[24]. Merit
Since those who have mortgaged their hopes to the saints place chief reliance upon their merits, and since in the church of God hitherto the merit not of what I call saints but of most shameless whoremongers has been sold at the highest price they ventured to put upon it, the next thing is for me to speak of merit.
I have said earlier that these four things are related: Providence, Predestination, Free Will, and Merit. Not that the last two are really related to the first two, but that the man who rightly understands the first cannot help understanding the last. Now providence is the mother of predestination, as it were, and having spoken of it to the best of my ability in considering God, I need not repeat my words here. I there represented God as providing for all things; for all things exist through Him. All things, therefore, are maintained and disposed through Him. And the reason our minds fail to reach an understanding of this is because they are so narrow and circumscribed; though there are not a few things the proper consideration of which enables us to fashion for ourselves a sort of image of Divine Providence, of which things I am going to bring forward only the principal one, namely, man himself. He submits to the control of reason, so that all his members wait upon its nod; and by reason I mean the entire power by which man determines and decides to do this or that. I am speaking of external activity, not of the internal government or alteration of the soul. He bids his feet walk, and they move; his hand to grasp the plough, and it obeys. He never moves a finger without the reason. Yet, far stronger and surer is Divine Providence in controlling the whole uni-
[See p. 70.]
verse; for—if one may compare little things with great—God is in the universe what reason is in man. Since, therefore, we see reason presiding over all our activities, whether of movement or rest, so that we see nothing done without its command, how is it that we do not confess that in the same way all things are so done and disposed by the providence of God that nothing takes place without His will or command? We are anxious; for we fear that we shall be forced to confess that God is the author of evils also. This, however, is because we do not observe man carefully enough, for sometimes sickness and diseases come upon him, when, if they did not, he would die altogether. He burns with fever, so he refrains meanwhile from drinking too much, and presently he is restored to his former health. He suffers from gout, a thin and acid humor retires from the vital parts to the extremities; but if this had not taken place the man would have died long before. Thus, as long as certain things take place of which we know not the cause and purpose, we refuse to recognize Divine Providence in them, though it uses us, and, in fact, all things, as it will. Nor is what is base to us base to Providence, for its baseness to us comes from the fact that the Law has been placed over us. And the Law has been so placed because our passions overstepped all bounds. But since God is not subject to such, He is not under the Law, but is Himself that which He demands of us through the Law. Hence that is not base with Him which is base for us. The promiscuous pairing of animals, even in our judgment, is not base, though such pairing of human beings is most base. But what is it that absolves them but condemns us? The Law. For by the divine law we are confined within the barriers of matrimony. So nothing can be base for God which yet cannot help being base for us. Let us, therefore, not be anxious and fearful, and exempt certain things from the Providence of God as not becoming to it. For things that are base for us are not so for it; and things which we think pernicious are on another side profitable. And predestination, which is only another word for foreordination, is born of providence, nay is providence; for even the theologians distinguish providence from wisdom, in that the former proceeds to act and to dispose, while the latter simply sees what should be done and how. For
it would be ineongruous for the Supreme Good to know all things before they took place and not to be able to dispose and to order all things. Again, to control all things, to have all knowledge and all power, and yet not to do it would be ungenerous, nay, mean, and of this it were impious to suspect the supreme deity. By the providence of God, therefore, are taken away together free will and merit; for if it disposes all things, what part have we that permits us to think anything done of ourselves? And since all things are done by His activity, how are we to have any merit? “That all things are done by His aetivity was abundantly told in considering Him. For “in him we live, and move, and have our being,” etc. [Acts 17:28]. Yet, because of the weight of the flesh, it has always happened that some men have failed to attain to this measure of knowledge of God. Hence Paul in writing to the Colossians, 1:9, bears witness that he prays for them unceasingly that they may grow in the knowledge of God. “Those, therefore, who have not attained to this knowledge have had much to say about free will and merit, but their utterances were not made of much account by those who had reached real knowledge of the providence of God. At the same time, however, we see that some who really had come to the knowledge of providence have magnified the merit of works; but this, again, for the benefit of those who did not clearly understand providence, to keep them from committing such great sins as they otherwise would. Such were the prophets, who strongly urge men to good works. But what sort of men? Those poor in faith? Yes, for after faith and (according to Christ’s words [Mt. 24: 12]) love had waxed cold, these holy men were anxious to do their full duty to the glory of God and the peace of the state; and although they strenuously inculcated faith and fear of God before all things, yet, seeing that God had blinded the minds of the people so that οὐδὲν ὑγιές [nothing sound] was to be expected of them, they at the same time did not omit the preaching of works also, although they were well aware of the providence of God. For thus, after many things by which he tries to draw men to God, Isaiah says, 45: 24: “Therefore shall they say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.” For some men are so stupid that, however much