The sound believer, or, A treatise of evangelical conversion discovering the work of Christs…The sound beleever, or, A treatise of evangelicall conversion discovering the work of Christs…

Thus you see the nature, now the Lord open your eyes to see the glory of this privilege: you that never felt the heavy load of sin, the terrors of a distressed conscience arising from the sense of an angry God, cannot prize this privilege; but if you have, you cannot but say as he did, Oh blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sin is covered; and again, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no sin: Psal. 32.12. The Lord pity us; how many be there in these times, that know there is no justification but by Christs righteousness, and yet esteem it not? let me therefore give you one glimpse of the glory of it in these particulars.

Thus you see the nature, now the Lord open your eyes to see the glory of this priviledge: you that never felt the heavie load of sin, the terrors of a distrested conscience arising from the sense of an angry God, cannot prize this priviledge; but if you have, you cannot but say as he did, Oh blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sin is covered; and again, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no sin: Psal. 32.12. The Lord pity us; how many bee there in these times, that know there is no justification but by Christs righteousnesse, and yet esteem it not? let me therefore give you one glimpse of the glory of it in these particulars.

1. This is the righteousness by which a sinner ⟨p. 265⟩is righteous, the Law shows you how a man may be righteous, but there is not the least tittle of the Law, which shows you how a sinner may become righteous, this never could have entered into the thoughts of Angels how this could be; it is cross to sense and reason, for a man accursed and sinful in himself, to be at that very time blessed and righteous in another; to say, Lord depart from me for I am a sinful man, Luke 5.8. is the voice of natural conscience awakened, not only concerning God out of Christ, but even when God appears in Christ as he did then to Peter; but that the Lord should become our righteousness, when we think no sinners like our selves: no cases, no afflictions, no desertions like ours, who can believe this? yet thus it is; the very scope of the fourth Chapter to the Romans, is not to show how a just man may be made righteous,