as our 7th Article wisely speaks, is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament, everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man, being both God and man. The truth is, even the Law itself, as I have already remarked, is Gospel in enigma; and the scribe that is instructed in the New Testament finds the Old its best commentator and confirmer — what has instructed the same family in its tenderer years, and now makes the “young men” perfect. — I should speak rather differently of the Apostles. They were to be what he describes, with the exception of one of them; but they were not this yet. If they could be truly said to know Christ at all, till the day of Pentecost had fully come, they knew him “after the flesh.” (2Cor 5.16) But it is not to the Twelve exclusively that the Lord addresses these words (Mat 5.12), nor of them exclusively that he speaks. His precepts were for the regulation of their conduct, and of the conduct of all his converted people (while walking through the wilderness of this world, in his kingdom), as they would hereafter be called, one by one, into vital union with him. His elect have the sacrament of that union in their baptism. But they have the reality of it when, either before or after receiving that sacrament, the Spirit has been given to convert and to dwell in them. — Luther’s argument, however, is not shaken by this distinction. The Lord speaks as to real members of his kingdom; to persons who are therefore above and beyond that state of Freewill which is the matter in dispute. — Already Luther has shown Erasmus to be inconsistent with himself in arguing from this text (see Sect. 35). His second answer is: ‘this text (to which all other New Testament precepts might be added) does not apply.’
[←414]
Quo modo. How, in point of action; what he must do that he may be entitled.
[←415]
Consider that Constantinople fell in 1453. And by 1525, the Ottoman Empire controlled much of the western world. Their first major defeat would not be until Lepanto, in 1571. Wishing for the fruits of war, won’t win the war. That’s a logical fallacy of monumental proportions, as Luther strongly impresses by this comparison.
[←416]
For this distinction, see above, Part i. Sect. 11; Sect. 25.
[←417]
Detestentur, execrentur . For the proper meaning of detestor, see above, Part 5. Sect. 7. note l . It is opposed to ‘obtestor,’ such as calling God to witness unto evil and not unto good. ‘Malum alicui imprecari, Deos testes ciendo;’ ‘execrari.’ Here, however, I understand it literally, according to its derived meaning; and so, ‘exsecror,’ which properly denotes removing out of sacred relations, or subjecting to a curse. The allusion is to 2Pet 2.10-15. “But these. . . . speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption; and will receive the reward of unrighteousness.” Blawfhmentev. The original text makes the reference plainer than our version.
[←418]
“All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Phi 2.21) Not content with seeking their own glory, etc. in their dealings with man, they seek it even from the hands of God: He is to do them good, not himself.
[←419]
Erasmus objects, that ‘so much mention of good works and reward, in Scripture, is inconsistent with mere necessity, which can have no merit.’
Luther answers, though not exactly in this order: 1. Merit and reward are as inconsistent with your Freewill (which can will nothing good) as with mine. 2. Reward is a matter of promise; which implies nothing about power, the sole thing in question. 3. Merit and reward are not inconsistent with a necessity of immutability, though they are inconsistent with a necessity of compulsion. (See above, note h .) Merit is not necessarily merit of worth; reward may be a consequence of actions, in which there is no merit of worth. 4. The kingdoms of heaven and hell earn their children severally; their children do not earn them.
The two first of these answers are valid; and if it were merely so many rounds of the boxer, or so many grapplements of the wrestler, which we are watching the result of, we must give the palm to Luther: he has supplanted, he has knocked down his antagonist. But we want to hear something against merit and reward: and here, Luther is evasive and subtle in his reasoning, though correct in his conclusion. Necessity of immutability does not necessarily imply absence of merit, because that which the will cannot do for itself, it may be changed by another to do. Luther has supplied the basis of a solid and satisfactory answer in his fourth reply, while he has neither opened it, nor appears to be sensible of its force and marrow. ‘The kingdoms earn their children severally, their children do no earn them.’
Upon Luther’s principles, it is impossible to give a solid answer to the objection of merit. For, if Christ has died alike for all — if he has done and suffered the same both for the elect and for the reprobate, so that there is no difference between them as far as it respects his merit (which is the essence of the doctrine of Universal Redemption) — then either there must be merit in the individuals of the elect, or there is repect of persons with God. He makes a different award to some, than what he awards to others — meritorious or unmeritorious alike — through partiality. Nor will it suffice to say (as Luther does), that this reward is mere matter of consequence, like the man swimming out of water, etc. God sees somewhere, that which demands His justice should differentiate: and since this difference is not in Christ, it must be in the individuals themselves. The true answer is that God has assumed distinct, super-creation relations to his elect, in Christ, which renders it imperative upon him to give them grace and glory, each in its season. This is the true meaning of the kingdom of heaven earning her sons: there are relations of and belonging to that kingdom, which communicate the power that is necessary to inheriting that kingdom, consistent with all that God is, and to the manifestation of him as that God which he is. So again, with respect to the kingdom of hell, that kingdom has relations which have procured its inhabitants and inheritors. The devil has had a power given to him, by which he has drawn legions into his service, and is bringing those legions to be his companion in torments. These are legions, not of devils only, but of reprobate and accursed men. From this number, equally ruined by the devil and self-destroyed with the rest, are rescued the elect people of God, through their super-creation relations to God in Christ — or as it has just now been expressed, through the relations of the kingdom of God. God, of his distinguishing favour, has granted them membership in this kingdom. Merit and reward are made nearly as much a stumbling-block to the maintainers of free grace, as the sin and impotency of the natural man are to the merit-mongers, with this difference: that the stumbling-blocks which may be thrown on the path of truth are capable of being overcome and removed; while falsehood may pass by, and cover over, but she cannot expose and expel her stumbling-blocks. Too often, however, the sincere and strenuous advocates of truth defend her cause weakly, and even dangerously. Who will be satisfied, for instance, with that answer to an objection brought against the truth, which assumes that there is no such thing as “recompense of reward” in the Bible; no soldier’s crown; no servant’s wages; no agonistic palm; no ‘for’ to the call of the blessed of my Father; or that all these things and sayings are resolvable into what Christ personally has done; and might, if he saw fit to do so, according to that will of his and of the Father’s which is represented as no other than perfectly arbitrary, be bestowed upon his enemies and blasphemers, just as righteously as upon his servant-friends? (See John. 15.15).

The true objection to merit and reward is, that, as generally understood and represented, they suppose something of good in the natural man; in that self-ruined, self-damned, and self-made-impotent thing which has merited Hell before he was born into the world, and can merit nothing but Hell.
But, what now if it pleases God to give to this self-ruined, self-made-impotent thing new powers, under a new relation, and by a new title? Is there anything to prevent God from accepting an equivalent, if such can be found, for that punishment which is the just reward of this his moral creature’s sin — and of his own free, sovereign, and distinguishing favour (as it respects the subject of his infinite, everlasting, and inestimable bounty), placing him in new relations, and endowing him with new capacities as the fruit of those relations? And why may this new-made creature, so related, so capacitated, and so connected, not act in a manner worthy of those relations, and so entitle himself to those results which the God of all grace has seen fit to attach to the maintenance and fulfilment of those relations?
This is just the state and case of the eternally foreknown, elect, predestined, given and received people of God, in Christ Jesus, their grace and glory