and so shall I be justified.”  Now, I verify believe that nine out of ten of the young men who are here to-night would subscribe that statement and never suspect there was anything wrong with it or with themselves.  And yet, what does Christian, who, in this matter, is just John Bunyan, who again is just the word of God—­what does the old pilgrim say to this confession of this young pilgrim’s faith?  “Ignorance is thy name,” he says, “and as thy name is, so art thou:  even this thy answer demonstrateth what I say.  Ignorant thou art of what justifying righteousness is, and as ignorant how to secure thy soul through the faith of it from the heavy wrath of God.  Yea, thou also art ignorant of the true effect of saving faith in this righteousness of Christ’s, which is to bow and win over the heart to God in Christ, to love His name, His word, His ways, and His people.”  Paul sums up all his own early life in this one word, “ignorant of God’s righteousness.”  “Going about,” he says also, “to establish our own righteousness, not submitting ourselves to be justified by the righteousness that God has provided with such wisdom and grace, and at such a cost in His Son Jesus Christ.”  Now, young men, I defy you to be better born, better brought up, or to have better prospects than Saul of Tarsus had.  I defy you to have profited more by all your opportunities and advantages than he had done.  I defy you to be more blameless in your opening manhood than he was.  And yet it all went like smoke when he got a true sight of himself, and, with that, a true sight of Christ and His justifying righteousness.  Read at home to-night, and read when alone, what that great man of God says about all that in his classical epistle to the Philippians, and refuse to sleep till you have made the same submission.  And, to-night, and all your days, let submission, Paul’s splendid submission, be the soul and spirit of all your religious life.  Submission to be searched by God’s holy law as by a lighted candle:  submission to be justified from all that that candle discovers:  submission to take Christ as your life and righteousness, sanctification and redemption:  and submission of your mind and your will and your heart to Him at all times and in all things.  Nay, stay still, and say where you sit, Lord, I submit.  I submit on the spot to be pardoned.  I submit now to be saved.  I submit in all things from this very hour and house of God not any longer to be mine own, but to be Thine, O God, Thine, Thine, for ever, in Jesus Christ Thy Son and my Saviour!

“But, one day, as I was passing in the field, and that, too, with some dashes in my conscience, fearing lest all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy Righteousness is in heaven!  And, methought, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand.  There, I saw, was my Righteousness.  I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my Righteousness