In God’s decree, the law was not designed to restore from sin or to recover from the wages of sin—the law brings death, and the reader of the Scriptures needs to ask concerning that other way. The law “could not do” as far as restoration was concerned. The law brings death rather than life. Living unto God is only through the person and work of Jesus Christ, rather than through the law. This was true in the Old Testament as well as in the New.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: Romans 8:3

The law of God has great value in the Scriptures and for the Christian life. Thomas Manton would not doubt the value of the law nor its place in the Christian life; he was not a Neonomian. A high view of the law of God, as described in chapter 19 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, section five, necessitates that there are things the law can and cannot do:

“The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God, the Creator, who gave it. Neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.”

Manton would understand and propound these moral-legal duties as a minister and an assemblyman at Westminster. Despite this high view of the law, Manton understood the limitations of it. Following the Apostle Paul who confessed there were things “the law could not do,” Manton gave four limitations of the law, demonstrating what the law could not do for fallen humanity. He said in summary, “It was impossible for the law to do away sin, and justify man before God…that is, through the corruption of our natures, we being sinners, and are unable to to perform the duty of the law (Works of Manton, 11.420).” The impossibilities of the law are four.

Cannot Free Us From Sin and Death

Our father Adam was given a command in the Covenant of Works. The law, being written on his heart, was a law of full obedience. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 19.1-2, tell us that the same law that was given to Adam “continued” as the moral law given at Sinai. Was that law able to free the people of God from sin and death? No.

Despite the law not being able to free us from sin and death, God’s will—his heart, his purpose, and decree—was that man would be free. Manton said,  “It was necessary in respect of God’s purpose and decree, that we should be free from sin and death. For God would not have mankind utterly to perish…(Ibid).” God’s will was that humanity, or a people chosen from humanity, would not perish in sin and death.  God “would not lose the whole creation of mankind. God hath showed himself placable and merciful to all men, and hath forbidden despair, and continued many forfeited mercies…(Ibid).”

Sin and death are unable to be overcome through the law of God, and Manton then turns his attention to the fact that restoration is unreachable through the law as well.

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