2. As for ourselves, there was no hope that ever we should satisfy God by aught that either we can do or suffer.

(1.) Not by suffering anything. And for this, take the highest instance. If there were any hope to satisfy by sufferings, it would be by the sufferings of men in hell, because they are the utmost and the most extreme punishment that are threatened as the reward of sin, and whereby God recovers all that may be had out of the creature. A man would think that after millions of years expired, the torments which men there suffer should satisfy for sin; but they do not. Those eternal flames in which their souls are scorched do nothing purify or diminish the stain of one sin: they may indeed destroy the sinner, but they can never take away the sin; for therefore it is that they shall for ever suffer. He must for ever remain to be punished, because for ever he remains a sinner. And it is also a certain and sure rule, that nulla pœna nocentis est peccati deletiva; no punishment of a person nocent is deletive of sin. The sin can never be taken away or blotted out by it.

(2.) Nor by doing; for,

First; We are not able by all our works to satisfy our own consciences, which still prick us in the midst of them; much less can we satisfy God, who is greater than our consciences. In Rom. v. 6, the apostle gives us all up for desperate and past recovery; When we were without strength,' says he, Christ died for us.' We had no strength left us wherewith to do anything; neither could all the strength that the law could put into us, by quickening and exciting our consciences to do good works, anything avail us. So, Rom. viii. 3, the apostle tells us, that what the law could not do, for that it was weak through the flesh,' that Christ came to do. If anything had been done by us, it must have been by the help of the law in our consciences, directing, inciting, and carrying us on to obedience. But, saith he, our corruption still weakeneth the power of the law, that it cannot do any good upon us, in us, or by us. As when nature is spent, physic is said to do no good through the weakness of the patient, so nor the law through the weakness of the flesh. And therefore it follows, there being no help in ourselves, God sent his Son in the similitude of sinful flesh, and condemned sin in the flesh.' Neither,

Secondly; Are we thus weak only, but also ungodly; and so are all our works. There is not only a weakness in all that the flesh can do, but also a wickedness or enmity; so that they who are in the flesh can never please God;' as Rom. viii. 8. Yea, it is impossible they should, for their works are all defiled; and though they were good, yet,

Thirdly; They could not bring our persons into favour. For sin, breaking the first covenant, by the tenor of which our works did keep our persons in favour; hence we have forfeited all honour to our persons for ever, and so unto all our works also, that look, as traitors when their persons are condemned, all their works are void in law, so are ours. So that if we could suppose ourselves to love God, yet dilectio illa nos quidem faceret dilectores, sed non dilectos; though thereby we might be called lovers of God, yet they could not make us beloved of him again.

Fourthly; As we have forfeited all favour to our persons for ever, so we have forfeited too the having any graces, or gifts of grace, whereby we might be supposed to come into favour. For sin hath put in a bar against us, this being the eternal demerit of it, that the former grace be never more bestowed upon any of that former interest; for it is wholly made void unto all ends and purposes. And therefore, ere ever new grace be bestowed, the

guilt, and forfeiture, and desert of sin must be forgiven; and how can we ever come to obtain that for ourselves?

Fifthly; If that demerit be cut off by free pardon, and grace be anew bestowed, then that grace becomes a new favour, for which alone we can never be thankful enough by the power of all the grace we receive. We run into a new debt, which we can never requite or satisfy for, much less by that can we pay our former debts. Therefore,

Lastly; Grace received anew, though in and through Christ, it may indeed come to please God, as a token of our thankfulness (and so it doth), yet can it never so much as justify us. The graces of godly men made perfect in heaven shall (it may be) be as much and more than that of the angels. Now then, suppose it such in this life, yet all that grace would not justify us, because we once forfeited all of it, and the receiving of it now were a new mercy. The grace of them who are in heaven may indeed please God, but it cannot justify them, and therefore much less could it ever come to satisfy God for sin. And besides, debitum peccati est infinitum, the debt and guilt of sin is infinite, because against an infinite God. Graces would be but finite, because in us, and because ours, who are finite creatures, as our graces also are. So then, you see, ourselves could not make God any satisfaction.

3. If you go to all the saints, they are unable to help you; Mat. xxv. 1, 2, 8, 9, Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom:' ver. 2, And five of them were wise, and five were foolish :' ver. 8, And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out :' ver. 9, But the wise answered, saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you; but go you rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.' The foolish virgins go to the wise, and say, 'Give us some of your oil,' that is, of your grace. They would have had some of the others' graces to help them, but the wise virgins answered, No, lest there be not enough for us and you; but go you rather and buy of them that sell.' The saints then (you see) have grace little enough for themselves; all the grace they in heaven have is little enough to save them, and all the grace they have is borrowed, and cannot justify themselves, much less therefore can it satisfy for another. The papists, who so much extol works, though they say, indeed, that good works do merit for the saints themselves, yet not that they can satisfy for another.

4. Go from them to the angels. If they were a grain lighter, they would be found too light, and their kingdom would depart from them, and themselves would be stripped of all their happiness. They need confirmation in their estates themselves; it is well that they keep their own standing, and their heels from being tripped up. All they can do in obedience to the law, they owe it; and how can one debt be paid with another? God says of them, Job iv. 18, that he finds folly in them.' If God's curious eye inquire and search into them, they will be found defective of that holiness which he desires, though they be the works of his hands, and though they have such a holiness as is the perfection of their natures; and (so far as such creatures can be), they be perfectly righteous. But yet if they be compared to that holiness wherewith God is delighted, and that which the curious eye of his purity would require, he finds a folly in them. And therefore they need not only a mediation of union to confirm them in grace, but further, for this end, that God may be pleased with them and their works; he being so curious, that but for a mediator (whose holiness wholly

satisfies his exact eye), he would be pleased with no works of his own hands whatever, but would rend, and tear, and throw all away, as not yet worthy enough of him, even as curious artists do their best draughts, as not satisfied with them. Yea, if the angels were but one grain wanting, scruple not to say, they would be cast down, yea, fall down, and become devils. And therefore how can all that they can do be able to help you, seeing they have little enough for themselves?

So you see, upon a survey of all particulars, that no creature could make satisfaction to God for sin.

CHAPTER III.

That the most perfect creature, though having all the perfections of Christ's human nature, yet could not be our redeemer.-The utmost extent to which the power of any creature can reach, to save himself or others, which yet all fall short of that which was to be performed for our redemption.

Add to all these the utmost supposition that can be made, of the most transcendent perfection of grace that may possibly be bestowed upon any mere creature. Take the supposition which some of the schoolmen have made, that as God appointed Adam, a mere creature, to convey and derive grace to all his posterity, so if we with them suppose, first, some one mere creature as a head, appointed to satisfy for sin, and convey grace to sinners (as Christ doth); and, secondly, suppose this mere creature filled with as much grace habitual as Christ had, as much love, humility, &c., only that grace of union to a divine person set aside, which so transcendently elevates all in him above created perfections, and then such a supposition cannot be denied. Thirdly, Suppose a transcending degree of favour and glory appointed as the reward of that grace, more than is borne towards all other creatures; yet though this creature should lay down all that glory, quit itself of all that happiness, and subject itself to all those torments which Christ's soul underwent for us, to the end that our punishment might be cut off, and we brought unto favour, all this could no way deal with justice to satisfy for sinners, and restore them to favour. Which now we will endeavour to make good from those more near and intimate demonstrations, which hold forth in them the true grounds why no mere creature can satisfy for sin, upon no supposition, how high soever. By all which the superabundant grace and glory of Christ will the more appear, whose cause herein we plead, and who pleadeth ours in heaven.

And, first, to make the clearer entrance, and the better explication and stating of this point, let us consider and examine how far the graces of a mere creature, how great soever, have gone, or can go, to advantage and promote either the owner of them, or another, in the way of salvation; and so see the utmost extent of their abilities, and where they have and must fall short. Which will likewise afford us evident demonstrations how far short they come of satisfaction for sin, or justifying of a sinner.

I. Let us see what they can do for the owner and possessor of them. 1. They can and do justify the possessor of them, if he have never sinned. Thus the grace and works of the angels do justify them before God; which yet is much for God to accept of, for he seeth folly in his angels;' yet this privilege he vouchsafes to their own grace. And thus to be justified, is

VOL. V.

F

no more than to be accounted righteous before God's tribunal, and so worthy to live in his sight, and by means of it to enjoy their present condition of happiness. And thus Adam's grace in innocency did justify him: God by his law and ordination pronouncing him righteous by it (whilst he continued in it), as wanting nothing which his law required in him for happiness and life. And though grace in Adam and in the angels did, by a natural law and just ordination of God, justify them before him, so as, God looking on their works, did pronounce them righteous in his sight, according to his law, yet this law or ordinance was founded upon no other obligation from God than the ordinances and laws of providence towards other creatures, even such as the ordinances of day and night (as he speaks of them); and so it was but such as when God saw all the creatures which he had made keep the ordinances which he had set them in, he pronounced that they were all good, namely, in their kind, Gen. i. 31, they continuing (as the psalmist says, Ps. cxix. 91) according to their ordinances. So whilst man continues in the ordinances which God hath set him in, he pronounceth him good in his kind, that is, righteous; righteousnsss being his proper goodness, and such to him, as the proper goodness of all creatures are in their kind unto them. And as this righteousness was due to him, and so created in him, not by merit, but as the native perfection without which he could not be a man, so was this pronouncing of him righteous (and to be in God's favour whilst he continued in that goodness) not due of merit (for what can we do towards it?), but only as a due approbation and suitable reward and consequence of his goodness, meet for God to bestow, according to that special law of nature which God had created him in. And so I understand that same ex debito, Rom. iv. 4, where the apostle, speaking of the covenant of works (which was the covenant of nature), he says, 'the reward was of debt, not of grace;' that is, there was a reward that was a natural due to it (which is opposed to mere grace), which notwithstanding is not of merit, nor could that deserve it at God's hands; only it was meet and due, in a natural way, that God should so reward it.

2. The grace of such a mere creature can preserve itself, and increase itself. Therefore Christ compares it unto mustard-seed, the least of all seeds, which yet grows up to be a great tree; and so the stock that Adam had he might have kept, by the power that God had given him. As Adam might have maintained his bodily life unto eternity by food, so his spiritual life by keeping the law-do this and live.' So that grace in a pure creature before the fall might possibly have kept its station. Yet,

3. It could not, nor cannot absolutely confirm and establish such a creature in a state of justification, which is a further thing than simply to justify, as to give perseverance in grace is more than to give grace. Thus the angels, though always they be justified by their own grace, yet no acts of their own did, or could, procure a confirmation in that grace, or strength. and security that they should not, nor could not, fall. It is an incommunicable property of Jehovah not to change, and to have no 'shadow of turning,' James i. 17. It is therefore judged by all divines that this benefit they have by Christ.

4. Much less can the grace of a mere creature (or ever could) merit a higher condition; to do which is more than to confirm the continuance of the present condition. Adam could not earn a condition of a higher rank, nor by all his works have bought any greater preferment than what he was created in. To compass it was ultra suam sphæram, above his sphere; he

could never have done it. As, for instance, he could not have attained that state in heaven which the angels enjoy. What says Christ? When you have done all you can, say, You are unprofitable servants,' Luke xvii. 10. This he could no more do than other creatures by keeping those their ordinances can merit to be translated into the glorious liberty' which they wait for, and shall have at the latter day. The moon, though she keep all her motions set her by God never so regularly, yet she cannot thereby attain to the light of the sun as a new reward thereof. And thus no more can any pure creature of itself, by all its righteousness, obtain in justice a higher condition to itself. And therefore the angels, by all their own grace, have not to this day earned a better condition than they were created in. And yet all this falls short of satisfying for sin, as we shall

see anon.

II. We have taken a view of all that which all the grace of a mere creature can do for the owner of it; let us now, secondly, see what it can do for another. And,

First, We may safely say, it can avail less for another than for the person himself. For what it doth for another it doth by virtue of what it first doth for itself. If it brings another into favour, it must needs be much more beloved itself.

Secondly, We grant that it might have been a means of conveying righteousness, through God's goodness and appointment of it, unto another. For so Adam's grace should have done to all his posterity. For as he falling we now inherit his sin, so if he had stood we by the same law should have had his righteousness conveyed unto us; and so much indeed may the grace of a creature that never fell do for another. But then take in these cautions with it.

1. That other must be one who also never fell, it could not do thus for those that were once sinners, though it might convey righteousness to another that never sinned.

2. Though a creature that never sinned might have a stock of righteousness conveyed from another (as we should have had from Adam), yet that creature must still continue to be justified by its own righteousness, besides by what was conveyed from that other (even as well as the conveyer himself was by his own righteousness to have lived), and so might notwithstanding have fallen away. For Adam's righteousness, and the imputation of it, would not alone have been sufficient to justify us eternally; but our justification must have been continued by our own righteousness. For as although we have Adam's sin conveyed to us, yet we are condemned for our own sins besides, and not only for his; so Adam's righteousness being conveyed to us, we must afterwards have had, and must have continued to work, a righteousness of our own. He was only a means to give us a stock wherewith to begin, all which we might have spent, and it was likely we should.

So that, in the last place, to draw up all, by a comparison from the less to the greater, it will appear how far short the power of grace in mere creatures doth come of satisfying for another's sin. You see how little it can do for itself; and it must needs be able to do less for another than for itself, and less for a sinner than for either. It may justify itself, and the possessor of it may actually live by it, but not so another. For though that other may have righteousness conveyed to him at first, yet he must ever after live upon his own. The creatures' grace cannot confirm itself in a perpetual state of justification for time to come, much less merit a