er, one that hath nothing, and finds it so.
He wants, and knows he wants, else he would never seek. What wants he?
Nay, rather ask, what hath he? It may soon be told what he hath, but it is
hard to tell what he wants. Look what he hath, and ye find little or
nothing, and therefore ye may conclude he wants all things. The text tells
what he wants: (1) He wants righteousness; (2) He wants grace; (3) He
wants glory, and hath no right to it. Men seek not what they carry from
the womb. Therefore all men have come into the world with three great
wants. (1.) Ye want righteousness. Ye cannot stand before God in the terms
of strict justice. There is nothing ye have, or can do, but it is a
menstruous cloth, Isa. lxiv. 6. All your religion and prayers will never
commend you to God's holy justice. The scripture hath passed this sentence
upon you all, "There is none righteous, no not one," Rom. iii. 10. The
righteousness that the law of God requires is perfect, and complete, and
exact. Either lay down the whole sum, or if it want a farthing it is no
payment. Keep all the nine commands, but if ye break the tenth the nine
will not suffice. Now all of you have sinned and corrupted your ways, and
it is impossible to make up the want. As the redemption of the soul is
precious and ceases for ever, so the broken and dyvour(485) man having
become a bankrupt, shall never make up or pay his debt to all eternity. He
hath once broken the command, and all your keeping afterwards will not
stand for the obedience ye should always have given to it. Therefore
sinners of the posterity of Adam, and wretched men by nature, see this
great want and impossibility to recover it in yourselves. (2.) Ye likewise
want all grace by nature. There is no delusion more ordinary than this,
that the world thinks grace is very common. But believe it, Sirs, that
all men came from the womb without grace, get it as ye will. Look what
the scripture speaks of the whole race of Adam, "There is no fear of God
before their eyes," Rom. iii. 18. They are without Christ, without hope,
and without God in the world, aliens from the covenants of promise, Eph.
ii. 1-3, 12. Let grace be as common as can be, yet all of you once wanted
it. Ye have it not by birth, nor by education, nor by baptism. Ye think
perhaps a baptized soul cannot be graceless, but know it for a truth that
ye have neither legal righteousness nor evangelical holiness. All of you
have wofully fallen from ri