An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ,…

5. When we are justified before God, it must be by a Righteousness, either that of inherent Grace, or that of Christ imputed to us; We are not justified by the first, our inherent Graces have all their spots and wrinkles of imperfection; how faltering is our Faith! How fluctuating our Hope! How cold our Charity! How much is there wanting of what ought to be in every one of them! All of them are but in part, and as it were in their first Lineaments, none of them in plenitude or full measure answering to the Law; they dwell ⟨p. 309⟩not alone; but alas! there is a sad Inmate of Corruption, a body of Sin dwelling under the same roof, so that the purest actions of the Saints on earth come forth ex laeso Principio, out of an Heart sanctified but in part, and in their egress from thence gather a taint and tincture from the indwelling sin: Quotidie stillamus super telam justitiae nostrae saniem concupiscentiae nostrae, saith one, Our concupiscence like putrid matter is ever dropping upon the web of our weak little holiness; If we walk not post concupiscentias, it is very well; Non concupisces, which is a greater thing, we cannot reach in this Vale of sins and sorrows; still the Flesh will be lusting, and Corruption bubbling up in the heart; and can we think that such imperfect Graces should be the Matter of our Justification? Again, we have contracted many Guilts, and every even the Least of them, have a kind of Infinity in them, because against an infinite Majesty; and can our inherent Graces; which are but finite things, ever expiate or blot out those guilts? No surely, they cannot cover their own spots and blemishes, but must pray in aid from the Grace and Righteousness of Christ to have them done away; ⟨p. 310⟩and is it imaginable that those Graces, which want a pardon and covering for their own Defects, should ever be able to stand before God and justify us at his Bar? Who? were is the Saint in Scripture that ever durst stand before God in his own inherent Righteousness? Job. though perfect, would not know his own soul, Job. 9, 21. David though a man after Gods own heart, would not have him mark iniquities, Psal. 130.3. Daniel, though a man of desires, prays, not for his own Righteousness, but for Gods great Mercies, Dan. 9.28.