the righteousness which is of God by faith c. And this is the principle which we have to combat in all our ministrations, and which is the very last that yields to the Gospel of Christ. Men think to get to heaven by their own righteousness ; and hope, bike the Israelites in Canaan, to make the very mercy of God himself a pedestal for their own fame. " Stiff-necked" as Israel were, they would arrogate to themselves this glory : and vile as we are, we fondly cherish this vain conceit. To renounce wholly our own righteousness, and to submit cordially to the righteousness of Christ, is the last sacrifice we can be brought to make, and the crown and glory of converting grace.]
That I may, as God shall enable me, beat down all self-complacent conceits, I will proceed to shew,
II. How erroneous they are —
To the self-righteous Israelites, Moses said, " Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land : but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Now here Moses has informed us what it is that God consults in all his dispensations, even the glory of his own perfections :
1. Of his justice and holiness —
[God determined to shew his indignation against sin : and therefore, when the iniquity of the Canaanites was full, and they were ripe for vengeance, he drove them forth from their land, and utterly destroyed them. The Israelites he used merely as his instruments, whom he had raised up to fulfil his will : and in them he made known his power to execute what his justice had decreed.
Look now at the redemption which he has vouchsafed to us, and you shall find it altogether ordained to display the very same perfections of the Deity. Look at the atonement made for sin : go to Calvary, and behold the Lamb of God expiating, by his own blood, the guilt of a ruined world ! There read the holiness of God, in his hatred of sin, and his justice in punish- ing it. Or go to the Gospel, which proclaims this deliverance ; and declares, that none shall ever be saved who do not plead this atonement as their only hope ; and none shall ever perish who truly and unfeignedly rely upon it. Go, follow the self-
c Rom. ix. 31, 32. x2