Adam's children had any thing to value. themselves upon, unless they received it from the free fovereign grace of the crea→ tor; and that afforded them no matter of boasting or glorying at all. Abraham himfelf had nothing in the fight of God. It muft then be a strange kind of delufion that can make fuch a creature think himself to be fomething. The Apostle's word feems as if it was made for the purpose. He deceives his own mind and understanding; the only faculty he has to keep him from being impofed on, or deceived by others.

What the Apostle adds here as the only poffible way of getting out of this felfdeception, is fo much of a piece with the Apostle James's treatment of the man who faid he had faith while he had not works, that it plainly appears, that Paul and he were precifely of the fame mind, both with respect to juftification by faith, and by works. How refolute Paul was in the point of juftification by faith alone, without any works of law whatsoever, no body needs be told who reads his epiftles; and even here, where he may be thought to be on another fubject, he appears to have it directly in his eye: for though

love is indeed the fulfilling of the whole law, and he might have faid fo; yet that none might imagine he was directing them to a law of works, fuch as that of Mofes, he tells them, it is the law of Chrift he wanted them to fulfil, where the free fovereign grant of grace is laid at the foundation of all their obedience. But this is fo far from making their obedience less neceffary, that it is the only way to make it practicable, and at the fame time furnishes the strongeft and most effectual motives; in comparison of which, that which the Jewish law in the ten commandments was founded on, is but as a fhadow to the substance.

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To prevent then this dangerous felfdeceit, the Apoftle's direction becomes abfolutely neceffary, that every man try and prove his own work. Certain it is, he was once nothing; and if he now thinks himself to be fomething, the first question should be, how he came to be fo? Man, who made thee to differ from another? is a question, if feriously confidered, which will bring him down from the greateft height of felf-conceit to his original level: and if he is indeed any thing, they must be the fruits of the Spirit that make him fo; and these carry

him to Chrift, and the grace of God in him. But if these fame fruits of the Spirit are not found in him, whatever his pretenfions may be, his faith will be found as vain, as the Apoftle James calls it: and if faith in Chrift is not laid at the foundation, if we do not love God and our neighbour, because he loved us first, all the philofophical virtue one can be poffeffed of will not be fulfilling the law of Christ. The man is ftill nothing, or at best but a founding brafs, or a tinkling cymbal, as the Apoftle calls the most accomplished man who builds not on this foundation, whatever either himself or his neighbours may think of him.

It will be needless to obferve, that when the Apostle directs every one to prove his own work, he does not mean that the bare trial, however just and impartial, fhould give him that matter of joy or boasting he fpeaks of. All the purpose that can anfwer is to prevent his deceiving himself. But if he thall be found nothing, or fomething worse, the ufe of this discovery is to put him into the right way of getting the foundations fo firmly laid, that his work may ftand the feverest fcru

tiny and trial: And the word the Apostle ufes feems to imply as much; for it fignifies fuch proving our own works, as may either find them, or make them approved; that is, fuch as they ought to be, so as to ftand the impartial judgement of God.

The encouragement the Apostle gives, or the argument he makes use of to engage all who profefs themfelves Chriftians to this very neceffary duty, needs to be very carefully confidered, as the found of the words feparately might tempt one to look for the matter of their rejoicing, and even boafting in themselves, and not in another; which has been, in a direct oppofition to the Apoftle's conftant doctrine and practice, improved, or rather abused, to exclude even Christ himself. It may not be refused, that what the Apostle puts the matter of their rejoicing or glorying upon, is the fame which the Apostle Peter calls the anfwer of a good confcience toward God: for fo this fame Apoftle fays, 2 Cor. i. 12. Our rejoicing, the fame word he ufes here, is this, the teftimony of our confcience, that in fimplicity, and godly fincerity, -we have had our converfation in the world. But no fuch anfwer or teftimony can be had from a good confcience, where the VOL. III. 3 I

law

law of Christ is not fulfilled; and that cannot be without taking in what the Apoftle's confcience attefted; not only fimplicity and godly fincerity, but that his converfation was not directed by fleshly or worldly wisdom, but by the grace of God. But where that is the cafe, confcience attefts all our works as fruits of the Spirit; and they that believe have the testimony in themselves, 1 John v. 10. and need not go abroad to beg any confirmation from the good opinion of others, or by comparing themselves with thofe about them.

On this view of the cafe, it must be the great bufinefs of every man to have fair views of the law of Chrift, the only fafe rule. Confcience can neither judge nor attest further than one knows; and indeed is nothing elfe but the internal confciousness of what one knows of the rule, and the conformity, or difconformity to it, in the course of his conduct. God has not left us at a lofs. He has made a record of the whole progrefs of his grace and merciful kindness in his bleffed Son, and the duties which arife upon it; particularly the great comprehenfive one of faith working by love. But as, either through negligence or incapacity,