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not startled at this; I allow it involves myself as well as you. Nay, there is not among men one exception; for ‘There is none righteous, no, not one,' Psalm liii 1—3. ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,’ Rom. iii. 23. The only question is, Have you transgressed? if you have, it is an inference which you cannot possibly deny, that you cannot be justified on the footing of a law which you have violated—.'Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in God’s sight,’ Rom. iii. 20. You may frame a law for yourself; but you cannot oblige the eternal God to judge you by your own inventions. Though works then are to be wrought into judgment, no works performed by a guilty creature, can be the ground of his acceptance with God. Study this point.
Must we then despair?—No, my dear friend; no, blessed be God, we are not shut up to despair—From our Lord’s words, with which I began this address, we see, that though many shall be condemned in that day, many also shall be accepted and blessed; and the address of the judge to each, when properly attended to, will show us on what grounds. Observe what he says to them on his right hand, ‘For I was hungry, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came into me,’ Matth. xxv. 35, 36. The righteous express their surprise at his mentioning their works of regard to himself, when so very few of them had ever seen his face in the flesh, so as to have had any opportunity of doing what he ascribes to them. ‘When saw we thee hungry,
