The safety of appearing at the day of judgement, in the righteousness of Christ

These things premised, take these characters of those men that seek salvation by their own righteousness.

1. Such men as magnify themselves by their duties and frames: they count highly of themselves, because of what they do; pride is the very spirit of self-righteousness. The self-righteous man sets a great price upon what he does: he loves to be thinking upon what he has done, how his heart melted in such a duty, how his affections were drawn out and enlarged in such a prayer, what he has done and suffered in the cause of God: he loves to chew over duties again, as things that do commend him to God, while another man is magnifying free-grace, and the Righteousness of Christ, the self-righteous man is idolizing his own services, falls in love with his own beauty: is taken with his own carriage, and thinks that God and man should be taken with him: he thinks his works do ingratiate him with God: and draw the heart of God towards him, so the Pharisee, Luke 18.12. I fast twice in the week, and give tithes of all that I possess: he minds God of it, what a choice man he was, and thinks that God has not many such servants as himself: he counts his own righteousness his riches, Rev: 3:17. he is rich in prayers, rich in mournings, rich in duties of Religion, and of charity: he is not brought to be poor in ⟨p. 164⟩spirit, he don't see himself without money and without price, but has a considerable estate of his own to live upon: he thinks that by his duties he gains something towards the paying for salvation, Phil. 3.7. he places his confidence in those things, and glories in them; as a rich man boasts of his wealth, so he boasts of his righteousness: and despises other men, as the Pharisee, Luk. 18, 11. I am not as other men, or like this Publican: whereas the spirit of a Saint is to glory in the righteousness and sufferings of Christ,