1. We are all " guilty before God "—
[It seems inconceivable to many, that they should really be obnoxious to everlasting misery in hell : and they will plead their own cause with zeal and eloquence : if they concede it with respect to some more heinous transgressors, they will deny it in reference to themselves. But God has taken care that " every mouth should be stopped." It is not possible to express the universality of men's wickedness more strongly than it is expressed in the words before usq. All then must " become guilty before God," and acknowledge their desert of his wrath and indignation ; they must feel their desert of con- demnation, as much as a man that has been condemned for parricide feels the justice of the sentence which is pronounced against him. O that we might all be brought to such unfeigned contrition ! We should then be " not far from the kingdom of God'."]
2. We can never be justified by any works of our own —
[" We know that what the law saith, it saith unto them that are under the law." Now the law saith, " Do this and live : transgress it and thou shalt dies;" but it speaks not one word about mitigating its demands to the weak, however weak, or its penalties to the guilty, however small the measure of their guilt. How then can any man " be justified by the works of the law ?" Can a man be guilty, and not guilty ? or can he be condemned by the law, and yet justified by it at the same time, and in the same respects? Let all hope then, and all thought, of justification by the law be put away from for us ever. God has provided a better way for our justifi- cation, namely, through the blood and righteousness of his dear Son1: and to lead us into that way was the intention of the Apostle in citing the passages that have already been con- sidered. Let us improve his humiliating representation for this salutary end ; so shall we be " justified freely by grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus u."]
i " None, no, not one ; " " none ; none ; none, no, not one ; " " all ; all together ; " " every mouth ; " even " all the world." Can any, after this, fancy himself an exception ?
r Ps. li. 17. s Rom. x. 5. Gal. iii. 10.
1 Rom. iii. 21, 22. u Rom. iii. 24.