[4.] There is another reason — interest. External forms of religion draw an interest after them, therefore the apostle saith, Rom. ii. 20, ' Whose praise is not of men, but of God ; ' and Gal. i. 10, ' If I yet please men, I were not the servant of Christ.' And ' rudiments of the world,' Col. ii. 8. It maketh a man to be applauded and countenanced by the world. Let a man betake himself to such a religion, there are those which will back him and stand by him, and their disfavour and displeasure he shall incur if he forsake it. And where the false wor- shippers are the prevailing party, he runneth great hazard by contra- dicting such form and opinions. Therefore the heart of that man that is set on externals takes up with the religion of his country, whether true or false.
2. They place their confidence therein. Every man that hath a conscience must have something to trust unto. Now, what feedeth his confidence but the religion which he hath chosen ? There are two things which detain men from God and Christ : some false imaginary happiness, and some counterfeit righteousness, wherein they please themselves. The false happiness is as their God, and the counterfeit righteousness is as their Christ and mediator, and so they are secure and senseless ; and, until God open their eyes, they neither seek after another righteousness, nor trouble themselves about the way whereby they may attain it. That men set a false happiness is evident, for ever since man fell trom God he ran to the creature, Jer. ii. 13, left the fountain for the cistern ; and if we can make a shift to patch up a sorry happiness apart from God, we never care for him, or will not come at him, Jer. ii. 31. Our pleasure, our profit, our honour, that is our God. And if we can enjoy these things without any rubs and checks, we look no farther, and will not seek our happiness in an invisible God, nor wait to enjoy it in an invisible world. But the
Phil. III. 3.] the true circumcision. 51
second error is, that there is something instead of Christ to us, to keep the conscience quiet. Our happiness is to satisfy our desires, our righteousness to allay our fears. Now here we run to a superficial religion, or something external, which is diversified according to men's education — pagans to the 6/3701/ voixov, Rom. ii. 15, Jews to the obser- vances of the law, Christians to baptism, outward profession, or some strict form without the power, under which we shelter ourselves, and by which we bolster up our confidence, till God convince us of our mistakes. And so Christ and his renewing and reconciling grace is neglected and disregarded, certainly not cordially accepted as our Redeemer and Saviour.
I come now to show : —
III. Why a good Christian should have no confidence in the flesh.
1. Because till we are dead to the law we cannot live to God. Now, to be dead to the law is nothing else but to have our confidence in the flesh, or external righteousness, mortified. You hear often of being dead to sin, and dead to the world ; you must be also dead to the law, or otherwise you cannot live in Christ, and bring forth fi'uit unto God : Gal. ii. 19, ' For I through the law am dead to the law, that I may live unto God ; ' and Eom. vii. 4, ' By the body of Christ ye are become dead to the law ; that ye may be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead.' We grow dead to the law, when thereby we understand our sinful miserable estate without Christ, and how unable we are to help ourselves. By the convincing power of the law we know oui sins ; by the condemning power of the law we know the misery and curse we are subject unto ; by the irritating power of the lav/ we find that the righteousness which the law requireth is not in us, nor can it be found in us. Now in one of tliose places we are said hy the law to be dead to the law, and in the other, hy the body of Christ. By the law itself we are said to be dead to the law, as it maketh us to despair of righteousness by that covenant. By the body of Christ (that is, by the crucified body, or death of Christ), so we are dead to the law, as we are invited to a better hope or covenant, which Christ liath estab- lished by bearing our sins on his body on the tree, or enduiing the curse of the law for us. Be it by the one, or the other, or both, none will value the grace of Christ till they be dead to the law. Men will shift as long as they can patch up a sorry righteousness of their own, mingle covenants, turn one into another, make one of both, chop, change, mangle, and cut short the law of God; do anything rather than come upon their knees and beg terms of grace in a serious and broken- hearted manner. None can partake of Christ but those that have their legal confidence mortified, who are first driven, then drawn to him. None but they who are convinced of sin fly to Christ for righteous- ness ; none but they who are left obnoxious to wrath and the curse prize his delivering us from wrath to come ; none but those who are made sensible of their impotency will seek after his renewing grace, but will still keep to their base shifts, mingling and blending cove- nants, resting in a little superficial righteousness, or half-covenant of works, or mingling a little grace with it ; are not brought in a humble, penitent, and broken-hearted manner, to sue out their pardon in the name of Clirist, and so regularly to pass from covenant to covenant.