heaven before the Scribes and Pharisees, Matth. xxi. 31. Poor Pharisee, what a loss art thou at? thou art not only a sinner, but a sinner of the highest form. Not a sinner by such sins, (by such sins chiefly,) as the second table doth make manifest; but a sinner chiefly in that way, as no self-righteous man did ever dream of. For when the righteous man or Pharisee shall hear that he is a sinner, he replieth, "I am not as other men are."

And because the common and more ordinary description of sin is the transgression against the second table, he presently replieth again, "I am not as this Publican is;" and so shroudeth himself under his own lame endeavours, and ragged partial patches of moral or civil righteousness. Wherefore, when he heareth that his righteousness is condemned, slighted, and accounted nothing worth, then he fretteth, and fumeth, and would kill the man that so slighteth and disdaineth his goodly righteousness; but Christ, and the true gospel-teacher still goeth on, and condemneth all his righteousness as menstruous rags, an abomination to God, and nothing but loss and dung.

Now menstruous rags, things that are an abomination, and dung, are not fit matter to make a garment of to wear, when I come to God for life, much less to be made my friend, my advocate, my mediator and spokesman, when I stand betwixt heaven and hell, Isa. Ixiv. 5. Luke xvi. 15. Phil. iii. 6, 7, 8. to plead for me that I inight be saved.

Perhaps some will blame me, and count me also worthy thereof, because I do not distinguish betwixt the matter and the manner of the Pharisee's righteousness. And let them condemn me still, for saving the holy law, which is neither the matter nor manner of the Pharisee's righteousness, but rather the rules (if he will live thereby) up to which he should completely come in every thing that he doth. And I say again, that the whole of the Pharisee's righteousness is sinful, though not with and to men, yet with and before the

God

God of heaven. Sinful, I say it is, and abominable, both in itself, and also in its effects.

1. In itself; for that it is imperfect, scanty, and short of the rule by which righteousness is enjoined, and even with which every act should be; for shortness here, even every shortness in these duties, is sin, and sinful weakness; wherefore the curse taketh hold of the man for coming short, but that it could uot justly do, if his coming short was not his sin: "cursed is every one that doth not, and that continueth not to do all things written in the law," Deut. xxvii. 26, Gal.

iii. 10.

2. It is sinful; because it is wrought by sinful flesh; for all legal righteousness is a work of the flesh. Rom. iv. 1. Phil. iii. 4-8.

A work, I say, of the flesh; even of that flesh, who, or which also committeth the greatest enormities: for the flesh is but one, though its workings are divers : Sometimes in a way most notoriously sensual and devilish, causing the soul to wallow in the mire.

But these are not all the works of the flesh; the flesh sometimes will attempt to be righteous, and set upon doing actions, that in their perfection would be very glorious and beautiful to behold. But because the law is only commanding words, and yieldeth no help to the man that attempts to perform it; and because the flesh is weak, and cannot do of itself that, therefore this most glorious work of the flesh faileth.

But, I say, as it is a work of the flesh it cannot be good; forasmuch as the hand that worketh it is defiled with sin; For in a good man, one spiritually good, "that is in the flesh, there dwells no good thing," but consequently that which is bad; how then can the flesh of a carnal, graceless man, (and such a one is every Pharisee and self-righteous man in the world,) produce, though it joineth itself to the law, to the righteous law of God, that which is good in his sight?

If any shall think that I pinch so hardly, because I call man's righteousness which is of the law, of the righteous

I

righteous law of God, flesh, let them consider that which follows; to wit, That though man by sin his said, "to be dead in sin and trespasses," yet not so dead but that he can act still in his own sphere; that is, to do, and chuse to do, either that which by all men is counted base, and or that which by some is counted good, though he is not, nor can all the world make him capable of doing any thing that may please his God.

Man, by nature, as dead as he is, can, and that with the will of his flesh, will his own salvation. Man, by nature, can, and that by the power of the flesh, pursue and follow after his own salvation; but then he wills it, and pursues or follows after it, not in God's way, but his own: not by faith in Christ, but by the law of Moses. See Rom. ix. 16, 31. x. 3, 7.

Wherefore it is no error to say, that a man naturally has will, and a power to pursue his will, and that as to his own salvation. But it is a damnable error to say, that he hath will and power to pursue it, and that in God's way; For then we must hold that the mysteries of the gospel are natural; for that natural men, or men by nature, may apprehend and know them, yea, and know them to be the only means by which they must obtain eternal life; for the understanding must act before the will; yea, a man must approve of the way to life by Jesus Christ, before his mind will budge, or stir, or move, that way: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, (of the gospel,) for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

He receiveth not these thing; that is, his mind and will lie cross unto them, for he counts them foolishness; nor can all the natural wisdom in the world cause that his will should fall in with them, because it cannot discern them.

Nature discerneth the law, and the righteousness thereof; yea, it discerneth it, and approveth thereof; that is, that the righteousness of it is the best and only

way

way to life, and therefore the natural will and power of the flesh, as here you see in the Pharisee, do steer their 'course by that to eternal life, 1 Cor. ii. 24.

The righteousness of the law, therefore, is a work of the flesh, a work of sinful flesh, and therefore must needs be as filth and dung, and abominable as to that for which this man hath produced it, and prefixed it in the temple before God.

Nor is the Pharisee alone entangled in this mischief; many souls are by these works of the flesh flattered, as also the Pharisee was, into an opinion, that their state is good, when there is nothing in it. The most that their conversion amounteth to, is, the Publican is become a Pharisee; the open sinner is become a self-righ teous man. Of the black side of the flesh he hath had enough, now therefore with the white side of the flesh he will recreate himself. And now, most wicked must he needs be, that questioneth the goodness of the state of such a man. He, of a drunkard, a swearer, an unclean person, a Sabbath-breaker, a liar, and the like, is become reformed, a lover of righteousness, a strict observer, doer, and trader in the formalities of the law, and a herder with men of his complexion. And now he is become a great exclaimer against sin and sinners, denying to be acquainted with those that once were his companions, saying, "I am not even as this Publican."

To turn therefore from sin to man's righteousness, yea, to rejoice in confidence, that my state is better than is that of the Publican; I mean, better in the eyes of divine justice, and in the judgment of the law; and yet to be found by the law, not in the spirit, but in the flesh; not in Christ, but under the law; not in a state of salvation, but of damnation, is common among men: For they, and they only are the right men, "who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Where by flesh, must not be meant the horrible transgressions against

the

the law, (though they are called the works of the flesh, Gal. v. 19.) for they minister no occasion unto men to have conscience in them towards God: But that is that which is insinuated by Paul, where he saith, he had "no confidence in the flesh," though he might have had it, as he said, " though I also might have confidence in the flesh.* * If any other man, saith he, "thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more," Phil. iii. 3, 4. and then he repeats a two-fold privilege that he had by the flesh.

1. That he was one of the seed of Abraham, and of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, &c.

2. That he had fallen in with the strictest men of that religion, which was such after the flesh, to wit, to be a Pharisee, and was the son of a Pharisee, had much fleshly zeal for God, and touching the righteousness which is of the law blameless. Phil. ii. 3, 5, 6.

But I say still, there is nothing but flesh; fleshly privileges and fleshly righteousness, and so consequently a fleshly confidence, and trust for Heaven. This is manifest when the man had his eyes enlightened, he counted all loss and dung that he might be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

And this leads to another thing, and that is, to tell thee, O thou blind Pharisee, that thou canst not be in a safe condition, because thou hast thy confidence in the flesh, that is in the righteousness of the flesh." For all flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of the field," and the flesh, and the glory of that being as weak as the grass, which to day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, is but a weak business for a man to venture his eternal salvation upon.

*By "flesh," in a more general sense, may be understood all the externals of religion, which men place their trust and confidence in for salvation.