“So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.'”
Lk. 17:10
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Subsection
Whether Christ Merited Glory for Himself
Reformed vs. Aquinas
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Order of Contents
Articles 12+
Book 1
Quotes 6+
Latin 1
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Articles
1500’s
Zwingli, Ulrich – Commentary on True & False Religion eds. Jackson & Heller (1525; Labyrinth Press, 1981)
‘Merit’, pp. 271-79
‘Merit’ in II. ‘Reply to Emser’, pp. 388-92
Vermigli, Peter Martyr – ‘How Grace & Works are unto Eternal Life’ in The Common Places… (d. 1562; London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 3, ch. 2. ‘Of the Calling of God & of his Grace’, pp. 52-58
Calvin, John
6. ‘Of Justification by Faith & by the Merit of Works’ in Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition tr. Elsie A. McKee (1541; Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 318-85
Institutes of the Christian Religion tr. Henry Beveridge (1559; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), vol. 2, bk. 3
16. ‘Refutation of the Calumnies by which it is attempted to throw odium on this doctrine’ 385
Musculus, Wolfgang – Common Places of the Christian Religion (1560; London, 1563)
2nd Commandment, ‘Against the teachers of merits’ 53.b
‘Of Merits towards God’ 234.a
de Brès, Guy – The Staff of Christian Faith… for to Know the Antiquity of our Holy Faith… gathered out of the Works of the Ancient Doctors of the Church… (d. 1567; London, 1577)
‘Of Freewill, of the Merits of Works & of Justification by Faith’ 51-70
‘Of Merit & of Good Works’ 70-107
de Bres (1522-1567) was a Walloon pastor, Protestant reformer and theologian, a student of Calvin and Beza in Geneva.
Beza, Theodore – pp. 50-57 in A Book of Christian Questions & Answers… (London, 1574)
Ursinus, Zachary – 6. ‘Whether good works merit anything before God’ in The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587), Of Good Works
Perkins, William
A Golden Chain (Cambridge: Legat, 1600), Errors of the Papists in their distributing of the Causes of Salvation
9. That preparation to grace, which is caused by the power of free-will, may by the merit of congruity deserve justification
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16. Works done in grace do condignly merit eternal life
5. Of Merits in A Reformed Catholic… ([Cambridge] 1598)
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1600’s
Baron, Robert – sect. 1, ‘How useful this debate [on venial and mortal sin] is for overturning the Papists’ doctrine on the perfection of human justice and merits’ in Theological Disputation on the True Distinction between Mortal & Venial Sin… tr. by AI by Onku (1633; Amsterdam, 1649), pt. 1, pp. 5-7 Latin
Baron (1596–1639) was a Scottish minister, theologian and one of the Aberdeen doctors.
Voet, Gisbert – The Force of Truth Bursting Forth in the Papacy Itself concerning Salvation through God’s Mercy Alone in Christ. pt. 1-3 (1639) tr. by AI by Onku in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht, 1655), vol. 2, 726-76 Latin
In the first part, Voet shows the profound obstacles to salvation and Christ in the Roman Church. In the second and third parts Voet give testimonies from Romanists themselves witnessing to free grace in Christ, playing down a person’s merits.
Ward, Samuel – ‘Good Works have a gracious promise of reward’ in Theological Determinations in Works of Samuel Ward… ed. Seth Ward (d. 1643; Gallibrand, 1658), pp. 194-97
Ward discusses merit at length here.
Turretin, Francis – 5. ‘Is there a merit of congruity or condignity? Do good works merit eternal life? We deny against the Romanists.’ in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1994), vol. 2, 17th Topic, pp. 710-24
Baxter, Richard – ch. 27, sect. 2, ‘On Merits’ in On the Atonement, Justice, Merit & Justification, pp. 33-37 in A Method of Christian Theology (London: White, 1681)
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Book
1600’s
Morton, Thomas – Antidote against the Poison of the Roman Church concerning Merit, properly so called, of Condignity trans. AI by Nosferatu (Cambridge: 1637) 125 pp. Latin
Dedicatory Epistle 3
ToC 7
Indices 10
1. State of controversy; Merit of congruity and its refutation; Three questions 16
1. Whether any merits of congruity precede justification 16
2. On the dispositions by which sinners are aroused to grace by grace 17
3. Whether a just man established in grace, if he should happen to fall into mortal sin, can merit the grace of reparation 18
2. Merit of condignity; Its name and sense; Scriptures objected by Papists solved 19
3. Objections from fathers for the term ‘merit’ are solved 33
4. Against merit of condignity from Scripture; from principles and confessions of Papists 36
5. Arguments against condignity, from Papists. 1st: A good work is devoid of the foundation of justice towards God, both commutative and distributive 37
6. 2nd: A good work is devoid of any foundation of condignity; Against the pretexts of free will, of the Holy Spirit, of a member of Christ and of a covenant 41
7. 3rd: Eternal life is rendered out of the worthiness and acceptance of God 49
8. Arguments from Scriptures and fathers. 1st: A good work is a gift of God 52
9. 2nd: Every good work is owed to God 55
10. 3rd: Every work of ours is unworthy of so great a remuneration 58
11. 4th: God cannot be properly a debtor to men 63
12. 5th: Eternal life itself is a gift of God 68
13. 6th: Eternal life is an inherited gift; Objection: The kingdom of heaven is for sale; Solution 71
14. 7th: Eternal life is above the condignity of any work whatsoever 78
15. 8th: A God work helps God in no way whatsoever 83
16. 9th: Such a claim among men would be hatefully execrable 85
17. 10th: Against Papists’ ultimate refuge, as if Christ merited for us the power of meriting: That pretext is derogatory to Christ’s proper merits; The Protestants’ doctrine more greatly amplifies Christ’s merits; The fathers are opposed to the Papists; Augustine’s opinion vindicated 90
18. 11th: The most noble Christian work, martyrdom, is not meritorious 105
19. 12th: For every good thing, gratitude is owed to God 108
20. 13th: Merit greatly hinders the progress of true piety, in four theses: 113
1. The necessity of good works which is required by Protestants 113
2. The imperfection of good works insofar as they are from us 117
3. The dignity of our works insofar as they are through grace 123
4. The very progress of true piety, because Protestants use those arguments that the fathers used in exhorting and persuading to all holiness 125-27
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Quotes
Order of
Beza & Faius
Bergius
Pareus
Alsted
Mede
Crocius
Hoornbeek
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1500’s
Theodore Beza & Anthony Faius
Propositions & Principles of Divinity Propounded & Disputed in the University of Geneva by Certain Students of Divinity there, under Mr. Theodore Beza & Mr. Anthony Faius… (Edinburgh: Waldegrave, 1591), 25. ‘Of the Justification of Sinful Man in the Sight of God’, p. 60
“These Doctrines therefore are to be detested:
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8 That Christ does purchase the dignity of merit by our good works, which is a new-coined falsehood of the Jesuits.”
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Conrad Bergius
Praexi Cathol. Divin. Canon. (d. 1592), Dissertation 7, pp. 963-64 as the Latin is in Richard Baxter, Richard Baxter’s Confession of his Faith… (London: 1655), ch. 10, sect. 3, p. 364, trans. ChatGPT-5 Bergius (1544-1592) was a German reformed theologian.
“Therefore the Papists err grievously when they confuse works taken generally with merits, and as soon as they hear of a pious work being commanded, immediately understand merit and a work spoken of in a legal sense. Likewise, when they hear that a reward is promised, they again understand it juridically and legally, as in some contract of hiring and payment;
whereas reward is commonly called whatever we obtain after preceding labor and difficulties, whose fear might have deterred us from a good purpose, and which are compensated by the sweetness of the good that follows. Such are not only:
(1) the rendering of a good to which a preceding work corresponds in equal worth (that is, merit of condignity), but also
(2) the execution of a donation or almsgiving purely gratuitous, which a poor man, humbly and faithfully waiting for it, does not render void by contempt or ingratitude. Such acceptance is not an efficient or meritorious cause of the donation already made, but is a condition of not falling from the donation, that is, the exclusion of a cause that would merit or effect our losing it. Nor does it effect anything of itself by its own power or dignity, but only from the prior liberality and mercy of the giver, or even of one interceding with the giver.
(3) Likewise, the execution of a promise made under a condition—not only of gratefully accepting and not despising the gift (for no donation is so free and pure as not to include this condition), but also of a certain work, besides acceptance and gratitude, required in addition—which therefore is in some sense meritorious, although there is perhaps no equality or commutation between the work and the promised reward;
as if a father promises a jewel to his son who takes bitter medicine, or a prince promises a prize to a subject engaged in an exercise or contest beneficial to him. In this case, the donation is not purely free, since the thing does not begin to be owed as soon as the promise is accepted, but only when the condition is fulfilled; nor is it properly merit of condignity, since the worker benefits himself rather than giving something to another for which he ought to receive an equal price. Hence again it effects nothing properly by its own virtue or dignity, but only from the liberality, magnificence, and mercy of the giver, or of one interceding with him. Yet it is a certain merit improperly so called, which they call merit by covenant.
Something of this kind, with respect to good works in the children of God, to whom God has promised rewards, is admitted by the Apology of the Augsburg Confession [written by Philip Melanchthon] in response to the argument—although others, on account of the ambiguity and great abuse of the term “merit,” not without reason reject it altogether.
[4] Another [kind of merit] is what they call merit of congruity [or proportion], which either seems not to signify merit at all, or involves a contradiction, etc.”
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1600’s
David Pareus
Bellarmine Castigated, ‘On Justification’, bk. 5, ch. 3, pp. 1245-46 in Richard Baxter’s Confession of his Faith… (London: 1655), ch. 10, sect. 3, p. 405
“But 2. let us understand that according to works signifies an analogy or measure of good works and of evil, as it may fitly be understood, and we also have elsewhere interpreted. There is then an ambiguity in the word ‘analogy,’ or ‘proportion,’ and we must distinguish between a proportion causal, meritorious, and a proportion-conditional.
A causal, meritorious proportion of works and reward is when greater or lesser works are the cause or merit of a greater or lesser reward. A conditional proportion is when greater or lesser works are not the cause or merit, but only the position of the condition under which a greater or lesser reward is to be had.
In evil works or sins, there are both proportions, causal or meritorious, and conditional of the works to the reward. Of good works, this proposition is false: ‘According to whose proportion eternal life is promised, that is meritorious of eternal life.’ For here is understood not a causal, but a conditional proportion, etc. For they have not the conditions of merit properly so called; but they are the position (or performing) of the condition on which God does promise and distribute the rewards of eternal life and glory.”
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Johann H. Alsted
‘On Justification & Good Works in General’ in Theologia polemica, exhibens praecipuas huius aeui in religionis negotio controuersias sex in partes tributa studio (d. 1638) at Nosferatu’s Substack (2024)
“Controversy XIV: Do good works truly merit eternal salvation?
Orthodox Position: No one can be saved without merits; but the root, source, and origin of these merits is Christ. Although God adorns and rewards our works, both in this life and the next, with the most abundant rewards, not only by His mercy but also by justice, due to the previous promise or covenant, however, speaking properly, we do not merit eternal life with them.
[Romanist] Position of Bellarmine: Good works are properly meritorious, and this by merit of congruence or condign. The merit of congruence is in relation to moral works performed before justification. For these, by their nature, do not merit salvation, except concerning what is promised to them by God’s goodness. The merit of condign is that by which the reward is entirely due. And this is attributed to good works after justification. The works of the righteous merit eternal life by condign in two ways: first, in reason of the covenant or justice, which makes God our debtor; second, in reason of the intrinsic dignity of these works; for they are proportional to the reward in an arithmetical proportion, as seen in commutative justice.
Confirmation of the Thesis:
1. God’s grace and our merit are contrary (Romans 4, 11).
2. Christ merited for us the beginning, middle, and end of salvation (John 2; Acts 3, 4).
3. Good works do not meet the conditions of proper merit, which are contained in this verse: Gratia, si non debes, est gratia. Good works are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and for that reason, we owe them to God. There is no proportion between our works and eternal life, for here everything is perfect and infinite, there everything is imperfect, as admitted by Scotus and Durandus.
4. The Church Fathers teach this. Bernard says that our merits, that is, our works, are the way to the kingdom, not the cause of the kingdom. And Augustine: “In your justice, Lord, not in mine. Not because I deserved it, but because you had mercy.” And also: “All my hope is in the death of my Lord. His death is my merit, my life, and resurrection. My merit is the mercy of the Lord. I will not lack merit as long as the Lord of mercies does not lack me.”
[Romanist] Confirmation of the Antithesis:
1. The word “merit” occurs in Scripture, both explicitly in Hebrews 13, where it is said that God is pleased with such sacrifices, and implicitly in 2 Thessalonians 1, Revelation 3 and 16, where it speaks of dignity.
2. Eternal life is the denarius given for work as a just reward (Matthew 20).
3. Eternal life is given according to the measure and proportion of the work (Matthew 16; Romans 2; 1 Corinthians 3; 2 Corinthians 5; Galatians 6; Revelation 22).
4. The cause by which eternal life is given to the righteous is sought in the works, as the words “because,” “for this reason” (Matthew 25; Revelation 7) teach.
5. The reward is given to good works as a crown, which is rightfully due to those who run and compete (1 Corinthians 9; James 1; Revelation 2). For this reason, it is said that this reward is given by justice (2 Thessalonians 1; 2 Timothy 4; Hebrews 6).
6. The worker is worthy of his wages (Luke 10).
7. The promise of eternal life depends on the condition of works (Matthew 19; James 1; 1 Timothy 4).
8. God estimates each one according to his works (Acts 10; Romans 2; Galatians 2; 1 Peter 1).
9. Eternal life is grace for grace (John 1).
10. Grace is the seed of glory (1 John 3). The seed is equal to the plant in potential.
11. Eternal life and good work are supernatural actions, and there is proportion between both in terms of dignity.
12. Reward and merit are correlates.
13. Our merits flow from the merits of Christ as our head. He, by His death, merited that our works merit eternal life.
14. Our works merit by covenant or alliance. God has promised to reward them.
15. Our works are perfect and without any defect or stain. They are works of the Holy Spirit and therefore deserve properly.
16. This is the doctrine of the Church, often inculcated by the Church Fathers.
[The Reformed] Refutation:
1.2.6.12. The vulgar version is not adequate. Hebrews 13 is incorrect and barbaric. Moreover, the reward properly speaking is due by debt. But eternal life is called a reward metaphorically, for it is given at the end of life and freely. This distinction of reward occurs in Romans
4. Thus, the reward is either by debt or by mercy. Moreover, eternal life is called a reward and crown in relation to Christ’s merit. Therefore, the direct relationship is between eternal life and Christ’s merit applied to us. The dignity is either proper, based on our qualities, or dependent on grace and someone else’s graciousness, as is our dignity before God. We are not worthy in ourselves but in Christ, insofar as we are enriched with the merits of Christ. For this reason, it does not refer to our dignity but to divine graciousness or acceptance, by which God deigned not only to promise us life but also to enable us to attain it. Here, too, the distinction between unworthy and not worthy should be maintained: the reprobates are unworthy; the righteous, considered in themselves, are not worthy. Hence the poet says: “It is more worthy of God to give to the unworthy.” We say we work inasmuch as, being moved, we act in the vineyard of the Lord. This results in eternal life being called a denarius.
3.4.5.7.8.9.10.11.14. Between eternal life and good works, there is a proportion not of dignity or value, but of order and measure. Moreover, this reward is given by justice of fidelity in relation to the covenant, not by justice of equality or exact compensation in relation to value and our work. Thus, here is distributive justice. Just distribution does not seek exact equality (which is proper to commutative justice) but is satisfied with any kind of order proportion, that is, likeness and correspondence. Therefore, it is wrong to conclude equality from likeness. God’s debt is not absolute nor based on our merits, but it is conditional and entirely dependent on God’s covenant and His gracious promise. No mortal can fulfill the condition of the legal covenant, but only of the Gospel. There, eternal life is promised to those who do good, here to those who believe, and therefore because of Christ’s merit, between which and eternal life there is a proportion of parity. Therefore, good works are causes of salvation, but not meritorious. They are metonymical locutions, so that good works are taken by faith, of whose effects and signs they are. Christ did not merit for our works to be meritorious, but He Himself, as the perfect Mediator, merited eternal life for us. Our works would be without stain if they immediately and directly emanated from the Holy Spirit, but this is not so, for they are done through the will of the sinful man. Thus, we see clear water at the source but muddy in the dirty pipes. Therefore, good works are perfect, but not in the highest degree. Merit is taken properly and strictly, or improperly, broadly and popularly, and by metonymy. The Latin Fathers sometimes take merit in the latter sense, so that merit is the very good work that pleases God, not by its own value but by divine graciousness because of Christ, who receives its reward, though freely. And also, merere means to obtain, to achieve, or to gain something from God; also, to be accepted, to please, and to be considered worthy because of Christ.
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Controversy XV: Can one trust in good works?
[Romanist] Position of Bellarmine: The principal hope and trust in salvation should be placed in God’s mercy, but there can also be some trust in our own merits. As God has promised eternal life under the condition of piety (1 Corinthians 2; Revelation 2), it is therefore possible to place some trust in this condition. And certainly, the saints did so (Nehemiah 5; Psalm 18; Isaiah 38; 2 Timothy 4).
Orthodox Position: As there are no proper merits, trust cannot be placed in them. However, we can trust in works insofar as they are infallible witnesses of election and faith. Thus, a good conscience arises from them. And this is what is proved by the cited passages.”
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Joseph Mede
The Works… (d. 1638; London: 1672), Discourse 34 on Neh. 13:14, pp. 175-76
“Nay more than this, we deny not but in some sense this reward may be said to proceed of justice. For howsoever originally and in itself we hold it comes from God’s free bounty and mercy, who might have required the work of us without all promise of reward (for, as I said, we are his creatures and owe our being unto Him), yet in regard He has covenanted with us, and tied Himself by his Word and promise to confer such a reward, the reward now in a sort proves to be an act of justice, namely of justitia promissi [justice of promise] on God’s part, not of merit on ours: even as in forgiving our sins (which in itself all men know to be an act of mercy) He is said to be ‘faithful and just’, 1 Jn. 1:9, namely in the faithful performance of his promise; for promise (we know) once made, among honest men is accounted a due debt.
But this argues no more any worthiness of equality in the work toward the obtaining of the reward than if a promise of a kingdom were made to one if he should take up a straw, it would follow thence that the lifting up of a straw were a labor or a work worth a kingdom; howsoever, he that should so promise were bound to give it.
Thus was Moses careful to put the children of Israel in mind touching the land of Canaan (Dt. 9:5, which was a type of our eternal habitation in Heaven), that it was a land of promise, and not of merit, which God gave them to possess, not for their righteousness, or for their upright heart, but that He might perform the word which He swore unto their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Whereupon the Levites, in the Book of Nehemiah, say in their prayer to God:
‘Thou madest a covenant with Abraham, to give to his seed the land of the Canaanites, and hast performed thy words, because Thou art just,’ (Neh. 9:8)
that is, true and faithful in keeping thy promise.
Now because the Lord has made a like promise of the crown of life to them that love Him, St. Paul sticks not in like manner to attribute this also to God’s justice; ‘Henceforth’ (says he, 2 Tim. 4:8)
‘is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing.’
Upon which St. Bernard most sweetly, as he is wont:
Est ergo quam Paulus expectat corona iustitiae; sed iustitiae Dei, non suae: iustum quippe est, ut reddat quod debet; debet autem quod pollicitus est.
‘There is therefore a crown of righteousness which Paul looks for; but it is of God’s righteousness, not his own: it being a righteous thing with God to give what he owes; now he owes what he has engaged himself to by promise.’
Lastly, for the word ‘merit’, it is not the name we so much scruple at, as the thing now-a-days to be understood thereby: otherwise we confess the name might be admitted, if taken in the large and more general sense, for any work having relation to a reward to follow it, or whereby a reward is quocunque modo [in whatever way] obtained; in a word, as the correlate indifferent either to merces gratiae or iustitiae, ‘the reward of grace or of justice’. For thus the Fathers used it; and so might we have done still, if some of us had not grown too proud, and mistaken it. Since we think it better and safer to disuse it, even as physicians are wont to prescribe their patients recovered of some desperate disease, not to use any more [of] that meat or diet which they find to have caused it.”
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Ludovicus Crocius
Syntagma, bk. 4, ch. 18, pp. 1130-31, as the Latin is in Richard Baxter, Richard Baxter’s Confession of his Faith… (London: 1655), ch. 10, sect. 3, pp. 369-70, trans. ChatGPT-5 Crocius (1586 – 1653 or 1655) was a German reformed minister, a delegate at the Synod of Dort and a professor of theology and philosophy in Bremen.
“Such works (that obtain a reward) are not only those of condign merit, but also:
(1) the execution of a donation or almsgiving that is entirely gratuitous, which a poor man, humbly and faithfully waiting for it, does not render void by contempt or ingratitude;
(2) the execution of a promise which is made not only under the condition of accepting and not despising the gift (a condition which no donation is so free as not to include), but also of a certain work besides—on which account it is in some sense meritorious, even though there may perhaps be no equality or commutation between this work and the promised reward; as, for example, if a father promises a jewel to his son who takes bitter medicine.
Yet this is not a purely gratuitous donation, since the thing does not begin to be owed as soon as the promise is accepted, but when the condition has been fulfilled; nor is it properly merit of condignity, since the one acting benefits himself rather than gives something to another for which he ought to receive an equal price.
But it is a certain merit improperly so called, which they call merit by covenant. Something of this kind, with respect to good works in the children to whom God has promised rewards, we admit.”
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Johannes Hoornbeek
‘A Practical Theological Disputation on Sin, pt. 2’ tr. by AI by Onku (Leiden: Johann Elsevir, 1660), Corollaries Latin
“VI. Are good works meritorious of eternal salvation? No.”
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Latin Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – ‘On the Adjuncts & Requisites of Good Works: truthfulness or sincerity, necessity, preciseness, constancy or progress, efficacy or causality and of the opposite, merit, of imperfection’ in 50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Whole Decalogue’ in Select Theological Disputations (Amsterdam: Jansson, 1667), p. 770
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