Chapter III. The Fruits Of Justification, Or The Merit Of Good Works
The principal fruit of justification, according to the Tridentine Council,(1220) is the meritoriousness of all good works performed in the state of sanctifying grace.
Merit (_meritum_), as we have explained in the first part of this treatise,(1221) is that property of a good work which entitles the doer to a reward (_praemium, merces_).
Ethics and theology distinguish two kinds of merit: (1) condign merit or merit in the strict sense of the term (_meritum adaequatum sive de condigno_), and (2) congruous merit or quasi-merit (_meritum inadaequatum sive de congruo_). Condign merit supposes an equality between service and return. It is measured by commutative justice and confers a strict claim to a reward. Congruous merit, owing to its inadequacy and the lack of strict proportion between service and recompense, confers no such claim except on grounds of equity.(1222)
In this treatise we are concerned with merit only in the theological sense of the term, _i.e._ supernatural merit. We shall consider (1) its Existence,(1223) (2) its Requisites,(1224) and (3) its Objects.(1225)
1. HERETICAL ERRORS AND THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH.—a) The medieval Beguins and Beghards held that man is able to attain such a perfect state of holiness here below as no longer to require an increase of grace or good works.(1226) Luther, holding that justification consists in the covering up of sin and the external imputation of the justice of Christ, consistently though falsely asserted that “the just man sins in every good work,”(1227) that “a good work, no matter how well performed, is a venial sin,”(1228) and that “every work of the just deserves damnation and is mortally sinful, if it be considered as it really is in the judgment of God.”(1229) Calvin rejected good works as “impurities and defilements,”(1230) which God covers with the cloak of the merits of Jesus Christ and which He sometimes rewards with temporal blessings but never with eternal life. Modern Protestantism has given up or at least attenuated these harsh doctrines.(1231)
b) The Church had defined her teaching on this point centuries before the time of the “Reformers.” Thus the Second Council of Orange declared as early as 529: “Good works, when performed, deserve a reward; but grace, which is a free gift, precedes good works and is a necessary condition of them.”(1232) The Fourth Lateran Council reiterated this doctrine: “Not only virgins and those who practice continence, but the married also, who please God by having the right faith and performing good works, deserve to obtain eternal happiness.”(1233) The Tridentine Council goes into the matter at length in the sixteenth Chapter of its Sixth Session, where we read _inter alia_: “And for this reason life eternal is to be proposed to those working well unto the end and hoping in God, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ, and as a reward which is according to the promise of God Himself to be faithfully rendered to their good works and merits.”(1234)