Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux, Chapter 2
CHAP. II.
Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions. The method of Fiat Lux. Romanists doctrine of the Merit of Good Works.
IN your exceptions to the first Chapter of the Animadversions pag. 20. I wish I could find any thing agreeable unto Truth, according unto your own Principles. It was ever granted, that foreign; but alwayes to fail, and faigne at pleasure, was never allowed so much as to Poets. Men may oftentimes utter many things untrue, wherein yet some principles which they are perswaded to be agreeable unto Truth, or some more generall mistakes from whence their particular assertions proceed, may countenance their consciences from a sense of guilt, and some way shield their reputation from the sharpness of censure: But willingly and often for a man practically to offend in this kind, when his mind and understanding is not imposed upon by any previous mistakes, is a miscarriage, which I do not yet perceive that the subtilest of your Casuists have found out an excuse for. Two Exceptions you lay against this Chapter, in the first whereof, by not speaking the whole Truth, you render the whole untruth; and in the latter you plainly affirm that which your eyes told you to be otherwise, First you say, I proposed a dilemma unto you for saying you had concealed your method; when what I spake unto you was upon your saying, first that you had used no method, and afterwards that you had concealed your method; as you also in your next words here confess. Now both these being impossible, and severally spoken by you, only to serve a present turn, your sorry merriment about the Scholler and his eggs, will not free your self from being very ridiculous. Certainly this using no method, and yet at the same time concealing your method, is part of that civil Logick you have learned no man knows where: You had farre better hide your weaknesses under an universall silence, as you do to the most of them, than expose them afresh unto publick contempt, trimmed up with froth and trifles. But this is but one of the least of your escapes; you proceed to downright work in your following words; Going on you deny (say you) that Protestants ever opposed the merit of Good works; which at first I wondred at, seeing the sound of it hath rung so often in my own ears, and so many hundred Books written in this last Age so apparently witness it in all places, till I found afterwards in my thorow perusall of your Book, that you neither heed what you say, nor how much you deny; at last giving a distinction of the intrinsick acceptability of our works, the easier to silence me, you say as I say. Could any man, not acquainted with you, ever imagin, but that had denied that ever Protestants opposed the merit of Good works; you positively affirm I did so; you pretend to transcribe my own words; you wonder why I should say so; you produce testimony to disprove what I say, and yet all this while you know well enough that I never said so: have a little more care, if not of your Conscience, yet of your Reputation; for seriously if you proceed in this manner, you will lose the common Priviledge of being believed when you speak truth. Your words in your Fiat Lux, p. 15. ed. 2. are, that our Ministers cull out various Texts (out of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans) against the Christian doctrine of Good works, and their merit; wherein you plainly distinguish between the Christian Doctrine of Good works, and their merit, as well you may; I tell you pag. 25, 26 that no Protestant ever opposed the Christian Doctrine of Good Works. Here you repeat my words as you pretend, and say, that I deny that any Protestant ever opposed the Merit of Good works; and fall into a fained wonderment at mee, for saying that which you knew well enough I never said: For Merit is not the Christian, but rather as by you explained, the Antichrichristian Doctrine of Good works, as being perfectly Anti-Evangelicall. What Merit you will esteem this Good work of yours to have, I know not, and have in part intimated what truely it doth deserve. But you adde, that making a distinction of the intrinsick acceptability of works, you say as I say: What is that I pray? do I say, that Protestants oppose the Christian 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 fain 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 Gospell, and oppose the Merit of Good works, by you invented, and as by you explained, and now avowed. And whilest 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,
—Nec si me miserum fortuna Sinonem
Finxit, vanum etiam mendacem que improba fingit.
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 severall statures and postures. But generall words are nothing but the proportion of a Cirque or Arena for Dogmatists to contend within the limits of. The Antient Ecclesiasticall 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 Legall 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 Rules of Justice. See your Rhem. An. 1 Cor. 3. Heb. 6. 10. So is the judgment I think of your Church explained by Suarez, Tom. 1. in Thom. 3. d. 41. A Supernaturall work, saith he, proceeding from Grace in its self, and in its own nature, hath a proportion unto, and condignity of the reward, and … of sufficient value, to be worth the same. And you seem to be of the same opinion in owning that description of Merit, which Protestants reject, which I gave in my Animadversions; namely an intrinsecall 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 mind are most of you; See Andrad. Orthodox. Explic. lib. 6. Bagus de Merit. Op. Lib. 1. cap. 9. Though I can assure you, Paul was not, Rom. 6. 23. Ch. 8. 18. so that you must not take it ill, If Protestants oppose this Doctrine, with Testimonies out of his Epistle to the Romanes, 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 Mat. 20. If you desire to hold the Grace and favour of God, make no mention of your own merits. Durand slicks not to call the opinion which you seem to espouse, temerarious, yea blasphemous, 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 termes of it being horrid, uncouth, strangers to Scripture and the antient Church, of an arbitrary signification, about which men may with probabilities contend to the worlds 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 Grace; 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 your selves, and speak much more humbly and modestly, than you do when you endeavour to dispute subtilly and quell your Adversaries, And I am not without hope, that many of you do personally believe as to your own particular concernments, far better than when you doctrinally express your selves, when you contend with us: As when that famous Emperour Charles the fist, after all his bustles in and about Religion, came to die in his retirement, he expresly renounced all merit of works, as a proud sigment, 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 pectori in Deum revolutus sic ratiocinabatur, saith the renowned Thuanus, Hist. lib. 21. se quidem indignum esse qui propriis meritis regnum Caelorum obtineret; sed Dominum Deum suum qui illud duplici jure obtinuit, & patris haereditate, & passionis merito, altero contentum esse, alterum sibi donare, ex cujus dono illud sibi merito vindicet, hac que , fiducia fretus minime confundatur; ne que enim oleum misericordiae, nisi in vase fiducia poni: hanc homines fiducium esse à se deficientis & innitentis Domino suo, alioqui propriis meritis fidere non fidei esse, sed perfidiae; peccata remitti per Dei indulgentiam, ideo que credere nos debere, peccata deleri non posse, nisi ab eo, cuisoli peccavimus. & in quem peccatum non cadit, per quem solum nobis peccata condonantur. Words worthy of a lasting memory, which they will not fail of where they are recorded. Casting himself, saith that excellent Historian, with his whole soul upon God, he thus reasoned; That for his part he was on the account of any merits of his own, unworthy to obtain the Kingdom nf Heaven; but his Lord and God, who hath a double right unto it, one by inheritance of his Father, the other by the merit of his own passion, contented himself with the one, granted the other unto him; by whose grant, he rightly (or deservedly) laid claim thereunto; and resting in this faith or confidence, he was not confounded; for the oyl of mercy is not powred but into the vessel of faith: this is the faith or confidence of a man fainting or despairing in himself, and resting on his Lord; and otherwise to trust to our own merits, is not an act of faith but of infidelity or perfidiousness; that sins are forgiven by the mercy of God, and that therefore we ought to believe that sins cannot be blotted out or forgiven, but by him against whom we have sinned, who sinneth not, and by whom alone our sins are pardoned. This Sr is the faith of Protestants in reference unto the merit of works, which that Wise and Mighty Emperour, after all his Military actings against them, found the only safe Anchor for his soul in extremis, his only relief against crying out with Hadrian
Animula vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comes que corporis,
Quae nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula, frigida, nudula
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos.
The only Antidote against despair, the only stay of a soul when once entring the lists of Eternity. And I am perswaded, that many of you fix on the same Principles, as to your hope and expectation of Life and Immortality. And to what purpose, I pray you, do you trouble the world with an opinion, wherein you can find no benefit, when, if true you should principally expect to be relieved and supported by it. But he that looks to find solid peace and consolation in this world, or a blessed entrance into another, on any other grounds than those expressed by that dying Emperour, will find himself deceived. Sr, you will one day find, that our own works or merits, Purgatory, the sufferage of your Church, or any parts of it, when we are dead, the surplussage of the works or merits of other sinners, are pitifull things to come into competition with the blood of Christ, and pardoning-Mercy in him. I confess, the Inquisition made a shift to destroy Constantine who was confessor to the Emperour, and assisted him unto his departure. And King Philip took care that his Son Charles should not live in the faith wherein his Father Charles died; whereby Merit, or our own Righteousness, prevailed at Court: but, as I said, I am perswaded that when many of you are in cold blood, and think more of God than of Protestants, and of your last account than of your present Arguments, you begin to believe that Mercy and the Righteousness of Christ will be a better plea, as to your own particular concernments at the last day. Seeing therefore that Protestants teach the necessity of Good works upon the cogent Principles I minded you of in my Animadversions, I suppose it might not be amiss in you to surcease from troubling them about their Merit, which few of you are agreed about, and which, as I would willingly hope, none of you dare trust unto. You have, I suppose, been minded before now of the conclusion made in this matter by your great Champion Bellarmin, lib. 5. de Justificat. cap. 7. Propter (saith he) incertitudinem propriae justitiae, & periculum inanis gloriae, TUTISSIMUM est, fiduciam totam in sola Dei misericordia & be…ignitate reponere: Because of the uncertainty of our own righteousness, and the danger of vain-glory, it is the Safest course to place all our confidence in the alone mercy and benignity of God: Wherein, if I mistake not, he disclaimeth all that he had subtilly disputed before about the merit of Works; and he appears to have been in good earnest in this conclusion; seeing he made such use of it himself in particular, at the close of all his Disputes and Dayes; praying in his last Will and Testament, That God would deal with him, not as aestimator meriti, a Judg of his merit, but largitor veniae a mercifull Pardoner; Vit. Bell. per Sylvestr, à Pet. San. Impress. Antuerpiae 1631. And why is this the safest course? certainly it must be, because God hath appointed it and revealed it so to be; for on no other ground can any course towards Heaven be accounted safe. And if this be the way of his appointment, that we should trust to his mercy alone in Christ Jesus; let them that will be so minded, notwithstanding all perswasions to the contrary, as to trust to their own merit, take heed lest they find when it is too late, that they have steered a course not so safe as they expected. And so I desire your excuse for this Diversion, the design of it being only to discover one reason of your failing in morality, in affirming mee to have said that which you knew well enough I did not; which is this, that you stood in a slippery place as to the point of faith which you were asserting, being not instructed how to speak constantly and evenly unto it. And to take you off from that vain confidence, which this proud opinion of the Merit of works, is apt to ingenerate in you; whose first Inventours, I fear, did nor sufficiently consider with whom they had to doe, before whom sinners appearing in their own strength and Righteousness will one day cry, Who amongst us shall dwell with devouring fire, who amongst us shall inhabit with everlasting burnings? not the purity, perfection and severity of his fiery Law, judging, condemning, cursing every sinner for every sinne, without the least intimation of mercy or compassion; if you would but seriously consider, how impossible it is for any man to know all his secret sinnes, or to make compensation to God for the least of them that he doth know, and that the very best of his works come short of that universal perfection which is required in them, so that he dares not put the issue of his eternal condition upon any one of them singly, though all the rest of his life should be put into everlasting oblivion; and withall would diligently enquire into the end of God in giving his Son to die for sinners, with the mystery of his Love and Grace therein, the nature of the New Covenant, the Importance of the Promises thereof, the weight that is layed in Scripture on the Righteousness and blood of Christ with the Redemption that is purchased thereby; or to the whole work of our Salvation, and the peremptory exclusion of the merit of our works by Paul form our Justification before God; I am perswaded you would find another manner of Rest and Peace unto your soul, than all your own works, and your other pretended supplements of them, or reliefs against their defects, are able to supply you withall. And this I hope you will not be offended at, that I have thus occasionally minded you of.