ix. 1. But hear the way, O men! how ye may stand before God; here it is
only. Will it profit you to enjoy the world, and bless God? And when all
these things leave you, and ye leave them, what will ye do,--for riches
will not go to the grave with you? All that is here cannot help you in
that day, when ye must stand before the Judge of all flesh. If a man be
not found in Christ he is gone, and if he be found in him, then the
destroying angel passes by, death hath a commission to do him good, God is
become his friend in Jesus. If ye could walk never so blamelessly in this
world, all this will not come as righteousness in God's sight, nor stand
before him. It is only the righteousness of Christ that can be a covering
to sinners. But,

(3.) This is God's righteousness, because it is the righteousness of
Christ who is truly God, and so it is divine. This is the most excellent
piece in all the creation, that comes from Jesus Christ his life, death,
and resurrection. And let all men's inherent holiness blush here and be
ashamed. Let all your prayers, good wishes, your religious obedience be
ashamed, let them evanish as the stars before the sun. The righteousness
of Christ is the bright sun that makes all the dim sparkles of nature,
civil honesty, and even religious education, disappear. Let even angels
blush before him, for they are not clean in his sight, but may be charged
with folly. Innocent Adam was also a glorious creature, but the second
Adam, the life-giving Spirit and the Lord from heaven, hath an infinitely
transcendent and supereminent excellency and prerogative beyond him, and
all the creation of God. Look then upon this Jesus how he is described, as
the "brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his
person," (Heb. i. 1-3; Col. i. 15, &c.) and wonder that such a glorious
one should become our righteousness, that he should take our sins upon
him, (2 Cor. v. 21; 1 Pet. ii. 24) and make over his righteousness to us.
This is the righteousness of the saints in heaven, Rev. xix. 8. This is
the glory of the spirits of just men made perfect. Think ye, my friends,
that the glorious saints shall wear their own holiness upon their outside
in heaven? No, no, the righteousness of Christ shall cover them, and that
shall be the upper-garment that all the host of heaven must glory in. Now
this is the thing that the child newborn, if he had the use of reason,
should first cry for, before he ever get the breast, to