There have been great disputes one way or another, about the merit of
good works; but I truly think they who have laboriously engaged in
them have been very idly, though very eagerly, employed about nothing,
since the more sober of the schoolmen themselves acknowledge there can
be no such thing as meriting from the blessed God, in the human, or,
to speak more accurately, in any created nature whatsoever: nay, so
far from any possibility of merit, there can be no room for reward any
otherwise than of the sovereign pleasure and gracious kindness of God;
and the more ancient writers, when they use the word merit, mean
nothing by it but a certain _correlate_ to that reward which God both
promises and bestows of mere grace and benignity. Otherwise, in order
to constitute what is properly called merit, many things must concur,
which no man in his senses will presume to attribute to human works,
though ever so excellent; particularly, that the thing done must not
previously be matter of debt, and that it be entire, or our own act,
unassisted by foreign aid; it must also be perfectly good, and it must
bear an adequate proportion to the reward claimed in consequence of
it. If all these things do not concur, the act cannot possibly amount
to merit. Whereas I think no one will venture to assert, that any one
of these can take place in any human action whatever. But why should I
enlarge here, when one single circumstance overthrows all those
titles: the most righteous of mankind would not be able to stand, if
his works were weighed in the balance of strict justice; how much less
then could they deserve that immense glory which is now in question!
Nor is this to be denied only concerning the unbeliever and the
sinner, but concerning the righteous and pious believer, who is not
only free from all the guilt of his former impenitence and rebellion,
but endowed with the gift of the Spirit. "For the time _is come_ that
judgment must begin at the house of God: and if _it_ first _begin_ at
us, what shall the end _be_ of them that obey not the Gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and
the sinner appear?" 1 Peter iv. 17, 18. The Apostle's interrogation
expresses the most vehement negation, and signifies that no mortal, in
whatever degree he is placed, if he be called to the strict
examination of Divine Justice, without daily and repeated forgiveness,
could be able to keep his standing, and much less could he arise to
that glorious height. "That merit," says Bernard, "on which my hope
relies, consists in these three things; the love of adoption, the
truth of the promise, and the power of its performance." This is the
threefold cord which cannot be broken.