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

2. Such men make their duties their refuge in time of danger; such men are oftentimes scared from a remembrance of their former courses, and sense of present failings: sometimes when they hear the threatenings of the Word, sometimes when it is a time of mortality, so when they are ill, and under apprehension that dying time is come: and when in this fright, they betake themselves to their own righteousness as their strong-hold: a godly man makes his uprightness an argument to hope: the self-righteous man makes his duties the foundation of his faith, in a stormy time he gets under them for shelter, instead of getting under the shadow of Christ; he flies to his own duties, they are his castle, wherein he fortifies himself against fear, they are his harbour, where he casts anchor: from thence he takes his great encouragement.

2. Such men make their duties their refuge in time of danger; such men are oftentimes scared from a remembrance of their former courses, and sence of present failings: sometimes when they hear the threatnings of the Word, sometimes when it is a time of mortality, so when they are ill, and under apprehension that dying time is come: and when in this fright, they betake themselves to their own righteousness as their strong-hold: a godly man makes his uprightness an argument to hope: the self-righteous man makes his duties the foundation of his faith, in a stormy time he gets under them for shelter, instead of getting under the shadow of Christ; he flies to his own duties, they are his castle, wherin he fortifies himself against fear, they are his harbour, where he casts anchor: from thence he takes his great encouragement.

This was Pauls sheet-anchor before his conversion, that he was touching the righteousness of the law blameless, Phil. 3.6. the self-righteous man comforts up his heart with this, that surely God will have some ⟨p. 165⟩respect unto his pains, his affections, his charity, his strict walking: this is his fort that he retires unto in time of danger: he has not been so bad as other men, and he hopes God will not deal in rigour with him: he thinks that his duties do lay some engagements upon the love of God, and compassion, he hopes his prayers and tears have some constraining efficacy upon the compassionate heart of God.