Now, that you may be convinced that all human righteousness, as a ground of acceptance before God, is absolutely ideal, and forms no part whatever of that moving cause, which prompted Jehovah to confer upon us the blessings of his kingdom, please to recollect that it is written, “Not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” Tit. iii. 5. Mercy presupposes guilt and wretchedness. And to say that sinners, who possess no previous works of righteousness, but require to be dealt with as objects of divine compassion, are notwithstanding righteous, and must be saved by the merit of their works, is one of the grossest solecisms in divinity, that the church of Rome itself could ever have established in her erroneous creed. Besides, when revelation points us to the Mediator of the new covenant, as to one who sustains the office of a Saviour, how can any man, that pays the least deference to divine authority, suppose, without violating the dictates of even common sense, that he can save himself, and at the same time give the glory of salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ? Upon the plan of the erroneous hypothesis I am combating, the truth of man’s depravity must be denied, and the glorious redemption of the Son of God altogether vacated. So that, before a sinner can arrogantly plead his own righteousness, as the meritorious cause of his salvation, he must first reason himself out of common sense, and, in the face of allowed truths and indisputable facts, endeavour to demonstrate that he is not a sinner, nor Christ a Saviour.
But, let us examine the bold pretensions of human righteousness by the moral law. This is the standard of equity and the touchstone of truth. Before it gives the denomination of righteous to any act, or of righteousness to any agent, the law requires perfect, pure, universal, and uninterrupted obedience. A single failure even in thought, makes a man virtually a transgressor of the whole law, and brings him instantly under its curse. For, “if a man keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James, ii. 10. The law requires too, that not merely some, but all its precepts should be observed not only in the letter, but also in the spirit of them; and not only for a certain space of the life of man, but also from the commencement to the close, with every moment inclusive. For, it is written again, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” Gal. iii. 10. The Apostle Paul contemplating the sanctions of the moral law, and its requirement of universal and incessant conformity, when compared with the corruption of human nature, and the utmost efforts of all human works, draws this inference from the humiliating comparison, “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; for, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Gal. ii. 16, 21.
Let every person, now, who fondly supposes his soul is safe, because he is outwardly moral, or that his works will merit heaven, put all the very best performances he can glean up in the balance of truth. Put your works of charity, of benevolence, of devotion, your sincerity, your prayers, and your alms, in one scale. In order to render it as heavy as possible, you are welcome to throw in every thought, word, and action, by which you suppose you have honored God, benefited your neighbour, or profited yourself. Now, only lay in the opposite scale, the two tables of God’s righteous law, inscribed with its holy sanctions, rigorous precepts, and extensive requirements. While we are watching the turn of the beam, give me leave to ask, Have you kept the whole law? Did you ever violate it in a single point? Has there been any interruption in your obedience? Has your heart been always pure from every sinful thought, and your life from every immoral act? The law requires this, without admitting the smallest abatement in its demands. Now view the balance. See how it preponderates on the side of the law. Your scale, containing all your works, flies up, and kicks the beam. Your righteousness, compared with that of the law, is only as a bubble to the globe. God writes Tekel, where you have written Merit. Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting. You may perhaps urge, “All these things have I kept from my youth up.” So the young formalist in the gospel thought, to whom Christ said, “One thing thou lackest.” But as you cannot produce perfection of obedience, all your charity, formality, morality, will avail nothing. You want a justifying righteousness, but you have it not in yourself, nor can you get it from the law. As a “ministration of death,” 2 Cor. iii. 7, it condemns you and denounceth a curse; while justice, like the angel armed with a flaming sword, stands ready to inflict the merited blow, should you pertinaciously dare to touch the tree of life with the hand of merit.
But, should you ask, what is to be done, while the balance is suspended in the hand of impartial justice? I answer, Cry for mercy, as an offender, and look to Jesus as a complete Saviour. But take care of blending his merit with your own, or of making a convenience of his righteousness to supply the defects of yours. This would be to aggrandize yourself at the expense of his honor. You must not presume to put Christ’s excellency in the balance with your works, in order to give them the required weight. No. You must, with a self-renouncing hand, first take out all your own works, leaving not one behind in the scale, and then with the hand of faith put in Christ’s work. This will weigh heavy. His atoning blood and perfect obedience will counterbalance the requisitions of law and justice; will give your conscience peace; save you from hell; and introduce you without spot into the presence of the Holy One of Israel. Thus the apostle of the Gentiles was enabled to act, after he saw the ruin of his nature, and the spirituality of the moral law. His own words are a perfect comment on the truth I have just now endeavoured to establish. “Yea doubtless,” says he, “and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung (σκυβαλα offal) that I may win Christ, and be found in him, 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 faith.” Phil. iii. 8, 9.
2. Let us examine the weight of earthly possessions, comprehending under that head the greatest accumulation of wealth, and the most unlimited extent of empire, accompanied with the most distinguished titles of dignity and honor. Now, the very height of these saith, “Happiness is not in me.” Having a tendency to deprave the appetite, and sensualize the affections, the things of earth, in ten thousand instances, have so much of the alloy of misery mixed with them, that it is with great reason God in his word saith, “This is not thy rest, for it is polluted.” Terrestrial good is of too gross a nature to satisfy the vast desires of an immortal spirit; and every portion of it is held by a most precarious tenure. Vexation in the pursuit, and disappointment in the fruition, attend those, who seek for a heaven in earth. All the acquisitions of the world cannot fill the vacuity in a mind, destitute of the “true riches.” Put, therefore, the whole globe in one scale, with all the pomp and opulence of which it boasts; and only lay in the other, the interests of a never-dying soul, and the vast concerns of an awful eternity; then say, what is the world, but a dream; and its enjoyments, but vanity?
Ye that dote on earth, and are building tabernacles in this wilderness, consider ye not, that the place of your residence will ere long know you no more for ever; and that this terrestrial ball, were you possessors of all the riches that are buried in it, could not make you truly rich or happy, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ. You have had experience of its insufficiency in these respects; and yet continue the fruitless chase in the very same track, where disappointment and vexation have often strewed briers and thorns before. Your mind is still upon the wing; your hopes, still big with expectation. The world has teased you with solicitations, flattered you with promises, and deceived you in the moment of anticipation. Yet you trust the flatterer, and live still upon her smiles. Though you have smarted under her rod, yet you continue still a drudge to her maxims; sometimes determined to throw off her yoke, and yet anon enamored with her service, in hope of better days. She has given you riches, perhaps, or worldly prosperity, but has denied you peace. All this time, death is hastening on apace. Sickness visits as his forerunner. “Grey hairs are here and there upon you, and you know it not.” You and the world are weighed together in the balance, and are found wanting. The world cannot make you happy; and you want discernment to see it. You want, perhaps, neither assiduity nor wisdom in the management of temporal things; but in those which are spiritual and invisible, all your ingenuity deserts you. You are deficient in great matters; in little and unimportant ones, you are sedulous, to excess. You want to know, what you are least of all anxious to learn; and that is, that to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified, is the very centre of happiness and the summit of wisdom. Without this knowledge, all human science is imperfect; and all earthly opulence abject penury. You have few wants, or none, perhaps, for your body; but, while opulence pours her favors around you with a luxurious hand, you may be an utter stranger to the more substantial blessings of the grace of God. O sirs, consider this seriously before it be too late. Though your lives should glide along with ever so smooth and placid a stream, yet remember, the boundless ocean of eternity is just before you; and you may find that, a more turbid sea than you expect. And I am certain you will, if the love of the world be not previously expelled your hearts, to make room for the love of Jesus. After you have passed the limits of time and the confines of death, it will be too late to say, the world is a cheat, I thought so once, but now I know it. Experience then will be hell.
3. But may not the votary of pleasure put in his claim to happiness, without having his principles examined, or his dissipation interrupted by rigid inquiries? No. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” It is an act of charity to arrest levity in a career that deprives of all seriousness, and unfits for another world; and though a solemn admonition may be unwelcome at first, it may be admitted as a salutary visitant in the end.
I will suppose you then possessed of every advantage, which youth, health, and fortune, can give; while, perhaps, your education and natural temper render you an object of envy to all around you. Your time flies imperceptibly along in the gay world; and diversified scenes of amusement, in concurrence with constitutional vivacity, give you the appearance of felicity in the very abstract. Happiness is the object of your pursuit, and pleasure the way, which you think must lead to it. But are you what you seem? Or have you attained what you have been seeking? Is there not an emptiness in your enjoyments, which you are made sometimes deeply to feel? Nay, do they not often leave a sting in the heart, which the constant succession of them, so far from extracting, only makes more impoisoned? Is there no solemn moment, wherein conscience doth loudly cry, “You are not happy?” And can all your dissipation keep you from low spirits, when death stares you in the face, and secret misgivings make you dread his approach? You want something still, and that cruel something unpossessed, mars all your gaiety. You want Christ. You lack the knowledge and love of that divine personage; and in wanting him, you want every thing—wisdom, righteousness, holiness, heaven. You must be born from above by the spirit of God. Your heart must be renewed, and the corruptions of pride and discontent, of formality and self-righteousness, which are lodged in it, must be conquered by the grace of God. And, until that great change takes place, you must and would be miserable upon a throne, and discontented even in an Eden.
And now, men and brethren, suffer the word of exhortation.—Yet a little while, and this present scene of things shall come to an awful close; when rolling years shall cease to move, and the great Angel shall lift his hand to heaven, and swear by him that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no more. Then the veil that hath parted the visible and invisible world shall be thrown back; and all the mysteries of eternity shall burst upon our astonished view. Methinks I see the Judge enthroned, the judgment set, and the books opened. Imagination anticipates the circumstances of that decisive period, while faith almost realizes the appearance of Messiah. The trumpet sounds, and he is coming. Go ye forth to meet him. Are you ready? Are your lamps burning? See eternal justice once more lifts her balance, and weighs in her impartial scale, the world and its inhabitants. Methinks I hear the Judge pronounce the awful words, “Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting;” and reiterate them, as often as souls, unwashed in the blood of the Lamb, and unrenewed by his spirit, pass from his tribunal. O sirs, take care how you slight the way of salvation, lest your ears should be forced to hear that tremendous sentence. Mercy’s door is now open. Enter by it, and live for ever. Neglect it, and you will find the judgment-day will shut it to eternity. Beware how you trifle with the gospel, that directs you to Jesus. It is God’s message of mercy and peace to a lost world. It requires credit and demands obedience. It is our message, because the Head of the church hath committed to our trust this word of reconciliation. I have this day endeavoured to be faithful in the delivery of it. See that you contemn it not. If you do, remember, you must answer for it at the judgment-seat of Christ. O fly, fly to the throne of his grace, before you are summoned to his bar! To-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts. To-morrow you may be in eternity!