If ye would be saved by works, men and brethren, ye must be as holy as the angels, ye must be as pure and as immaculate as Jesus; for the law requires perfection, and nothing short of it; and God, with unflinching vengeance, will smite every man low who cannot bring him a perfect obedience. If I cannot, when I come before his throne, plead a perfect righteousness as being mine, God will say, “you have not fulfilled the demands of my law; depart, accursed one! You have sinned, and you must die.” “Ah,” says one, “can we ever have a perfect righteousness, then? Yes, I will tell you of that … thanks be unto Christ, who giveth us the victory through his blood and through his righteousness, who adorns us as a bride in her jewels as a husband arrays his wife with ornaments.

From the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 1, Sermon 23 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon