Englands duty under the present gospel liberty from Revel. III, vers. 20

V. Mark.

Every Heart that opens sincerely, and Evangelically to Christ, opens to him in deep humility and sense of its emptiness and unworthiness; all self-righteousness is given up as dung and dross; thus Abraham came unto him, as to one that justifieth the ungodly, Rom. 4. 5. Now unto him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Yea, here's the true way of Justification indeed; where the imputed righteousness of Christ comes, all self-righteousness vanishes before it. By him that worketh not, understand not an idle, lazy believer, that takes no care of the duties of obedience; no, no, an idle Faith can never be a saving Faith; but the meaning is, he worketh not in a Law sense, to the ends and intentions of the first Covenant; to make up a righteousness to himself by his own working, to cover himself-with a robe of righteousness of his own spinning, and weaving; a home-made Cloth; no, not a rag of that. Thou must receive Christ ⟨p. 73⟩into an empty, naked, unworthy Soul, or not receive him at all. Blessed Paul heartily rejected all his own righteousness, cast down that House-Idol to the ground, that he might be found in the imputed righteousness of Christ, Phil. 3. 8. cast that Idol out of door, it stands in the way of a better righteousness. There be diverse ways wherein sinners maintain their own righteousness to their own ruin; there is a gross and more refined self-righteousness; the one more palpable and easily liable to conviction, the other much harder to be discovered and cured. Ask some Men upon what their hopes of Salvation are grounded? And they will tell you, they are just in their dealings with Men, and constant in their prayers to God, that's all, and therefore they doubt not of their Salvation: Thus they substitute a righteousness of their own in the room of Christ's blood, and are their own destroyers by seeking this way to be their own Saviours: But then there is a more refined way of self-righteousness, dressed up with such pretences of humility, that Men are hardly to be convinced of it. I pity many poor Souls upon this account, who stand off from Christ, dare not believe, because they want such and such qualifications to fit them for Christ. O saith one, could I find so much brokenness of Heart for sin, so much reformation and power over corruptions, then I could come to Christ;