“All the works of the creature since the Fall are imperfect; and therefore utterly unfit to be its justifying righteousness before God, either in whole or in part. It is impossible that an imperfect obedience can make the person that performs it perfectly righteous; and such is the infinite purity of God’s nature and the strictness of His justice, that He can accept nothing for righteousness that is not perfectly conformed to the rule of it in His holy Law. And therefore our own obedience cannot be the whole of our righteousness before God. Nor can it be any part of it; because that which is wholly imperfect can be no part of perfection.”
-Joseph Hart, from his “A Discourse on Justification”, p.15
