The gospel concurs with the law in this respect, that it shews us our own guilt and vileness, our ruin and our impotence to restore ourselves, and therefore it has put all our help upon another. God has _laid our help upon one that is mighty to save_; Ps. lxxxix. 19, and he has ordained that the way whereby we should derive this salvation, is by renouncing all dependance upon self, and trusting in Christ and grace for all that we enjoy and hope for. This is the business of faith; this is the very nature of that Christian virtue, to disclaim all self-sufficiency, and receive all from mere mercy; and therefore it is appointed to be the means of our justification under the gospel; therefore it is said so often in scripture, that we are _justified by faith_, that divine grace may have all the glory; Rom. iv. 16. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be of grace. We are ignorant and foolish, and must derive wisdom from Christ: We are guilty, and must receive righteousness from him: We are unholy, he is the spring of our sanctification: We are captives and slaves to sin and Satan, and we must have redemption from him: _He is made of God to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, that no flesh might glory in his presence_, but _he that glories, must glory in the Lord_; 1 Cor. i. 29, 30. Man, innocent man, had power and righteousness, and life put into his own hands; but the first Adam grew vain in his self-sufficiency, and he foolishly sinned, and lost it all: Therefore God, in order to our recovery, would put power, and righteousness, and life into the hands of another, even his own Son, the second Adam, that we might go out of ourselves, and seek it all from another hand. Now faith, or trust, is the proper act of the soul, to express our own emptiness, and our dependance on another for all.