things very considerable in Sin the transient act and the remaining habit of which the later is far the worse and of which it is necessary that the one be deleted as well as the other pardoned for any one to be accounted positively just or not impious this later the habit is not removed or abolished but by Grace first infused and also whether before or rather after the same Grace infused our former actual Sins are pardoned is thought by Protestants a thing doubtful and not necessary to be decided δ δ. See the words of Calvin in Antidoto Conc. Trident. Of Beza contra Illyricum and others in Forbes de Justific 2. l. 4. c. p. 70 71. Simul nos justificari renovari saith Calvin dico in Christo per fidem nobis unito applicato neque haec an illa ordine antegrediatur tantillum laborandum censeo cum unam sine altera nunquam recipiamus This infusion of Grace therefore by several titles claims the chief place in our Justification and is that thing only in us that justifieth or maketh us to be really just and so is usually stiled the formal cause of our Justification 3. Meanwhile both the one and the other being the effects only of God's mercy Catholicks affirm That since God justifieth us not for those but for the righteousness and sufferings of Christ as the sole meritorious cause thereof it is not necessary as to our Justification in respect of inherent righteousness that this be every way consummate and perfect 4. Nay further they freely concede that it is such as that it doth produce some particular acts perfect and without contagion of Sin learned Protestants assenting ε. ε. Forbes Ibid. c. 5. Ecquid magis injuriose contumeliose dici potest in Christi Gratiam quam asserere nos nihilominus nihil prorsus vel cogitare vel dicere vel agere posse quod purum sit a peccati Sorde And § 13. Sententia haec rigida multis etiam doctissimis Protestantibus aliisque viris moderatissimis semper unprobata fuit quoting them at large Ibid. Yet ordinarily it doth many or the most mixt with several imperfections and that Venial Sins do both adhere to and intervene between many of the good actions of the justified ζ. ζ. Estius 2. Sent. 41. d. 4. § Et justi in iis operibus quae indubitate bona sunt saepe-numero peccant dum its se aliquonsque vel concupiscentiae vel negligentiae vel alicujus levioris circumstantiae ad integritatem boni operis requisitae defectus admiscent Forbes de Justificatione 4. l. 3. c. 8. § Communiter sentiunt Romani nullum Sanctorum vitare posse omnia venialia peccata per longum vitae tempus Conc. Trid. Sess 6. Can. 23. Which Sins after are remitted only by God's Mercy through Christ's Merits as those are before Justification γ. γ. Bellarm. de Justificat 4. l. 14. c. In Answer to the Objection Post primam reconciliationem Christus ociosus esset saith no Quoniam peccata nostra quamvis levia quotidiana ipse purgat sanguis ejus emundat nos ab omni peccato Estius 2. Sent. 42. d. 6. § Nemo quantumcunque justus nisi sanguine Christi Redemptoris etiam a Veniali peccato emundatus fuit in regnum Dei admitti potest See the same in Bellarm. de Justificat 4. l. 21. c. § Resp non dicit 5. Lastly Several learned Catholicks do not hold this inherent righteousness or internal renovation so absolutely necessary to mans Justification i. e. to remission of Sin or capacity of future Glory as that none possibly could had it so pleased God received from him pardon of his offences or also through virtue of Christ's merits an eternal glory without having such inherent righteousness and whilst he only reduced to his pure Naturals or that none could possibly or justly be deprived of Glory that hath such inherent righteousness Vid. Bellarmin de Justificat 2. l. 16. c. Reatus paenae quartus effectus Scotus 1. Sent. 17. d. F. a Sanct. Clara Deus Natura Prob. 23. But only maintaining that it is God's Pact or Covenant and declared Will that Christ's Merits should this and no other way merit for us freedome from Hell and life eternal Namely First by satisfying for our former Sins and procuring for us this donation of the sanctifying Spirit within us 2ly What Catholicks do include in and understand by Justification being thus explained Next they affirm that there is nothing in man that can antecedently merit this our Justification but that the sole meritorious cause of it both in respect of remission of Sin or any punishment due unto it and of the donation of Grace destroying in us the habits and pollutions of Sin and producing good works is the obedience active and passive the works labours sufferings and satisfactions of Jesus Christ only exclusive to the works sufferings or satisfactions of any other Where also they maintain that neither any works of our's done by the meer strength of nature have the least worth in them to procure God's assistant Grace for the producing of any previous disposition to this Justification as of Faith Repentance a love of God c. Nor again these dispositions tho wrought by assistant Grace and having some supernatural dignity in them have any such worth as by it to procure from God setting aside his meer bounty and free promise the Justification it self ζ. ζ. Conc. Trid. Sess 6.8 c. Nihil eorum quae justificationem praecedunt sive fides sive opera ipsam justificationis gratiam promeretur 'T is true that these dispositions to or conditions of man's Justification as effected by Grace having some true worth in them tho this no way comparable to the Acts produced by Grace inherent after Justification and besides having a gracious promise made to or acceptance of them which two things none can deny some Catholick Authors think that this word Meritum qualifying it with the addition de congruo may be justly applyed to them especially since St. Austine and other Fathers have so applyed it formerly St. Austine and other Fathers have so applyed it formerly St. Aust Ep. 105 106. others think not the matter agreed on the difference is about words and the Church's Subjects left to their liberty See Bellarm. de Justific 1. l. 21. c. And see Head XVI Merits 3. Yet they next affirm That there are some conditions or dispositions required of us and also by God's free first exciting and then assisting Grace man's Will assenting and co-operating wrought in us Which tho by any worth of theirs they cannot merit yet by vertue of God's free Promise and the new Covenant do certainly impetrate the applying or if Protestants Will imputing to us both the active and passive Obedience of Christ viz. all his Merits which are accepted by God instead of and as if they had been our own but this not as to our being esteemed by God our selves
to have done them for none can truly be said or thought to have performed such righteousness or satisfactions that hath not done them himself but another for him but as to the benefit or effect of them χ. χ. Bellarm. de Justificat 2. l. 10. c. Dominus Jesus Christus justitia nostra 1. Cor. 1. Quoniam satisfecit Patri pro nobis eam Satisfactionem ita nobis donat communicat cum nos justificat ut nostra satisfactio justitia dici potest And a little after Non esset absurdum si quis diceret nobis imputari Christi justitiam merita cum nobis donentur applicentur ac si nos ipsi Deo satisfecissemus modo non negetur esse in nobis praeterca justitiam inhaerentem c. Again Ibid. 7. c. Si solum vellent nobis imputari Christi merita or justitiam quia nobis donata sunt possumus ea Deo Patri offerre pro peccatis nostris c. Recta esset eorum sententia Cap. 11. Potest sano modo accommodari exemplum Patriarchae Jacob justitiae imputativae si quis dicat oportere ut induamus merita Christi I add or Justitiam sive obedientiam activam Christi for this also is part of his Merits See Bellarm. de Christo 5. l. 9. c initio and illis quodammodo tecti petamus a Deo indulgentiam peccatorum nam solus Christus pro peccatis nostris satisfacere potuit I add tam obedientia activa See Rom. 5.18 19. Gal. 4.4 5. Phil. 2.5 c. Matt. 3.15 quam passiva and illa satisfactio nobis donatur applicatur nostra reputatur cum Deo reconciliamur justificamur Thorndike Epilog 2. l. 29. c. p. 248. The Supposition that one man's doings or sufferings may be personally and immediatly imputed to another man's account is utterly unreasonable And I therefore must and do say that as it is sufficient so it it is true that the sufferings of Christ are imputed unto us in the nature of a meritorious cause moving God to grant mankind those terms of Reconcilement which the Gospel importeth Not all the benefit and effect in such a manner as that whatever is any way due to the active or passive righteousness of Christ is thus due to us for so we should all receive a future reward equal to one another and also equal to that of Christ our Lord's but all that benefit and effect of them which our sinful condition stands in need of and which God hath further thought fit to dispence for the purchasing by an equal compensation and satisfaction of our present pardon and future Glory The benefit and reward of which merits as to our glorification he applies variously according to the different degrees of our own present sanctity and good works that dispose us for such a participation of these Merits Such dispositions produced by prevenient and assistant Grace in adultis are a certain degree of Faith or believing the truth of all the Divine Revelations and Promises and particularly that of God's justifying the ungodly by his Grace thro the redemption which is in Christ Jesus the fear of God's judgments for Sin hope and trust in his mercy thro Christ love of his goodness hate and repentance for former Sins serious purpose of a better life and observance of God's Commandments and the desire and susception where oportunity of Baptisme the Sacrament instrumental hereunto See Conc. Trid. Sess 6.6 c. 4ly They grant that among these previous dispositions or conditions of Justification Faith is the beginning of the rest and so the Foundation and root of all our Justification and that without which it is impossible in any other act to please God So we neither fear God's Judgments nor hope for his Pardon nor love his Goodness nor put confidence in his only Son's Merits unless we first believe these And therefore St. Paul opposing the condition of the new Covenant Faith and all other acts or works following it as by God's promise to them and not their own worth applying Christ's Merits to us for our Justification to the merits of the works of the Law in the Jew and of Nature in the Gentile but never opposing Faith to any of those acts of Grace consequential so long as these maintained in no other manner to concur to our Justification than Faith it self doth therefore most perfectly agreeeth with St. James λ. λ. Mr. Thorndike Just Weights 9. c. p. 60. To be justified by Faith alone is with St. Paul to be justified by Christianity alone St. James in arguing that a Christian is justified by Works and not by Faith alone intended to teach that the profession of Christianity justifieth not when it is not performed Bishop Forbes de Justifie 4. l. 6. c. p. 173. Sanctus Paulus intellexit semper ex fide viva quatenus viva i. e. operante vel externe vel interne per charitatem nos justificari Atque hoc ipsum est quod Beatus Jocobus hic sed Paulo clarius distinctius affirmat hominem ex operibus justificari non ex fide tantum The same thing appears from St. Paul's Arguments made against Justification by Works many of which are faulty if made against Works following Faith and wrought by Grace As his arguing Rom. 4.4 Rom. 4.13 compared with 2.6 1. Cor. 3.13 14. Jo. 15.10 Gal. 2.21 5.4 3.13 Eph. 2.8 9 10. Tit. 3 4 5. Phil. 3.9 compared with the precedent verses 3 4 5 6. and with Rom. 10.3 9.31 In all or most of which if instead of works of the Law you read works of the formerly justified and pardoned their Sins by God's meer mercy produced by Grace that is procured by Christ's merits you will find the arguing and consequence invalid and faulty This Apostle I say mentions this Faith more frequently than the rest as being the very beginning and first fruits of Divine Grace and that without which none of the rest that are added to it either can be at all or if being can be any thing worth μ. μ. Conc. Trid. Sess 6.8 c. Cum vero Apostolus dicit justificari hominem per fidem per fidem ideo justificari dicimur quia fides est humanae salutis initium fundamentum radix omnis justificationis sine qua impossibile est placere Deo ad filiorum ejus consortium pervenire Stapleton de Justificat 8. l. c. ult Fide nos necessario vel ante omnia maxime justificamur dum impius quidem justificatur quia a fide ordiendum est Dum justus autem justificatur magis quia omnia justitiae opera in fide recta fieri a fide procedere debent Bellarm. de Justificat 5 l. 7. c. In homine nondum conciliato primus motus ad salutem est fidei inde sequitur amor desiderium beatitudinis per fidem jam cognitae post amorem sive cupiditatem Beatitudinis sequitur in homine spes Mediante
paenitentiae dilectionis in Deum quae opera sunt interna Denique quinto omnem inanem fiduciam operum nostrorum Sive interne sive externe factorum Cap. 5. § 14. Proinde censemus omnem rigidorum Protestantium sententiam a veritate a charitate Christiana alienam esse qui assertionem de sola fide non justificante communiter a Romanensibus defensam citra omnem vel fidei ipsius vel meriti opinionem etiam improprie dicti vel aliorum operum seu actuum cum fide ad justificationem concurrentium non solùm cum sancta Scriptura piis Patribus e diametro pugnare contendunt sed etiam praeter alia innumera justam Protestantibus a Romana Ecclesia secedendi causam praebuisse praebere Dr. Hammond Pract. Catech. 1. l. § 4. p. 75. The necessary qualifications conditions or moral instruments of our Justification are Faith Repentance firm purpose of a new life and the rest of those Graces upon which in the Gospel pardon is promised the Christian And afterwards This kind of Sanctification so he calls the dispositions to Justification wrought in us by God's Grace is precedent in order of nature to Justification i.e. I must first believe repent and return before God will pardon 6. They affirm also that one may have a true faith or belief of all the Articles of our Creed and particularly of this man's Redemption through Christ's Merits or if we take Faith for fiducia may have also a fiducial confidence that he in particular shall obtain or if you will hath already obtained remission of his Sins through the same redemption and merits and yet not by this Faith or fiducia attain Justification if these be not accompanied with Repentance and the other necessary preparations thereto For there are many wicked and irregenerate men who yet do truly believe all the Articles of the Creed and are thereby fully convinced of their duty yet led away with lusts do contrary to what they know they ought and some of them who are also fully tho groundlesly for want of Repentance and the other requisites perswaded that themselves are of the number of the justified ξ ξ. Thorndike Epilog 2. l. p. 28. It is manifest to all Christians that there are too many in the world whom we cannot imagine to have any due title to those promises and yet do really and verily believe the Faith of Christ to be true and him and his Apostles sent from God to preach it And from their belief stand convict that they ought to proceed accordingly yet We see men not always to do that which reasonably from their belief they ought to do c. Again on the other side q Trust and confidence in God through Christ obtains the promises of the Gospel who denies it But is this trust always well grounded and true Is it not possible for a man to imagine his title to the promises of the Gospel to be good when it is not I would we had no cause to believe how oft it comes to pass All which argues these other Acts are necessary concurrents to Justification as well as such Faith For it seems very unreasonable that such Faith when without the other as many times it is is effectless as to attaining Justification and yet when it is with them they effectless and it doing the whole especially if the former Scriptures be reviewed using the same expressions of their concurrence to this effect as they do of Faith 7. Our Justification i. e. remission of Sin and infusion of habitual Grace which Infants also when baptized receive as well as others whereby we are made new creatures and by the infusion of his Holy Spirit born of God and his Seed remaining in us and so made his Sons and Heirs being thus attained upon our Faith and the other forementioned dispositions required in us Next Catholicks grant That the thus justified not only have a right to but may also attain the possession of eternal life before and without external good works issuing from such habitual or inherent Grace or before any justification or merit by them And that their works are not necessary to justification the producing or continuing of it or to the obtaining the reward of it eternal life when either power as in those who as yet have not the use of reason or who are prevented by suddain death or an occasion of such good works is wanting or also when occasion being offered yet the omission of such good works amount not to a mortal Sin by which Sins only man falls from his former Justification ξ. But 8ly They affirm which is also allowed by Learned Protestants π. pgr Dr. Field Append. to 3. l. 11. c. In Answer to Dr. Stapleton's Words That Actions of Virtue and careful endeavour to walk in the Commandments of God are not necessary to our second Justification or the augmentation progress and dayly perfecting of the same more and more is a Calumniation for they the Protestants make the second Justification to consist in two parts 1st The dayly well doing whereby the righteousness inherent is more and more perfected And 2ly the dayly remission of such sinful defects as are found in their actions Dr. Fern Answer to Scripture Mistaken p. 92. If they intend no more by second Justification than is here expressed in the Trent Decree viz. Renovation day by day and yielding up our Members as Weapons of Righteousness to Sanctification and increase in Righteousness we have no cause to quarrel at the thing but only that they will call that Justification which indeed is Sanctification Bishop Forbes de Justificat 4. l. 6. c. Perperam a Protestantibus rigidioribus rejicitur distinctio usitatissima justificationis in primam secundam Nam praeter Justificationem primam necessario etiam agnoscenda admittenda est justificatio secunda quae consistit in progressu augmento complemento pro statis vitae justitiae primum donatae in remissione illorum delictorum in quae quotidie justi incidunt Confirming it there with several Protestant Authorities That this first Justification thus attained before these good Works is in case of longer-life both necessarily continued by good Works or acts of inherent Grace either external or only internal where is some impediment of the external so that he who commits a mortal Sin in omission of such works falls from his former Justification and also is increased or further degrees of Justification or inhabitant Grace or as the Protestants had rather call it Sanctification received or added by the same good works for such acts external or internal do still increase the habit or render the person more holy whereby the already just is still made more just so Abraham tho just before yet was more highly justified by that Heroick act of the Oblation of his only Son Jam. 2. And the future reward also becomes greater to these good Works according to our greater Justification by
them For if some more imperfect acts of Faith of Repentance Hope Love c. done only by God's assistant Grace did thro God's promise and Christ's merits procure our first Justification and the consequents thereof much more the same acts and others the like now more perfect and proceeding from Grace inhabitant do thro the same promise and merits confer on or procure for us a greater or as some stile it a second Justification viz. An improvement of our former justice the remission of such Venial Sins as are still committed by the justified and a richer eternal reward 9. They affirm That a man may fall away again from this state of Justification by incurring those greater Sins either of Omission or Commission which are for this cause called commonly Mortal from which fall he is capable of restorement to a second Justification or justified condition by the same means as he attained the first only if instead of Baptisme not iterable he make use of the Sacrament of Penance for his entrance into it where-in concerning the just value and vertue of Penal Works see below Head XIX 10. These are the Catholicks Positions concerning Justification much tending to the promotion of pious endeavours and an holy life with whom also the more moderate Protestants do in most if not all the former Points concur But meanwhile there are other Tenents of the more rigid Protestants on this subject and several also of them broached by the first Author of the Reformation which brings a very great prejudice to it that tend much to the relaxation of good manners the breeding of false securities and weakning mens endeavours in the prosecution of a good life such as these ζ. ζ. See the most rigid Protestants maintaining the most of these Opinions cited and censured by Bishop Forbes in his Considerationes aequae placidae de Justificatione And by Dr. Hammond in his Treatise of Fundamentals from the 11th to the 19th Chapter And by Mr. Thorndike Epilog 2. l. from the 4th to the 10th Chapter 1st Their placing Justification only in the remission of Sin and imputation to us of the righteousness of Christ not in infusion of Grace or renovation of life making men fancy here that all their work is done for and without them none to be done in or by them 2ly In such remission of Sin their making Justification as it were one momentaneous act and God at one and the same time remitting to us all our Sins past present and to come which must needs produce afterward a very careless behaviour both to committing and repenting of Sin 3ly In such imputation of Christ's Righteousness their maintaining it in such a manner not as if we were meritoriously justified by the application of the effects of it to us as if it had been our own but formally justified by a translation of it and investiture with it in such a manner as if it were inherent in us and esteemed to be done by our selves 4ly From whence ariseth also a conceit that all men by this righteousness apprehended by their Faith are equally justified or all esteemed equally righteous in their Justification 5ly And so also that all become equal in the future celestial reward whether working much or working little 6ly Their making the only instrument or necessary condition required in us for Justification or remission of Sin Faith alone an easy act of the brain as Dr. Hammond Of Fundamentals p. 116. observes having nothing in it repugnant to our passions and not any other good disposition wrought in us by God's especial Grace Repentance purpose of a better Life and this Faith too required of us for this purpose not as any work or duty but only as an instrument or hand to apprehend and apply Christ's merits to us and to make his righteousness ours c. 7ly Their making this Faith that justifies us a strong fiducia or full assurance that we are justified or if you will that we shall be justified only on those terms if we firmly believe we shall be so Which obliging men of what life soever to believe they are or shall be justified without looking after any requisite thereto save only this full belief renders those who continue still unreformed in their Manners yet by such strong fancy secure of their Salvation whilst none more than they extol the all-sufficiency of Christ's Righteousness nor none so much as they do or have reason to diffide in and dis-esteem their own From which Tenent also it follows that all those that are truly justified are assured or certainly know that they are justified The ordinary effect of which Doctrine is despair in some who find in themselves no such assurance certain presumption in others who are fully assured without just cause 8ly Their holding that a justifying is only a true Faith which breeds a great presumption in those for their being also justified persons who do and have no reason but to take themselves for true believers and who would even give their bodies to be burnt for any Article of the Christian Faith 1. Cor. 13.3 and yet do or may want Charity and so Justification 9ly Their holding good works and the other dispositions that always accompany a justified Faith to be necessary to our Justification or Salvation only as effects and fruits or also signs and assurances to our selves or others of this Faith necessary for their presence indeed but not for their efficiency as causa sine qua non ad salutem non impediendum but not as instruments or conditions required thereto as our Faith is thus destroying obedience it self by taking away the chief motives that men have to it and making them neglect any further pains-taking for the production of those things which they are taught do necessarily grow from Faith or which serve only to justify them not before God but Men. 10ly Their expounding St. Paul not only to exclude Works performed by strength of Nature but done by Grace from any way disposing us or concurring thereto And St. James only to speak of good Works as declaring our Justification before men not obtaining it with God 11ly Their affirming the Promises of the Gospel to be meerly gratuital excepting for Faith and not conditional upon Obedience as those of the Law were denying our Lord to be any Legislator or denying Christian liberty to be so far obliged to the Obedience of the Law as that any account is had of our observing of it in any degree as to obtaining or improving our Justification And that Christians ought now not as tied to it by God's Law but spontaneously and freely to do that Will of his which was formerly made known to them by the Law Which Obedience of our's how little soever and upon such terms we may guess it will not be much yet is accepted by God through the more perfect Obedience of his Son made ours by Faith See Calvin Institutiones 3. l. 19. c. 2.4 § And then we may
There is in all good Works a dignity of Grace Divine similitude goodness and honour Phil. 4.8 4ly Affirm also this worth of the actions of the Regenerate after Justification much different from and transcendent to that worth which is in the former dispositions precedent to Justification done indeed by the external help of God's Grace but before the transfusion into us of his Spirit But this always to be remembred that no worth of the one or the other is from our selves as of our selves but the worth of them is from God They affirm accordingly that there is in these Works of the justified proceeding in us from this Divine Principle a worth and similitude some way proportionable and corresponding to the reward promised to them in respect of which worth Life eternal and the beatifical Vision of God and all the consequences thereof are called the Wages and Stipend Reward Prize and Crown of these Works Matt. 5.12 Apoc. 22.12 Matt. 20.8 2. Tim. 4.8 Apoc. 2.10 1. Cor. 9.24 25. And they said truly to merit such reward according to the sense of the word Merit used by the Fathers and the word Dignity used in the Scriptures a chief portion of which reward as a greater measure of God's Spirit and Charity and Sanctification in the most intense degree received in the next world and the augmentations of Grace daily received in this are only higher degrees of the same kind and nature with that of which they are the reward And God also is said to give such rewards to these ex justitia quia digni sunt Apoc. 3 4. 2. Thess 1.5 Heb. 6.10 2. Tim. 4.8 not only in this respect that God is just and faithful in keeping his promise once made tho to a Service of little or no worth at all but in respect of some valuable goodness and worth tho this from God also in the condition it self to which he makes the promise of such reward They rationally affirm also that whatever benefit any ones Sanctity or good Works may be said by way of impetration to procure from God for others they may be said also to have the same power with God for themselves when by relapse into sin or falling into any necessity or misery themselves are in the same condition as such others and when their ingratitude and affront and contempt of former Grace c. doth not aggravate their offence and fall beyond that of others See 2. Chron. 9.3 Nehem. 13 14.22.31 5ly Yet this worth of the Righteousness or works of the justified whatever it it be as it hath its original not from us but from God and is also without any purchase thereof wholly due to him from us his Creatures and Vassals so is it not affirmed to ascend so high as any way to equal those rewards promised to it but to be far inferior and God ever to reward beyond any such Merit Matt. 25.22 2. Cor. 4.17 For whereas our good Works momentary are not only said to merit Life eternal but also to merit those higher measures of the Holy Spirit and degrees of Sanctification that shall be conferred on us there as also the the increase of Grace in this life here it is manifest that the lesser degree the Merit and the greater the reward cannot be equalled in their worth Some proportion some similitude there is between this Seed the justified sow here and the Fruits thereof they reap hereafter sufficient to support the Phrase especially after the intervening of a Pact of the one meriting or being worthy of the other but not to maintain in commutative justice one of equal value or worth to the other α. This we have title to by Christ's Merits only not our Works to the which Merits also we owe that we have these Works therefore the Council of Trent that admits meritum bonorum operum ex pacto and so ex justitia c yet waves the expression ex condigno as liable to Mistakes ε. ε. Bellarm. de Justificat 5. l. 16. c. Catholici omnes agnoscunt opera bona justorum esse meritoria vitae aeternae sed tamen aliqui censent non esse utendum his vocibus de condigno de congruo sed absolute dicendum opera bona justorum esse meritoria vitae aeternae ex gratia Dei Bishop White Answer to Fisher p. 172. and the same p. 512. The Opinion of Modern Papists saith he concerning the Merit of Condignity was always opposed by Pontificians themselves Scotus Durand Marsilius Dionysius Cisterciensis Gregory Ariminen Thomas Walden Paulus Burgensis Joh. Ferus Eckius Pighius c. and see many more later added by Bishop Forbes de Justificat 5. l. 4. c. which I mention here to shew a liberty of Opinion herein left to her Subjects by the Roman Church and many who propugne ' the Doctrine of Merit of Condignity speak improperly Thus Bishop White Mr. Thorndike Epilog 2. l. 33. c. p. 308. As it cannot be denied that the Church of Rome allows this Doctrine of Merit he means of Condignity to be taught yet can it not be said to enjoyn it Because there have not wanted to this day Doctors of esteem that have always held otherwise Again They who only acknowledge Meritum congrui in Works done in the state of Grace i. e. that it is fit for God to reward them with his Kingdome say no more than that it was fit for God to promise such a reward which who so denieth must say that God hath promised that which was unfit for him to promise And if the Dignity of our Works in respect of the reward may have this tolerable sense because God daigns and vouchsafes it such reward the Council of Trent which hath enacted no reason why they are to be counted Merits can neither bear out these high Opinions he means maintained by some of the Roman Authors nor be said to prejudice the Faith in this point Again That which necessarily comes in consideration with God in the bestowing the reward which the condition he contracted for must necessarily do tho it cannot have the nature of Merit i. e. taken in a Protestant sense because the Covenant it self is granted meerly of Grace in consideration of Christ's death yet it is of necessity to be reduced to the nature and kind of the Meritorious Cause Nor can the Glory of God or the Merit of Christ be obscured by any consideration of our Works that is grounded upon the Merit of our Lord Christ and expresseth the tincture of his Blood as all the Roman Merit professedly doth And so do many Roman Authors both before and since the Council And also most of those other that use this Phrase to signify some true worth in these Works as before explained Thes 3 4. yet so qualify it as that it can offend no rational Protestant 6ly That therefore first he who conceits any good works of the justified are or may be such as may challenge from God's justice life