For if by natural instinct or wisdom we could bring ourselves back to the road and escape from error, we would have no need for Christ.

Where God thus clearly displays free mercy, have done with that empty imagination of merit.

We do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds but, having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds.

But Scripture praises everywhere his pure and unmixed mercy, which does away with all merit.

There is nothing absurd in the doctrine, that though man is justified by faith, he is himself not only not righteous, but the righteousness attributed to his works is beyond their own deserts.

in Augustine with this expression, - "God crowns not our merits but his own gifts; and the name of reward is given not to what is due to our merits, but to the recompense of grace previously bestowed?"

God has not rendered you due punishment, but bestows upon you unmerited grace. If you wish to be an alien from grace, boast your merits," (in Psa 70) Again, "You are nothing in yourself, sin is yours, merit God's. Punishment is your due; and when the reward shall come, God shall crown his own gifts, not your merits.

If you shall be paid what you deserve, you must be punished. What then happens? God has not rendered you the punishment you deserve, but bestows undeserved grace. If you would be estranged from grace, boast of your own merits." Again: "Of yourself you are nothing. Sins are your own, but merits are God's. You deserve punishment, and when the reward comes he will crown his own gifts, not your merits.

For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him?

Accordingly, we shall find   angels and men to be dry, heaven to be empty, the earth to be   unproductive, and, in short, all things to be of no value, if we wish   to be partakers of the gifts of God in any other way than through   Christ.

The fact is that unless we are extricated by the grace of Christ, we remain subject to the violence of a whole mass of innumerable evils.

All the Apostles abound in exhortations, admonitions and rebukes, for the purpose of training the man of God to every good work, and that without any mention of merit. Nay, rather their chief exhortations are founded on the fact, that without any merit of ours, our salvation depends entirely on the mercy of God.