Paragraph 16.5
Chapter XVI. Of Good Works
This section is also directed against an error of the Church of Rome, which teaches that the good works of the saints are meritorious of eternal life.1 That we cannot, by our best works, merit pardon of sin, or eternal life, at the hand of God, appears from the following considerations:—1. Our Saviour declares (Luke xvii. 10), that when we have done all those things which are commanded us, we are unprofitable servants, and have only done that which was our duty. 2. Our best works cannot be profitable to God, and therefore can merit nothing at his hand.—Ps. xvi. 2. 3. All our works, as they are good, proceed from the almighty agency of the Spirit of grace (Phil. ii. 13); and as they are not performed in our own strength, they can merit no reward. 4. Our best works, as they are wrought by us, have such a mixture of sin in them, that, instead of meriting anything at the hand of God, they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment.—Ps. cxliii. 2. 5. Our best works bear no proportion to the inestimable blessing of eternal life (2 Cor. iv. 17); accordingly, the reward is represented “as of grace, not of debt;” and we are directed to “look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”—Jude 21.
1 The schoolmen in the Church of Rome spake of meritum de congruo—a merit of congruity; and meritum de condigno—a merit of condignity. By the former, they meant the value of good works previous to justification, which it was fit or congruous for God to reward by infusing his grace. By the latter, they meant the value of good works performed after justification in consequence of grace infused. These, although performed by the grace of God, were conceived to have that intrinsic worth which merits a reward, and to which eternal life is as much due as a wage is to the servant by whom it is earned.—Hill’s Lectures, vol. ii., p. 301.