De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

The first argument which the Lutherans bring against us against the merit of works they draw from that [passage] of Paul to the Romans, where he teaches that by the very fact that we are sons, we are also heirs.¹ But we are sons through the first grace without our merits, as we ourselves confess: therefore through it we also have the right to the kingdom. Whence, they say, it is repugnant that we do not merit the first grace, but do merit eternal life. Which is especially confirmed from what he had said in chapter 6: The wages of sin is death, but the grace of God is eternal life. For if life is the reward of good works, as punishment is the wage of evildoers, when he said, The wages of sin is death, he would have said, The wages of virtue is eternal life.² To this, however, the first answer is at hand, that even if through the first grace we are made sons and heirs, nothing nevertheless prevents us from being able to merit increases both of grace and of glory, as members of CHRIST into whom his power is derived, with which our free will cooperates. According to that of Augustine to Paulinus: Grace itself merits to be increased, so that increased it may merit to be perfected: with the will accompanying, not leading: following, not preceding. To which the evangelical multiplication of talents also alludes. By which answer those who have not more deeply inspected the concurrence of our dispositions to grace will think enough has been done for the matter. For according to the opinion of St. Thomas and others who examine this more carefully, a second answer is adduced. Namely, that although through the first grace we are made heirs of the kingdom, nevertheless the dispositions, namely the acts of faith, hope and penance (which is of charity), although they are not merits of the first grace itself, yet through the same grace, in the same way informed, they are merits of glory. Whence through grace which we do not merit, we are accepted to glory which through the same grace we merit. For because we receive grace, the works are meritorious, and thence we acquire the right to the kingdom. For in the same point of time in which grace is infused it works. This is not the discourse concerning the degree of grace which is the effect of the sacrament. And in this way Augustine expounds that the grace of God is eternal life.³ First in the second letter to Sixtus, which is the 105th, treating the same passage of Paul, The wages of sin is death, etc. For he had premised that he who is freed from sin cannot boast of his merits for which he was freed. Whence, with this question subjoined: Are there therefore no merits of the just? he answers: There are indeed, because they are just. But that they might become just, there were no merits. Behold, denying merits before grace, he concedes them in grace. And thence a little after he gathers these words. Whence even eternal life itself, which indeed will be had at the end without end, and therefore is rendered for preceding merits: yet because those same merits for which it is rendered were not prepared by us through our sufficiency, but made in us through grace, it is also itself (namely eternal life) called grace: not for any other reason than because it is given freely: nor therefore because it is not given for merits, but because those very merits for which it is given were also given. And therefore Paul says: The wages of sin is death, but the grace of God is eternal life: not that eternal life is not also the wage of justice proceeding from faith, because as death is rendered as the wage for the merit of sin, so eternal life as the wage for the merit of justice. Whence it is also called a reward in very many places of the holy Scriptures. Thus Augustine. And he adds that lest man should glory in his merits as if he had not received, the blessed Apostle said: The grace of God is eternal life.⁴ He repeats the same opinion in On Grace and Free Will, chapter 7. Therefore it must not be denied that the works of the just are truly merits, whose reward and wage is eternal life, but it must be confessed that they would not be merits unless they were the obediences of that generous one who through the grace of God is just before he has merits. And so it must be understood what the adversaries object to us from the book Against the Letters of Pelagius, and other places, that all the justices of all the saints are owed to CHRIST, and therefore they are not to be praised in themselves, but in the Lord. According to the voice of David: In the Lord my soul shall be praised: and, By the grace of God I am what I am.⁵

But they could draw another argument⁶ valid at first sight, from that [passage] of David, speaking of God with his soul: Who crowns you in mercy and compassion.⁷ Where David calls that very crown of justice, which Paul says is laid up for him, mercy and compassion: and James says: Judgment without mercy to him who has not done mercy.⁸ Where he shows that the crown of the just is judgment from mercy. From which it seems to follow that it is not owed to merits from justice.

True gloss.— Epilogue.— But indeed the answer and interpretation of Augustine in On Correction and Grace, chapter 23, is more than enough to explain this matter and to stop the mouths of those who speak against it.⁹ For he says that the mercy of God always adheres to the just, whether when they are converted, or when they struggle, or when they are crowned. For because the merits themselves proceed from the grace of God, the crown of justice which is rendered to merits is called mercy. And this interpretation is likewise fitted to the word of the Apostle to Titus: Not by the works which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us: so that to be saved may be referred not only to the first grace by which we are made just, but to glory.¹⁰ For that is rendered through justice to the merits which we have done through the grace of God: so that here also mercy and justice come together into one. And from this shines forth another gloss of the same Augustine in the exposition of that Psalm: Do not enter into judgment with your servant, Lord, because no living man shall be justified in your sight.¹¹ For they also object this passage to us, to which although we have already answered in chapter 5, that we cannot enter into judgment with God as a hired servant with his patron, asking a reward as if we had first given to him: namely as if we ourselves exhibited our works by our own powers, and he did not rather, preceding us, give us to will and to work, so that he could reproach us: What do you bring to my judgment that you have not received, and if you have received, why do you glory as if you had not received? Nevertheless, this notwithstanding, the reward is owed to our merits as of members of CHRIST. The Lutherans therefore ought to cease from that calumny, when they say that we confess only the mercy and grace of CHRIST in the first point of justification. But then [they say] we trust in our works without his mercy: surely when we most explicitly confess (as Augustine says) that from the first inspiration, by which we begin to think well, even to the supreme retribution, the mercy of God adheres to us. But nevertheless we distinguish (which they ought to do) mercy preventing, helping and rewarding, or grace operating, cooperating and crowning. But there follows immediately another word of Paul, to which it remains for us to answer. For he says: The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us.¹² Where he manifestly speaks of those things which they suffer who are already sons and heirs of the kingdom, of whom he had said: We suffer together that we may be glorified together: and therefore it seems that not even as they proceed from grace do they have the nature of justice. Some gloss it, that they are not condign for the reason that they proceed from free will. But this certainly does not sufficiently express the understanding of Paul: for by that reason it was manifest that they were of no merit. And Paul was not distinguishing free will from grace: but those works of the sons of God, even if they are done through free will moved by God, he denied to be worthy of future glory. St. Thomas answers that he understands it if they are considered according to their substance.¹³ And certainly the sense has it so. For works, even as they proceed from grace, if they are considered on the part of the object (for this is according to substance), such as to suffer hunger, thirst: to bestow a coin on the poor, to give a drink of cold water, even if you add whatever interior worship a man can, are not works equal to that heap of eternal goods which awaits us in the fatherland, as Bernard says very well in sermon 1 On the Annunciation. Yet¹⁴ from the law of God established with the cultivators of his vineyard for a daily denarius, they take on a dignity and justice with respect to the eternal reward. Whence elsewhere: That which is at present momentary and light in our tribulation, he says, works in us above measure in sublimity an eternal weight of glory.¹⁵ Another testimony which they bring as invincible is that: When you have done all things which are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants, we have done what we ought to do.¹⁶ But indeed, whatever they clamour, we can retort it much more significantly against their faith alone which they defend. Namely: When you have believed all things which have been said to you, say: We are unprofitable servants.¹⁷ For so Paul says: If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have charity, I am nothing. Which opinion they cannot elude otherwise than by inventing a certain new illusory faith, which we have sufficiently shaken above. The legitimate sense therefore of St. Thomas and the other theologians: surely which is drawn from the very notion 'useful', is of this kind. That servant is useful to his lord whose works increase the lord's profit: but he who gains for himself is unprofitable to the lord. But with God, who does not need our goods, no utility is done from our works, but only glory and honour. And therefore the works of justice themselves, although they are due from us by law, yet because through free obedience we exhibit them for his honour and glory, they are merits before his majesty, who commanded them to us for this, that he might spread his glory. And this is the usury which God demands in the evangelical parable from the multiplied talents: for the utility accrues to the servants themselves.¹⁸ Therefore, lest men glory that they have contributed anything to God, of which he himself was in need, we are admonished to acknowledge that we are unprofitable servants: for in doing the commandments of God we do nothing else than what we ought: that is, what is from our own substance. And besides, the virtue and power of acting rightly we ought to refer as acceptable to God himself. But it will be pleasant to hear the last words of Melanchthon in the apology of this article.¹⁹ Nor do we, he says, here affect any idle subtlety (namely in denying the merit of condignity). For there are most clear causes for which we dispute these things. For if we concede to the adversaries that works merit eternal life, they immediately weave in those absurdities: that works satisfy the law of God, that there is no need of mercy, that we are just on account of our works, and not on account of CHRIST, etc. Therefore you see well enough the merits of works, but as incorrupt judges of the faith, thinking that we strike one extreme, you wish yourselves to deflect to the contrary: not considering that rule of Aristotle, that one who has sinned toward one part must incline to the other, is to be understood in such a way that the inclination does not exceed the line of truth and virtue. Besides that you do not rightly think that those absurdities which you imagine follow in any way from our assertion. But it is you who speak against works, who surely contend that before justification they are depraved, that in justification none are necessary: that after justification they neither satisfy the law, nor avail anything for paying the punishments which are owed for sins, nor are in any way merits of eternal life. By which reasoning you make your peoples sleep under the pretext of extolling faith, and most negligent of works.