he would have found but little reason for his self- preference and self-applause : he would have seen that his boasted righteousness was as defective as that of the poor Publican : and the only difference between the two, supposing the one to have been as good as he imagined, and the other as evil as was supposed, was, that the one was a painted sepulchre, and the other a sepulchre without paint. I must not, indeed, be understood to say, that gross carnal sins do not add to the criminality of the person in whom they are found ; but only, that, supposing one person to abound more in carnal filthiness, and another in spiritual, the latter, to say the least, has as little rea- son to glory in himself, or to trust in his own righte- ousness, as the former. The point to which we must all look for real humiliation is, the defectiveness of our obedience. Let this be seen, and seen too in all its aggravated character, as against a God of infinite love and mercy ; against a Saviour who has assumed our nature, and laid down his life for us ; against the Holy Spirit, who, by his gracious influences, has striven with us all our days, to guide us aright, and to bring us to repentance : let it be seen, also, as against light and knowledge, against vows and reso- lutions, against judgments and mercies ; and, further, as continued in, for years, without any shame or re- morse : let our impenitence also be marked, and our proud rejection of God's proffered mercy in Christ Jesus : let all this be viewed ; and we shall see little reason to value ourselves on not having committed some of the grossest sins : we shall see that our ini- quities have grown up unto heaven ; and that they must sink us into everlasting perdition, if God do not, in the multitude of his tender mercies, interpose for our deliverance, and make " his grace to super- abound, where our sins have so greatly abounded." We shall see, that to call ourselves the chief of sin- ners, is not merely a kind of modest and becoming saying, which, whilst it sounds well from the lips, needs not be felt in the heart ; but that it is a charac- ter which belongs to the very best amongst us ; since
2065.] FIRST USE OF THE LAW. Ill
the best man in the universe knows more evil in himself than he can know of others, except where the evils have been made notorious by overt acts. If the law be properly used, the person who thus tries himself by it will see himself exposed to God's heaviest judgments, no less than the most flagrant transgressor in the world : and he will cry for mercy, precisely in the same manner as Peter did, when sinking in the waves, "Save, Lord, or I perish!" Others, who have not such views of the law, will wonder at him, and say, ' What can you have done, to call for such remorse and fear?' But he knows his own desert before God, and will therefore lie low before him, in the deepest self-abasement.
This, then, is what I would wish you to do : it is for this end that I bring the subject before you : it is for this end that I hold up thus the glass of the law before your eyes, that you may know your true cha- racter before God. I would not that it should be said of us, as of the Jews of old, that " we seek righteousness, and cannot attain to it, because we seek it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the lawm." I would that it should be a settled prin- ciple in all our minds, that " by the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified11." O, if we could but listen to this monitor! If the warnings which he gives us be alarming, they still are salu- tary : and it were surely better be warned that our house is built on sand, than that we should be left to perish under its ruins. And were a person who per- ceived our danger to withhold the warning, he would be justly considered by all as accessary to our destruction.