“However, with regard to the _merit_ of good works, I should frankly have declared my abhorrence of the very sound of the word; since I could not conceive how an unprofitable servant could merit anything from a holy God. But then, on the other hand, I should have added, that whoever should speak contemptuously of the diligent exercise of good works, as if they derogated from the honour of Christ, I should tell such a divine, that, whether he found his divinity either in Luther, or Calvin, or the Synod of Dort, it was no divinity of the gospel of Christ; since Christ came to purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. And as the Holy Spirit has assured us, over and over, that ‘we shall be judged according to our works,’ it is, therefore, no wonder that St. Paul should pray that his converts might be ‘established in every good word and work.’ Besides, I might have observed that the zealot who decries good works was acting a most ridiculous part with regard to faith; for if his faith did not bring forth good works, his faith was good for nothing. “However, though such good works were the fruits of faith, and consequently the fruit of the Spirit of Christ, and, for that reason, must be acceptable to God, yet, I must have added, so far as they were our works, so far they wanted the blood of Christ to wash away their defilements, and to atone for their deficiencies; and, therefore, even our best works can have no merit in them. “I should, then, have remonstrated to that worthy lady to the following purpose,--that if one, who had laboured in the vineyard, I believed, full as much as any person since the days of the apostles, was not thought worthy of the mantle of love, for any mistake he might have made, yet surely he had a right to expect, that notice would have been given him to explain his meaning, before his judge pronounced sentence. This is a privilege granted to every supposed criminal in our courts of law, and where this is denied that court is no better than a court of inquisition. “But now, my dear brother, what effect such a letter might have had, I pretend not to say. It would, at the least, have testified to that friendship, which I have constantly had for you these twenty-five years. May God direct us both, and may our worst enemies be all brought to Him! You have my leave to make what use you please of this long letter. “I am, my very dear brother, yours most affectionately, “VINCENT PERRONET.”[136]