"And he believed in the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness." (Gen. xv. 6.) David the King did not expect to be forgiven and justified on account of Abraham's or his other ancestors' merits; neither did he say, Blessed is the man who puts his trust in the righteousness of the patriarchs, but—
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"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." (Ps. xxxii. 1.) Every one, then, who desires to have this blessing, must renounce all pretensions to merit, and acknowledge himself a sinner needing forgiveness; and for this forgiveness he must look not to anything that man had done, or can do, but to the mercy of God in passing by transgression and sin. And therefore the Prophet Habakkuk lays it down as a general rule—
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"The just shall live by his faith." (Habak. ii. 4.) This is the Scriptural mode of justification, and this the hope of Abraham, David, and Habakkuk. Will the Jews, then, cast in their lot with their father Abraham, and trust to that way of justification in which he walked? or will they refuse to be justified as he was, and still persist in following the inventions of men, which are not even consistent with themselves? If the oral law pointed out one way of justification, and then consistently adhered to it, there would at least be an appearance of reason in following its directions. But it points out two ways as opposite as east and west. It says a man may be justified by his own merits, and then it tells him he is to be justified by the merits of another. Both cannot possibly be true. It is the duty, then, of every man earnestly to inquire which is the true way of Salvation, and to decide, whether he is to be saved by his own merits, or the merits of his forefathers, or the merits of "The Lord our Righteousness."
