Working Rightousness from Life Received...

Legal principles and tempers, are natural to men; and, therefore, though good works are seldom seen, works performed to entitle the performer to heaven, are very frequent. It is as natural to the sons of Adam, to rely on their own professions and performances, for a title to eternal life, as it is, to breathe. Nothing can destroy this legal spirit, this inclination in them, to lean to the way of the old covenant, for acceptance with God, but the quickening Spirit of the last Adam. Reader, are you convinced by the law, in the hand of the Spirit of Christ, that such a legal temper is in you; and, that it is so deeply rooted in your heart, that no power can enable you to mortify it, but the exceeding greatness of Almighty power? If your conviction of it be saving, you see, nay, you feel, the strength of it to be so great in you, that no strength appears to you, to be fit to deal with it, but the strength of the grace of Christ. It is only the second Adam, who can cast the first Adam out of the heart, and seize upon it for himself; who can make the proud legalist willing, instead of "going about to establish his own righteousness " for life, to go about to work righteousness from life already received.

John Colquhoun, Treatise on the Covenant of Works, p. 25