Commentary on Psalms Volume 2 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
trust in their vows as meriting salvation. They contract vows, beside, which have no divine warrant, but, on the contrary, are explicitly condemned by the word of God.
Psalm 50:16-20
16. But unto the wicked God hath said, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy lips? 17. Also thou hatest correction, and castest my words behind thee. 18. If thou seest a thief, thou wilt run with him, and thou hast been partaker with adulterers. 19. Thou puttest forth thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. 20. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's sons.
16 But unto the wicked, etc. He now proceeds to direct his censures more openly against those whose whole religion lies in an observance of ceremonies, with which they attempt to blind the eyes of God. An exposure is made of the vanity of seeking to shelter impurity of heart and life under a veil of outward services, a lesson which ought to have been received by all with true consent, but which was peculiarly ungrateful to Jewish ears. It has been universally confessed, that the worship of God is pure and acceptable only when it proceeds from a sincere heart. The acknowledgement has been extorted from the poets of the heathen, and it is known that the profligate were wont to be excluded from their temples and from participation in their sacrifices. And yet such is the influence of hypocrisy in choking and obliterating even a sentiment so universally felt as this, that men of the most abandoned character will obtrude themselves into the presence of God, in the confidence of deceiving him with their vain inventions. This may explain the frequency of the warnings which we find in the prophets upon this subject, declaring to the ungodly again and again, that they only aggravate their guilt by assuming the semblance of piety. Loudly as the Spirit of God has asserted, that a form of godliness, unaccompanied by the grace of faith and repentance, is but a sacrilegious abuse of the name of God; it is yet impossible to drive the Papists out of the devilish delusion, that their idlest services are sanctified by what they call their final intention. They grant that none but such as are in a state of grace can possess the meritum de condigno; 252 but they maintain that the mere outward acts of devotion,
"The Schoolmen in that Church, 'the Church of Rome,' spoke of meritum de congruo, and meritum de condigno. By meritum de congruo, 'to which Calvin refers in the concluding part of the sentence,' they meant the value of good works and good dispositions previous to justification, which it was fit or congruous for God to reward by infusing his grace. By meritum de condigno they meant the value of good works performed after justification, in consequence of the grace then infused." — Dr Hill's Lectures in Divinity, volume 2, p. 348; see also Turretine's Theology, volume 2, p. 778.