Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Eighthly, Being broken off from hopes of compounding with the l•w, he falls a borrowing. He sees that all he can do to obey the law, and all his desires to be, and to do better, will not save his soul: therefore he goes to Christ, entreating, that his righteousness may ⟨p. 179⟩make up what is wanting in his own, and cover all the defects of his doings and sufferings; that so God, for Christ's sake, may accept them, and thereupon be reconciled. Thus doing what he can to fulfil the law, and looking to Christ to make up all his defects, he comes at length, again to sleep in a sound skin. Many persons are ruined this way. This was the error of the Galatians, which Paul, in his epistle to them, disputes against. But the Spirit of God breaks off the sinner from this hold also: by bearing in on his conscience that great truth, Gal. iii. 12. The law is not of faith; but the man that doth them shall live in them. There is no mixing of the law and faith in this business; the sinner must hold by one of them, and let the other go: the way of the law, and the way of faith, are so far different, that it is not possible for a sinner to walk in the one, but he must •o•e off from the other: and if he be for doing, he must do all alone; Christ will not do a part for him, if he do not all. A garment pieced up of sundry sorts of righteousness, is not a garment meet for the court of heaven. Thus the man, who was in a dream, and thought he was eating, is awakened by the stroke, and behold his soul is faint; his heart sinks in him like a stone; while he finds he can neither bear his burden himself alone, nor can he get help under it.

Eighthly, Being broken off from hopes of compounding with the l•w, he falls a borrowing. He sees that all he can do to obey the law, and all his desires to be, and to do better, will not save his soul: therefore he goes to Christ, intreating, that his righteousness may ⟨p. 179⟩make up what is wanting in his own, and cover all the defects of his doings and sufferings; that so God, for Christ's sake, may accept them, and thereupon be reconciled. Thus doing what he can to fulfil the law, and looking to Christ to make up all his defects, he comes at length, again to sleep in a sound skin. Many persons are ruined this way. This was the error of the Galatians, which Paul, in his epistle to them, disputes against. But the Spirit of God breaks off the sinner from this hold also: by bearing in on his consience that great truth,