442. It needs to be thoroughly known that charity and faith in the Lord are closely linked, so that the nature of faith determines the nature of charity. It may be seen above that the Lord, charity and faith make one, like life, will and understanding, and if they are separated each of them is destroyed like a pearl collapsing into dust (362ff); and charity and faith are present together in good deeds (373-377). It follows from this that the nature of faith determines the nature of charity; and the nature of faith and charity taken together determines the nature of deeds. Now if faith claims that all the good a person does as if of himself is from the Lord, then the person is its instrumental cause, and the Lord is its principal cause. To human sight these two causes appear as one, yet in fact the principal cause is all-important to the instrumental cause. It follows from this that if a person believes that all good which is essentially good is from the Lord, he does not ascribe merit to deeds; and as this belief becomes more and more perfect in a person, this imagined notion of merit is removed from him by the Lord.
[2] When a person is in this condition he exercises charity freely with no fear that he is seeking merit, and eventually feels the spiritual joy of charity; and then he begins to loathe merit as injurious to his life. The notion of merit is easily wiped out by the Lord in the case of those who absorb charity by acting fairly and faithfully in their work, business or position and with those with whom they have any dealings (on this see 422-424 above). But the idea of merit is very hard to remove from those who think charity is acquired by alms-giving and helping the needy. For when these people do such things, their minds are at first openly, and later tacitly, wanting to be rewarded, and they seek for merit.
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