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

The Righteousness of the Law and of Works in the New Testament signifies only an external Righteousness: ¹Thus the Author: And yet before the Author quoting that Text, Rom. 8. That the righteousness of the Law might he ⟨p. 390⟩fulfilled in us, interprets it of internal holiness in us: I confess it is not meant of our internal Holiness; but neither doth it signify external Righteousness only: The righteousness of the Law, Phil. 3.6. doth by the circumstances of the Text intend only an external Righteousness; but the righteousness of the Law, ver. 9. reaches to an internal one; for, as I before noted, the Apostles speech there is progressive, and expresses more than it did before. The Works of converted Abraham are excluded from Justification, Rom. 4.2. and yet surely they were more than external shadows; By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified, Gal. 2.16. not only the Pharisee with his external Righteousness, but no flesh, not the holiest man on earth shall be justified by the works of the Law. The Law in the New Testament plainly calls for internal Holiness; it is a holy, just, good, spiritual Law, forbidding Concupiscence, the very first risings and imperfect births of Corruption, Rom. 7. commanding the love of God with all the Heart, Soul and Mind, Matth. 22.37. And therefore it would be very strange, if the Righteousness or the Works of this Law (which is ⟨p. 391⟩represented in the New Testament as a divine spiritual Law) should in the same New Testament signify no more than external Righteousness, no more than the mere shell or outward superficies of true Sanctity, and that too in Epistles written not to Jews or Pharisees, who hung about the Letter of the Law, but to the Romans, Galatians, Philippians, who, I suppose, understood it better: They could not but see some hints of inward Purity in the Books of Pagan Philosophers; and it is inimaginable, that they should look for less in the Law of God: Though the Pharisees, who had only an external Righteousness themselves, construed that Law, according to their Model; yet why the believing Romans, Galatians, Philippians, who had internal Graces in themselves, should do so, I see no reason: