“If a man sin one sin, he gives the preponderance for himself and for all the world to the scale of guilt, and causes destruction. But if he perform one commandment, he gives the preponderance both for himself and all the world to the scale of merit, and causes salvation and deliverance to himself and them, as it is said, ‘The righteous is the foundation of the world’ (Prov. x. 25), which means that righteousness gives the world a preponderance in the scale of merit and delivers it. And on this account all the house of Israel are accustomed to abound in almsgiving, and in good deeds, and to be diligent in the commandments in the interval between New Years Day and the Day of Atonement more than in all the year besides.” (Ibid. 4.) This then is the doctrine which we have to consider. The first great principle is that “Every one of the children of men has merits and has sins.” That every man has sins we readily admit; but that any man, or any angel, or any of God’s creatures, has any merit in the sight of God we deny. First, because the idea of merit is utterly inconsistent with the idea of the relation in which the creature stands to the Creator. Every created being is bound by the very fact of his creation to love God with all his heart and soul, and mind and strength, and to do all his will. Whatsoever, therefore, he does, he can never exceed the limit of his bounden duty, and can therefore never lay any claim to merit. If created beings were free from all obligation to love God or to do his will—if they were independent and masters of themselves, then by loving God or doing his will they might have merit, for they would be doing him a service which He has no right to require. Just as a man that is free may hire himself to do work for another man, which he is not bound to do, and thereby earn wages. But not so the slave, who is his maker’s property. He can only do his duty, and if he toil all the day and be diligent and faithful in his master’s service, he still can lay no claim to wages or to merit; he has only done what he is bound to do. To lay any claim to merit, we must stand on equal terms, and confer what the other has no right to expect. But this no created being can ever do. He is a debtor overwhelmed with such an amount of debt, that all that he has or can raise only goes in part payment, and who therefore will never be able to confer anything which is not already due. And therefore it is said, “Can a man be profitable unto God?” and again, “Is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?” (Job xxii. 2, 3.) The unfallen angels themselves have no merit before God, and much less fallen and rebellious man.