MERIT OF GOOD WORKS. 201
tian, but rather, as by you explained, the anti-ehristian, doctrhie of good works, as bemg perfectly anti-evangelical. What merit you will esteem this good work of yours to have I know not, and have in part intimated what truly it doth deserve. But you add, that, " making a distinction of the intrinsic acceptability of works, you say as I say." What is that, I pray? Do I say that Protestants oppose the Chris- tian doctrine of good works, as you say in your " Fiat?" or do I say that they never opposed the merit of good works, as you feign me to say in your epistle? Neither the one nor the other; but I say that Protestants teach the Christian doctrine of good works as revealed in the gospel, and oppose the merit of good works by you invented, and as by you explained, and now avowed. And whilst you talk at this rate, as if you were perfectly innocent, you begin your story as if you had nothing to do but to accuse another of fraud, like him that cried,
" Xec, si miseram fortuna Sinouem
Finxit, vauurn etiam mendacemque improba finget;" Virg. ^n. ii. 79.
when you know what his business was. But the truth is, when you talk of the merit of good works you stand in a slippery place, and know not well what you would have, nor what it is that you would have me believe. Your Tridentine convention hath indeed provided a limber " cothurnus," to fit, if it were possible, your several statures and postures. But general words are nothing but the proportion of a cirque or arena for dogmatists to contend within the limits of The ancient ecclesiastical importance of the word " merit," wherein, as it may be proved by numberless instances, it denoted no more than to " obtain," you have the most of you rejected ; and do urge it in a strict legal sense, denoting working " for a reward," and performing that which is proportionable unto it, as the labour of the hireling is to his wages, according unto the strict rales of justice. See your Rhemish Annotations,^ 1 Cor. iii., Heb. vi. 10. So is the judgment, I think, of your church explained by Suarez, tom. i. in Thom. 3, d. 41. "A supernatural work," saith he, " proceeding from grace, in
' In 1582, an English New Testament was printed at Eheims, for the use of the Eoman Catholics in Britain, wheq, from the multiplication of Protestant Tersions, it was impossible any longer to withhold the Scriptures from the common people. It is a servile translation from the Vulgate. The annotations, to which Dr Owen I'efers, are most objectionable. On the words, Luke xiv. 23, "Compel them to come in," a note is appended plainly vindicating persecution. " St Augustine," it is said, " referreth this compelling to the penal laws, which Catholic princes do justly use against heretics and schismatics;" and at the close it is added, "Such are invited as the church of God hath power over, because they promised in baptism, and therefore are to be revoked not only by gentle means, but by just punishment also." The marginal title to the note is, " Heretics may by penal laws be compelled to the Catholic faith." Expressions occur in the notes referred to above, to the following effect : — " The reward of heaven is the recom- pense of justice;" " Good works be meritorious, and the very cause of salvation." — Ed.
202 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
itself, and in its own nature, hath a proportion unto and condignity of the reward', and is of sufficient value to be Avorth the same/' And you seem to be of the same opinion, in owning that description oi merit which Protestants reject, which I gave in my "Animadversions," — namely, " an intrinsical worth and value in works, arising from the exact answerableness unto the law and proportion unto the reward, so as on the rules of justice to deserve it." Of the same mitid are most of you (see Andrad. Orthodox. Explic. lib. vi., Bagus de Merit. Op., lib. i, cap. 9), though I can assure you Paul was not, Rom. vi. 23, viii. 18: so that you must not take it ill if Protestants oppose this doctrine with testimonies out of his Epistle to the Komans, as well as out of many other portions of the holy writ; for they look upon it as an opinion perfectly destructive of the covenant of grace. Nay, I must tell you that some of your own church and way love not to talk at this high and lofty rate. Ferus speaks plain unto you on Matt. XX.: " If you desire to hold the grace and favour of God, make no mention of your own merits." Durand sticks not to call the opinion which you seem to espouse, " temerarious," yea, " blas- phemous," quest. 2, d. 27. In the explication of your distinction of " congruity " and " condignity," how wofully are you divided ! as also in the application of it. There is no end of your altercations about it, the terms of it being horrid, uncouth, strangers to Scripture and the ancient church, of an arbitrary signification, about which men may with probabilities contend to the world's end ; and yet the very soul and life of your doctrine of merit lies in it. Some ascribe merit of congruity to works before grace, and of condignity to them done in a state of gTace; — some, merit of congruity to them done by grace, and merit of condignity they utterly exclude: some give grace and the promise a place in merit ; — some so explain it, that they can have no place at all therein. Generally, in your books of devotion, when you have to do with God, you begin to bethink yourselves, and speak much more humbly and modestly than you do when you endeavour to dispute subtilely, and quell your adversaries. And I am not without hope that many of you do personally believe, as to your own particu- lar concernments, far better than when you doctrinally express your- selves when you contend with us; as when that famous emperor, Charles V., after all his bustles in and about religion, came to die, in his retirement he expressly renounced all merit of works, as a jiroud figment, and gave up himself to the sole grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ, on whose purchase of heaven for him he alone relied. " Toto pectore in Deum revolutus sic ratiocinabatur," saith the renowned Thuanus, Hist. lib. xxi. : " se quidem indignum esse qui propriis meritis regnum crelorum oljtineret ; sed Dominum Deura suum, qui illud duplici jure obtinuit, — et Patris hasreditate, et passionis