the geneva catechism 4
we are all poor sinners, we must look elsewhere for a worthiness in which to make answer before the judgment of God.
116. But are all our works so reprobate that they cannot merit grace before God? First, all that we do of ourselves, by our own nature, is vicious, and therefore cannot please God. He condemns them all.
117. You say then that before God has received us in His grace, we can nothing but sin, just as a bad tree cannot but produce bad fruit? (Matt. 7:17). It is so. For even if our works appear beautiful outwardly, yet they are evil, since the heart, to which God looks, is perverted.
118. Hence you conclude, that we cannot by our merits anticipate God, and so induce Him to be kind to us, but on the contrary that we do nothing but provoke Him to be against us? Yes. And therefore I say: merely through His goodness, without any regard to our works, He is pleased to accept us freely in Jesus Christ, imputing His righteousness to us, and does not impute our sins to us (Tit. 3:5-7).
119. What do you mean then by saying that a man is justified by faith? That in believing the promises of the gospel and in receiving them in true affiance of the heart, we enter into this righteousness.
120. You mean then that as God offers righteousness to us by the gospel, so it is by faith that we receive it? Yes.
121. But after God has once received us, are the works which we do by His grace, not pleasing to Him? Yes, they are, in that He generously accepts them, not however in virtue of their own worthiness.
122. How is that? Are they not accepted as worthy, seeing that they proceed from the Holy Spirit? No. For there is always some weakness in them, the weakness of our flesh, through which they are defiled.