I just had the opportunity to read through Richard Power's ThM thesis on Samuel Petto's The Difference Between the Old and New Covenant Stated and Explained on my flight back to Louisville. I wanted to write this post as something of an addition to my post on merit: https://brandoncorleyschoo.wixsite.com/brandoncorley/post/a-note-on-merit as I couldn't help to notice how much Petto implicitly and repeatedly supports the scheme I drew up there. Here I will leave a few excerpts from the dissertation and comment on them.
Petto argues that a covenant condition, properly speaking, is that which, upon performance, grants ex pacto entitlement (“jus ad rem”) to the recipient and grants certainty to the actualization of the stipulated blessings
This notion of a "proper covenant condition" can also be found in Witsius. What is inmportant for my purposes here is that what is meant by a "proper" covenant condition is exactly equivalent to what I identified as condign ex pacto merit in my post. Turretin refers to this as an antecedent condition of the Covenant of Grace (as do others like Chamier) or even simply as a "meritorious cause". The essence of this "proper covenant condition" lies in the fact that:
For Petto, a covenant condition is that which gives the performer ex pacto entitlement to the promised blessings
A condition properly taken, is influential into right; if performed it giveth right to the benefit promised
This "proper covenant condition" deals with right/title/debt. This exactly aligns with what I have outlined in my post above. Condign merit always deals with right. While it is true that there are other examples of meritorious casues (e.g. congruent merit as I have explained before) it is precisely because the proper notion of merit is so tied to right that the Reformed could disclaim all "meritorious causes" in salvation without seeing any contradiction in their affirmation of what I have called "congruent merit" in relation to the possession of eternal life and its benefits. One can refer back to Becanus's comments on this here wherein he states that "congruent merit" is really "no merit" in this sense. The crux of the issue in the matter of justification has to do with right/title/debt. No other consideration matters as far as ex pacto condign merit is concerned. Thus, Petto sees, as I have also explained, that what is important is not the denial of strict/proper merit (which all deny as impossible with in relation to God) to our works, but rather the denial of the genus of condign merit altogether:
The presence of much condescension and grace in the granting of the covenant in no way prevented Adam’s obedience from possessing an ex pacto merit. It was simply God’s stipulation of Adam’s perfect obedience as the covenant condition that endowed it with an ex pacto meritorious function. In the same way, if any of our evangelical works were made a proper condition of the New Covenant, they would necessarily be endowed with an ex pacto meritorious function thereby. Eternal life would be promised to us as a reward of debt no less than it was to Adam, even though upon more lenient terms: "for only the promise must have made it so there, and the same is found here.” In opposition to Baxter’s Neonomian schema, Petto argues that our evangelical works cannot form part of the New Covenant’s legal condition without rendering the eternal blessings a reward of debt to us and overturning the graciousness of our justification.
Strict/proper merit, though impossible, is but one species of condign merit and condign merit is that which must be avoided in our works. It is true, all ex pacto merit includes much grace and condescension. The rewards given to our works are infinitely beyond anything they deserve in first act (as there they deserve nothing at all). Yet this is not what we are concerned with denying in our justification since the form of a covenant of works does not rest in the fact that no grace is given (contrary to what some today want to assert) but in the fact of condign merit (that is, right/debt) itself.
Evidently, Petto interpreted Richard Baxter in the same manner I suggested he ought to be interpreted and made the same reply:
Petto rightly points out that this peppercorn, small though it be, must utterly destroy the graciousness of free justification. It necessarily assigns to faith that same functionality that the works of Adam would have had under the Covenant of Works. The fact that the rewards of the Covenant of Grace are far beyond the worth of the peppercorn does not hinder this at all, for the reward of the Covenant of Works was likewise far beyond the worth of Adam’s works, yet it remained a reward of debt. The truly gracious character of free justification is only preserved when faith functions as an instrumental cause, uniting us to Christ and his merits. Baxter’s unorthodox understanding of the atonement ultimately resulted in a radically different and unorthodox understanding of the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace.
Petto's point here could not be clearer. Whatever the material conditions for merit might be, it is irrelevant to the form of the merit itself. If I may repeat the same analogy I used before: a covenant that offers eternal life on the basis of condign merit for even a sin-stained (I mean materially; obviously it cannot be rewarded qua sin-stained) and trivial action is, formally, as much as a covenant of works as Christ's own and differs from the Covenant of Grace, formally considered, equally as much as Adam's Covenant of Works does. Petto stands here as another witness to precisely what I have been arguing for: that condign merit is that which formally makes a covenant of works.
The difference between condign and congruent merit is entirely qualitative. Indeed it
Was simply God’s stipulation of Adam’s perfect obedience as the [proper] covenant condition that endowed it with an ex pacto meritorious function.
It is the will of the covenant-maker which decides the form that a given act will take. It is impossible to distinguish between condign and congruent merit simply by the material actions. One has to look to the intent of the covenant itself.
Applying this to the question of faith and its causality, Petto argues:
We are not justified by the payment of a “Rent of faith”, as if the New Covenant were as conditional as the Covenant of Works, only on more lenient terms. Petto repeatedly insists that faith does not give a right, but only receives one. Faith receives Christ and so receives a right and title in him. The spotless righteousness by which we are justified is found extra nos in the glorified Christ alone. Our faith is no part of that righteousness and no part of our entitlement to eternal life. Petto writes, “all this legal doing for Life must be found in Christ alone”. Faith is simply the necessary means and instrument of application whereby Christ’s spotless righteousness is imputed to us and counted as our own.
Petto's point is an important one here: faith does not formally give right to justification (i.e. it does not condignly merit it). A purchase and the means by which one comes into possession of that purchase must be rightly distinguished. When I work for a paycheck my boss has an obligation to give me that paycheck because of a debt/right that I hold to it, but that debt is only formally in my work and not in the means by which I come into possession of my paycheck. Now, certainly, when I make use of the means to obtain my paycheck, my boss has a debt to give it to me; but this debt is still formally in my work and not in the means I have used to obtain it. Of course, we must remember that the means of possession are included in the debt itself. Petto makes this last point rather explicitly:
Petto distinguishes between various forms of so-called conditional promises in his final chapter. Some (such as John 3:16) highlight the vital means of application of the free promise. Others (such as Matt 11:28) emphasize that the free promise holds firm even for those in the direst of straits. Ibid., 314. Still others (such as Matt 6:14) highlight the godliness which is a fruit of true participation in the free promise, as a spur to our seeking it by way of faith. Thus, the unconditional New Covenant is the “Fountain of all the Promises to us” and all the so-called conditional promises are but “streams flowing thence” and ultimately reducible to it. The absolute promise is the efficacy behind all the so-called conditional promises, not vice versa.
Thus, when Scripture tells us that whosoever believes in Christ shall have eternal life (John 3:16), faith is not here proposed as a condition entitling us to eternal life, but simply as the appointed internal means whereby we must receive it: “herein is holden forth the way and means to the obtainment of salvation”
The "conditional promises" of the Covenant of Grace, dealing with means of possession, are included in the "unconditional" nature of the covenant itself. In other words, Christ's merit includes the purchase of the means of possession. While faith is a means whereby we are justified, when we ask the question regarding the right whereby we are justified, or even the right whereby we possess faith (or any other benefit of salvation):
Our only claim is “in the right of our elder brother, Jesus Christ”
Now what I want to point out here is that Petto's distinction between the "conditional promises" of the Covenant of Grace and the right/debt/title of Christ they are founded in corresponds precisely to the distinction I have explicated in my post on merit between condign and congruent merit. Whatever meritorious cause (taken as defined in my previous post) deals with right/title/debt is condign; whatever does not is congruent.
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