ; that whicli God required of man in the cove- nant of works : Rom. x. 5, ' Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doth those things shall live.' Three things concur to make up this law righteousness.
First, An obedience, absolutely perfect, to the law of God ; that is, perfect, in regard of the object ; intensive, in regard of the subject : the whole law must be kept with the whole heart ; the least defect, either of part or degree, in the obedience, spoils all.
Secondly, This perfect obedience to the law of God must be personally per- formed by him that is thus righteous : * The man that doth these things shall live.' In that covenant God had but man's single bond for performance, (no surety engaged with him,) so that God having none else to come upon for the default, it was necessary, except God will lose his debt, to exact it personally on every man.
Thirdly, This perfect personal obedience must be perpetual. This law allows no after-game ; if the law be once broken, though but in one wrong thought, there is no place for repentance in that covenant, though it were attended with a life afterward never so exact and spotless. After-obedience (which was but due) cannot make amends for former disobedience ; he doth not satisfy the law for killing a man once, that doth so no more. How desperate were our condition if we could not be enlisted in Christ's muster-roll till we were provided with such a breastplate as this is? Adam indeed had such a righteousness made to his hand ; his heart and the law were unisons ; it answered it as face answers face in a glass ; it was as natural to him to be righteous as now it is to his posterity to be unrighteous. God was the engraver of his own image upon man, which consisted in righteousness and holiness ; and he who made all so perfect, that upon a review of the whole creation, he neither added nor altered anything, but ' saw all very good,' was not less curious in the masterpiece of all his work, ' he made man perfect.' But Adam sinned, and defiled our nature; and now nature defiles us, so that never since could Adam's plate, righteousness I mean, fit the breast of any mere man : if God woidd . save all the world for one such righteous man, as once he offered to do Sodom for ten, he could not be found. The apostle divides all the world into Jew and Gentile, Rom. iii. 9 ; he is not afraid to lay them all in the dirt ; they are all under sin : ' There is none right- eous, no, not one.' Not the proudest philosopher among the Gentiles, nor the most precise Pharisee among the Jews ; we may go yet further, not the holiest saint that ever lived, can stand righteous before that bar. ' Enter not into judg- ment with thy servant,' saith David, 'for in thy sight shall no man living be justified,' Psa. cxliii. 2. God hath nailed that door up, that none can for ever enter by a law-righteousness into life and happiness. This way to heaven is like the northern passage to the Indies, whoever attempts it is sure to be frozen up before he gets half way thither.
Secondly, The second righteousness which the Scripture speaks of, is an evangelical righteousness. Now this also is twofold — ' A righteousness im- puted,' and ' imparted.' The ' imputed righteousness' is that which is wrought by Christ for the believer ; the ' imparted,' that which is wrought by Christ in the believer. The first of these, the ' imputed righteousness,' is the righteous- ness of our justification, that by wliich the believer stands just and righteous
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before God, and is called by way of distinction from the latter, ' the righteous- ness of God,' Rom. iii. 21, and x. 3. Not as if the other righteousness were not of God also ; but,
First, Because this is not only wrought by Christ, but also performed in Christ, who is God ; and not inherent in us, though for us ; so that the benefit of it redounds by faith to us, as if we had wrought it : hence Christ is called ' The Lord our righteousness.'
Secondly, Becavise this is the righteousness, and not the other, which God hath ordained to be the meritorious cause of the justification of our persons, and also accejitation of our inhei'ent righteousness imparted by him tons. Now this righteousness belongs to the fourth piece of armour, the ' shield of faith ;' indeed we find it bearing its name from that grace, Rom. iv. 11, where it is called ' the righteousness of faitli,' because apprehended and applied by faith unto the soul ; the righteousness, therefore, which is here compared to the breastplate, is the latter of the two, and that is the righteousness of our sancti- fication, which I called a righteousness imparted, or a righteousness wrought by Christ in the believer. Now this take thus described : —