Pater-nosters and Kyrie-eleesons ["Lord, have mercy upon us "] do they daily say! The veriest saints among them confess their sins, and pray for pardon. The pope himself, for all his holiness, and his pardoning other men's sins, yet confesseth his own. Now if saints themselves need forgiveness, how do they deserve heaven? How can "the conscience of sin," and the merit of life, consist together? (Heb. x. 2.) He that prays for pardon, confesseth himself a sinner; and he that owns himself a sinner, acknowledgeth himself to be worthy of death; and if he be worthy of death, how is he worthy of life? If he deserve a punishment, surely he doth not at the same time deserve a reward. If they shall say, that they pray only for the pardon of venial sins, it signifies little; they had as good keep their breath for something else, seeing [that] after all their seeking the forgiveness of them, yet they must be fain to expiate them hereafter in purgatory. And if they do by their venial sins deserve purgatory, how do they at the same time merit heaven? And therefore either let the Papists cease to pray for pardon, or to pretend to merit. To beg forgiveness, if they do not indeed sin, is to mock God; and to pretend to merit, if they do, is to mock themselves.

ARGUMENT VII. The good works of believers are not commensurate and equal in goodness and value to eternal life; and therefore cannot deserve it. Common sense will evince the truth of the consequence. Who can say that such a work deserves such a reward, if it be not equal in worth and value to it, any more than that such a commodity deserves such a price, if it be not of equal worth with it? And Papists themselves grant as much. Aquinas makes the just reward of a man's labour, and the price of a thing bought, to be both alike of justice, and requires an equality wherever strict justice is.* And that the good works of the saints are not equal to eternal life, unless they be grown better than they were in Paul's time, is clear by Rom. viii. 18: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." And if the sufferings of the saints are not worthy of their glory, surely none of their other works are; their sufferings (wherein they are not merely passive, but active too; for they "choose to suffer afflictions," Heb. xi. 25) being some of the most excellent of their works, and in which most grace is exercised.

EXCEPTION. The Papists' common answer is, that the good works of believers, as they come merely from them and their free-will, are not worthy of or equal to their glory; but yet that they are so, as they proceed from grace, a supernatural principle in their hearts.

ANSWER. But we have seen before, that that very principle, though excellent, noble, divine, as to the nature of it, yet, in respect of its degrees, is but imperfect; and therefore the actings which proceed from it must needs be so too, there being such a mixture of sin in the heart where grace is seated, [that] it mingles itself with the actings of grace in our works. And how then can we say that an imperfect work deserves a full reward? that the poor, lame performances of believers are equal to that abundant glory which God in his goodness hath prepared for. them?

ARGUMENT VIII. Believers cannot recompense to God what they have • Vide Primam Secunda, quæst. cxiv. art. 1.

already received of him; and therefore cannot by all they do merit any thing of him. They that are debtors to God can by no means make him a debtor to them: when they owe him so much, he can owe them nothing. Debt to God must be discharged before any obligation can be laid upon him. And that saints cannot recompense God for what they have received of him, is clear by what was said before; for they have received of him all they are, all they have, all they do, their being, their powers and faculties, their good inclinations, principles, actings. And what can a man return to God which may recompense him for all these? It is a known saying of the philosopher, that no man can requite God or his parents.* And, indeed, if a son cannot return equal to his father for the being he hath received from him, though but subordinately to God, much less can he recompense God himself for that and all else which he hath received from him. But deserving a reward at God's hands, especially such an one as we speak of, is much more than merely to requite him for what he hath done for us; and therefore such a reward by all our good works we can never possibly merit. I conclude this with that of Bradwardine: "God hath given to and for man, miserable, captive man, man obnoxious to eternal flames, himself made man, suffering, dying, buried, that he might redeem him; and he promiseth and giveth himself wholly to be enjoyed by man as his great reward, which infinitely exceeds any mere man,"† and consequently all his power, all his holiness, all his good works. What saint on earth can requite God for giving himself for him? and how then can he merit the enjoyment of God? If the first be above his requital, I am sure the other is above

his desert.

ARGUMENT IX. He that deserves any thing of another must do something whereby that other hath some benefit or advantage; for no man can be said to merit at another's hand by doing that which is advantageous only to himself.-But believers, by all they do, profit themselves, if any, not God; they bring no gain, make no addition, to him; it is their own good, their own happiness, [which] they farther and advance by all their holiness and good works, but not God's, who is still, after all the good works of all the saints on earth for these five thousand years and upwards, the same [that] he was before all their mites have added nothing to his treasures, all their drops nothing to his ocean. "Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself?

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any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous? or is it gain. to him that thou makest thy ways perfect?" (Job xxii. 2, 3.) And therefore it must needs follow, that believers by their good works deserve nothing of God.

• ARISTOTELIS Ethica, lib. viii. + Deus dedit homini, et pro misero homine et captivo, flammis perpetuis obligato, seipsum incarnatum, passum, et sepultum, in pretium temporaliter redimendo; promittit insuper et dat seipsum totum in præmium feliciter consumendo, quod excedit quemlibet purum hominem infinite.—BRADWARDINUS, p. 345. Certe, Domine, qui me fecisti, debeo amori tuo meipsum totum ; qui me redemisti, debeo meipsum totum: imò, tantum debeo amori tuo plus quàm meipsum, quantum tu es major me, pro quo dedisti teipsum, et cui promittis teipsum.-ANSELMUS apud BRADWARDINUM, ibid. "Assuredly, O Lord, who hast made me, to thy love I owe my whole self; to thee, who hast redeemed me, I owe my entire self: nay, I owe to thy love so much more than myself, by how much thou art greater than I, for whom thou gavest thyself, and to whom thou dost promise thyself."-EDIT.

ARGUMENT X. The Popish doctrine of merits highly derogates from the honour of God and Christ; and therefore is not to be admitted.

1. It derogates from the glory of God,

(1.) In his liberality.-For God is the most liberal giver. (James i. 5.) Every good, we say, by how much the greater it is, so much the more communicative it is; and God, being the greatest good, must needs be most communicative, most liberal, and that too to such a height as nothing can be conceived more so. Now he that gives freely, is more liberal, more generous, more communicative, than he that gives out of debt, or on the account of desert; and therefore that most free and liberal way of giving must be ascribed unto God, as most suitable to him; and we cannot say that God gives any thing to his creatures out of debt, but we diminish the glory of his liberality.

(2.) In his liberty. It is a subjecting him to his creature. He that owes any thing to another is so far forth subject to him: "The borrower is servant to the lender." (Prov. xxii. 7.) He that gives all freely is more free himself than he that gives only because he owes it. And therefore if God be a debtor to man, and bound in justice to reward him, he doth not act so freely as if no such obligation lay upon him.

2. It derogates likewise from the glory of Christ, because from his merits.*—Whoever merits any thing, acquires thereby a right to that thing which before he had not, either in whole, or in part. A daylabourer hath no right to his wages but by his work; and till his work be done cannot challenge it: and so if believers merit eternal life, they do by their works get a title to it, which before their working they had not. And if they do by their works acquire a right wholly to eternal life, then Christ hath not at all merited it for them: if in part they merit it, then Christ hath but in part merited it for them, and something there is in eternal life which Christ hath not merited.

EXCEPTION. And it is in vain to say, that Christ hath merited for the saints a power of meriting; and that it is more for his glory to enable them to do it, than to do it wholly himself.

ANSWER. For, besides that the Papists can never prove that Christ hath merited any such power for believers, it is really more for the honour of his bounty to purchase all for them himself, than to enable them to it; as he is more bountiful who gives a man a great estate out of his own proper goods, than he that enables him to get an estate by his labour and industry.

Indeed Bellarmine speaks plainly, that God would have his children merit heaven, because it is more for their honour than to have it given them; (De Justif. lib. v. cap. 3;) so little is his Eminency concerned for God's glory, as zealous as he is for the credit of the saints. Methinks he might have remembered, that what is given to the one is taken away from the other; and if it be more for the saints' honour to have their inheritance by way of merit, yet it is more for God's glory that they have it as a gift.

Other arguments might be added, but I had rather mention enough than all. I have been larger in these, because, though some of the more learned among the Papists place the meritoriousness of good

• Vide CHAMIERUM, tom. iii. lib. xiv. cap. 20.

works upon something else than the intrinsic excellency of them, yet this is the most popular and dangerous error among them; the vulgar sort, not understanding the distinctions and niceties of some few scholars, are more apt to believe their good works to be of their own nature and for their own excellency meritorious. More briefly, therefore, of the rest: Bellarmine bears us in hand, that the complete meritoriousness of good works ariseth from the addition of God's promise to them; so that they which would not have merited eternal life otherwise, (though proportioned to it, if he may be believed,) yet, the promise being made, are truly worthy of it.

Against this we argue, that if the accession of the promise make good works to be truly meritorious, then it must be either because the promise makes good works better, more excellent and noble, than they would have been had no such promise been made; or else because (which is this cardinal's notion) the promise obligeth God in justice to reward them, which without it he were not bound to do.

1. But the addition of God's promise doth not raise the rate of good works, not ennoble them, nor add any intrinsical dignity or worth to them, nor make them in themselves better than they would have been if such a promise had not been made; the promise being something extrinsical to the works themselves, &c., from whence therefore they can receive no new degrees of inward goodness or worth.—The proper formal excellency of a good action ariseth from its conformity to its rule, the rightness of the principle from whence it proceeds, and the end to which it is directed. If therefore it proceed from a supernatural principle, and be referred to a súpernatural end, and be in other things agreeable to its proper rule, which is the command of God, and not the promise, (for that, though it be an encouragement to work, yet is not the rule of our working,) it hath all in it that is necessary to the essence of a good work, whether any promise be made to it or not. Indeed, the more

high and intense the principle of grace is from whence it proceeds, and the more directly and expressly it is ordered to its end, and the more exactly it is conformable to its rule, the more good, the more gracious it is; but the adding of the promise makes it not one jot more gracious, more intrinsically worthy: had God never made any promise of rewarding the good works of believers, yet they would have been as good as now they are. Nay, I meet with a Schoolman that says, if the promise make any alteration in the nature of a good work, it is rather by diminishing from its goodness than adding to it, so far as it may be an occasion of a man's acting less out of love to God, and more out of love to himself. However, did any new goodness accrue to a good work by the accession of God's promise, it would follow that the least good work

"Nor

• Nec illa promissio facit opus melius, ut patet per substantiam operis et per omnes ejus circumstantias inductivè : imò, forsitan minùs bonum ; facit enim intentionem minùs sinceram. Qui enim priùs operabatur purè propter Deum solum, nunc forsitan operetur propter retributionem promissam.-BRADWARDINUS De Causá Dei, lib. i. 339. P. does that promise make the work better, as is plain by the substance of the work, and by all its circumstances, inductively considered: nay, perhaps the promise makes the work less good; for it causes the intention to be less sincere. For he who before acted purely for the sake of God alone, now perchance may act on account of the promised reward."-Edit.

of a saint should thereby be so elevated and raised in its worth and value, as to be made equal to the greatest: the giving a cup of cold water to one of Christ's disciples, should be equal to a man's laying down his life for Christ. For "they which agree in some third, agree between themselves," as the learned bishop Davenant argues ; * and so if the giving [of] a cup of cold water to a disciple of Christ be by God's promise made equal to eternal life, dying for Christ being no more, even after the accession of the promise, they must be both equally good and (in the Papists' style) equally meritorious actions, because both commensurate to and meritorious of the same reward. Nay, supposing God should promise eternal life to a merely moral work, which had no supernatural goodness in it, or to an action in itself indifferent; yet that action, though not gracious in itself, should be of as great dignity and value as any the best and most spiritual action whatever. For the best action cannot be imagined by Papists themselves to deserve any more than eternal life, and even a mere moral or indifferent one would by the help of the promise deserve as much; and yet the Papists acknowledge that none but gracious ones can deserve it. And how absurd would it seem in the things of this life, for a promise or contract thus to raise the value of a man's labour or money above the due estimation and intrinsic worth of it! Would it not seem strange, nay, ridiculous, to affirm, when two men buy two parcels of a commodity, of equal worth in themselves, but at unequal rates, (suppose the one at a hundred pounds as the full value, the other at five pounds,) that the contract made between the buyer and seller, or the promise of the seller to let his chapman have his goods at such a price, did raise the value of his five pounds, and make it equal to the other's hundred? Who would grant this? Who would not say that such a commodity were in a manner given away, or the just price of it abated, rather than the value of the money raised? It is a case here; and what our adversaries speak of good works being made meritorious by the addition of God's promise, is no less ridiculous and void of reason.

2. The addition of God's promise of rewarding good works, doth not bind him in strict justice to reward them.-We acknowledge that he is engaged, by his immutability and faithfulness, to reward the holiness of his saints, having once promised so to do; but that is no more than to say, that God is engaged to act like himself, suitably to his own nature. It is agreeable to God, as God, to be faithful and true to his word. If he were not faithful, he could not be God: not to be faithful were to "deny himself." (2 Tim. ii. 13.) But it is quite another thing to be bound in strict justice to render to men such a reward as he hath promised. For the object of justice being the equality of the thing given and the thing received, and it being the business of justice to see to that equality, and that so much be returned for so much, God being bound by his promise to make such an equality of the reward to the work, argues imperfection in him; for it implies that God is man's debtor, and hath received more of him than hitherto he hath given him; or that a man's works exceed all his receipts, and all God's former bounty: in a word, that man hath done more for God than God hath yet done for him, on the account

Quæ conveniunt in aliquo tertio conveniunt inter se.- De Justitiá actualí, cap. 63.