Merit 55
6. The fathers affirm that works do justify only declaratively, not effectively. So says Thomas upon the 2nd of James: The works that follow faith are said to justify, not as justification is called an infusion of justice, but as it is called an exercise, a showing, or a consummation. And then a thing is said to be done when it is perfected and made known.
7. The fathers sometimes speak hyperbolically of works, thereby to take away the carelessness of the vulgar, and set them on fire with a greater desire unto good works. Unto this end do Chrysostom's words ad popu. Antioch, Homil. 53, tend, when he says that "Alms do free a man from death (from hell he means), give us eternal life, and are advocates for us." As also that of Hilary, in Matth., Cap. 6: "We must of ourselves deserve eternal life." And Ambrose, de poenit. lib.
2, c. 5, says in the same sense, "Our sins are covered by our works."
So does Origen, hom. 1, in Ezech.: "Why do you think much to labor, contend, and endeavor, and by your good works to be the cause of your own salvation, and bliss?"
Merit 1. Merit taken in its proper sense, for due and just desert, was never allowed of the sound professors for a thousand years after Christ. So that merit, in the Latin fathers, signifies to do something which is acceptable and pleasing unto God, and worthy of account, and to obtain or get anything of God, even without any desert of ours. A sincere and peaceable prayer, says Cyprian, deserved (or merited) the Lord (that is, obtained His favor). And Suetonius, in the life of Octavius, says, let him imitate Octavius in deserving his fellows, that is, in getting their good wills by doing them good turns. And so says
Ambrose, lib. 10, in Luc., cap. 22, in the beginning: oh water, which
deserves to be the sacrament or mystery of Christ, which washes all, and art not washed yourself? etc. So Pope Cornelius, in Eusebius, lib.
6, cap. 4, says of Novatus, that he was not confirmed of the bishop by the sign, and adds, τούτου δε μή τυχw̃ν, πιοζ çν, του αγίου πνεύματος ἒτυχε, which words Ruffinus, c. 33, translates thus: Unde nec spiritum sanctum potuit promereri, "Wherefore he could not deserve
(that is, obtain) the Holy Ghost." So Augustine, epist. 12, writes unto Jerome: "I have not yet deserved your writings." And elsewhere, epist. 13, "Would to God I could deserve to be embraced of you." And Serm. 49, de temp: "Let no sinner despair of himself, since Paul deserved pardon." And tract. 3, in Joan., "To the like effect he says that we do deserve God by faith, that is, we are acceptable unto
Him." And that of Gregory is most noteworthy: "O happy fault which deserved to have such a redeemer."
2. Merit in the writings of the fathers is not put for the worthiness of the good work in respect of the reward, but it is always put for the good work itself, pleasing unto God and accepted of Him; not of itself and its own worthiness, but through the divine favor, and free acceptation of all good works in Jesus Christ. And therefore, it is so called, namely, a good work, thereby to incite us the more to do these good things. This, Cardinal Bellarmine freely confesses (lib. 2, de grat. & lib. arbit., cap. 22): "And that the word merit is to be taken in this sense, it hereby appears, because all the fathers do ascribe all things unto grace wholly." As Bernard (Serm. 61, in Cant.) says, "My merit is God's mercy." And the same word merit, in its true and proper sense, is by them opposed against grace, as the same Bernard uses it (Serm. 67, in Cant.): "There is no place for grace to enter where merit has taken up all before." And besides (Serm. 68): "It is sufficient unto merit to know that our merit is insufficient, wherefore these works of grace are called merits by a metaphor, not properly, because they are the gifts of God, as life everlasting is called a wage,
not properly, but metaphorically." And unto this end Bernard directs his doctrine in his first sermon of the annunciation, saying that merits in very deed do deserve nothing. "Neither are man's merits of such worthiness," quotes he, "that life eternal should be their due; or that God should any ways injure man in not giving it unto him. For (to omit that all man's merits are wholly the gifts of God, and that man is rather a debtor unto God for them, than God any ways unto him) what are all our merits, being compared with that so admirable glory?" And the distribution of rewards is of God's grace, not the wage of merit, because, as Fulgentius says very well (ad Mon., lib. 1, cap. 10), "It is very rightly called grace, because God does not only accumulate His gifts upon His gifts, but also because the bounty of the Divine retribution is showed in such quantity that it admirably and incomparably exceeds all merit, though proceeding from a will and operation both good and given of God." And even the same saying has Radulphus Ardens (in Dominica 18, post. Trin.):
"Because," says he, "we proceed from and by one grace unto another, we can but improperly call them merits." For as Augustine can bear witness, "God crowns nothing in us but His own grace." And again
(in homil. Domi. Septua. 10): "To the like effect: let no man think that God is as it were bound by covenant to perform His promise. For as He is free to promise, so is He free to pay chiefly seeing our merits as well as our rewards are of His grace. For God crowns nothing but His grace in us, who if He would deal strictly with us, no man living should be justified in His sight. And therefore, the apostle that took more pains than all, says the sufferings of this life are not worthy of that future glory which shall be revealed, wherefore this bargain is nothing else but a voluntary promise."
3. Also, merit sometimes signifies the dignity and excellency of the thing itself, as when Jerome (in epist. ad Evagr.) says: "All bishops are of the same merit and the same priesthood." So the fathers say
virginity is of a greater merit than the other virtues; but indeed merits seldom signify that which we in England call desert, that is, the worthiness of the work in respect of the wages and recompense.
4. The merit of congruence before justification, whether it proceed or succeed our faith, is condemned by the fathers. "Why is it called grace?" says Augustine (Praefat. in Psal. 31), "Because it is given gratis. Why is it given gratis? Because it cost no more." And in his
Retractations, lib. 2, cap. 31, he corrects his opinion of merits, at least of merits of congruence before justification: "I said," quotes he
(lib. 6, quaest. cont. Peganos), "that in religion, salvation never was wanting unto him that proved worthy. But I said not so, as though any man could be worthy by his own merits, but as the apostle says, not of our works, but of Him that calls us." And in epist. 105, he says,
"To make a man just, merit has not sufficient power." And again, "Righteousness in Scripture is never called hire." And in Praefat. in Psal. 31, "You have not done any good, and yet the forgiveness of your sins is given you." And likewise Prosper (cap. 6, de object. Gal.) says, "The justified man (that is, of unrighteous being made righteous) receives a gift without any good merit going before his justification." And Soto (lib. 2, de natur. et grat., cap. 4) acknowledges that we have in us dispositions unto righteousness, but denies that they can properly be called merits. And Stapleton (de peccat. orig., lib. 1, cap. 4) says that "Merit of congruence in respect of the first grace is long ago abolished, nor is it allowed of by the most approved schoolmen, as Thomas in his sum, nor admitted by his followers or latter writers at any time." Indeed, Gregory of Arimin
(lib. 2, dist. 26, q. 1) expressly condemns it, as Lyra also (in 1 Joan.), and Thomas Waldensis (lib. 3, de Sacram).
5. But merit of condignity is condemned also by some others, as namely by Augustine's censure (de verb. Apost., Serm. 2), in these