to justification). All the idolizing of men's virtues, and human
inventions, riseth also from the want of this. So then if a man
would be kept sure and stedfast, let him labour before all things
to know his own wretchedness. People naturally think that the
knowledge of their sins is the way to destroy them; when in very
deed, it is the first step to salvation. Now if thou wouldest
know the badness of thy self, begin in the first place to study
the law, then thy heart, and so thy life. The law thou must look
into, for that's the glass; thy heart thou must look upon, for
that's the face; thy life thou must look upon, for that's the
body of a man, as to religion (James 1:25). And without the wary
consideration of these three, 'tis not to be thought that a man
can come at the knowledge of himself, and consequently to the
knowledge of the love of Christ (James 1:26,27).

Help Second, Labour to see the emptiness, shortness, and the
pollution that cleaveth to a man's own righteousness. This also
must in some measure be known, before a man can know the nature
of the love of Christ. They that see nothing of the loathsomeness
of man's best things, will think, that the love of Christ is of
that nature as to be procured, or won, obtained or purchased by
man's good deeds. And although so much gospel light is broke forth
as to stop men's mouths from saying this, yet 'tis nothing else
but sound conviction of the vileness of man's righteousness, that
will enable men to see that the love of Christ is of that nature,
as to save a man without it; as to see that it is of that nature
as to justify him without it: I say, without it, or not at all. There
is shortness, there is hypocrisy, there is a desire of vain glory,
there is pride, there is presumption in man's own righteousness:
nor can it be without these wickednesses, when men know not the