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IESVIT. [ A]
Secondly, we doe not teach that any Saint or Angell can make satisfaction vnto God for the mortall sinne of any man, no not all Saints and Angels, putting together all their good Workes and Satisfactions. The reason is, because an iniurie is so much the greater, by how much the person that offers it is base, and the person to whom it is offered is noble, as the light of reason and the estimation of man∣kind [ B] sheweth. But God (whom man casts away and aban∣doneth by sinne, and consequently wrongs) is of infinit dig∣nitie, and man offending him, comparatiuely with him infi∣nitly base: wherefore mortall sinne, which is an abando∣ning of God for some transitorie content, is iniurie done vnto God incomparably grieuous. On the other side, Sa∣tisfaction is the lesse esteemed, by how much the person sa∣tisfying is meane, and the person offended great. Men and [ C] Angells, what are they, being compared with God? certainely nothing; therefore certainely their Workes and Satisfactions are inestimably disproportionable to satisfie, for any the least mortall sinne, the guilt whereof is so great a debt, as is vnsatisfiable, but onely by the pretious bloud of the Sonne of God; hee, being a person coequall and consubstantiall with his Father, to satisfie Gods an∣ger, by humbling the infinite dignitie of his person vnto [ D] the most disgracefull death of the Crosse, offered satisfa∣ction full and compleat, yea superabundant; the person satisfying, in regard of his diuinitie, being infinitely more honourable than the person offending was contemptible by reason of his basenesse.
Thirdly, the Roman Church teacheth, That those that haue beene made the children of God by Baptisme, if they sinne mortally afterward, when they repent, God forgiues [ E] them the guilt of sinne, and consequently the eternall pu∣nishment, by the sacrament of Penance, bountifully and graciously through the meere merits of Christ, without their satisfactions: onely they must by faith, by feare, by