these duties as it ought to have been ? Then we are sinners, " sinners before the Lord exceedingly " :" and, if we turn not to God in newness of life, we shall speedily become monuments of his wrath and fiery indignation.]
2. The folly of seeking salvation by any righteous- ness of our own —
[I will not only grant, as before, that we are free from any gross sins, but 1 will admit, that we have done a great deal that was good and praiseworthy. But how shall we get rid of this immense load of guilt which we have contracted by our wilful and habitual neglects? Our good deeds, admitting that we have performed some, have been only occasional : whereas our neglects have been continual, from the first moment that we began to be capable of acting. Our good deeds have all been marred with imperfections ; but our neglects have had in them no mixture of good : they were pure and unmixed evil ; and in comparison of them, any good that we do is lighter than dust upon the balance. In truth, no man who reflected a moment on my text could any more entertain a hope of being justified by any righteousness of his own, than he could form a purpose to create a world. He would see, that, whilst he was doing those very works on which he was inclined to build his hopes, the weakness and defectiveness of his exertions infinitely outweighed any merit which they might be supposed to have; and rendered his works a just ground for condemnation, rather than of justifi- cation before God. Bear in mind then the declaration before us ; and limit not your views to sins of commission, but extend them to sins of omission: and then you will no longer hesitate to renounce all hope in yourselves, but will say with the Apostle Paul, " I desire to be found in Christ, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith0."]
3. The improvement which we should make of divine ordinances —
[We should not come to the house of God merely to satisfy conscience and to perform a duty, but really to get instruction respecting the mind and will of God. A mariner about to navigate a ship, and having the assistance of a skilful builder to examine whether she was in a state fit for sea, would not listen to his observations as a mere matter of curiosity or amusement, nor would he shut his eyes to any defects that were pointed out: his object would be, to find out
n Gen. xiii. 1.3. ° Phil. iii. 9.