(a) It is false to suppose that our works merit remission of sins; false, also, that men are accounted righteous by the righteousness of reason and false to suppose that reason of its own power is capable of loving God above all things and of keeping the law of God. Page 64. (b) Faith does not justify because it is in itself so good a work and so excellent a virtue, but because it lays hold of Christ's merit in the promise of the Gospel. Pages 76, 684. (c) The promise of remission of sins and justification for Christ's sake does not involve any condition of merit, because it is freely offered. Page 67. (d) Man, a sinner, is justified before God, or absolved from his sins and from the most just sentence of damnation, and adopted into the number of the children of God, by pure grace, without any merit of his own, and without any works of his own, whether past, present or future and this purely on account of the sole merit of Christ which is imputed to him for righteousness. Page 684. (e) Good works follow faith, remission of sins and regeneration, and whatever pollution or imperfection is in them is not accounted sinful or defective; and this for Christ's sake. Thus the whole man, both as to his person and works, is rendered and pronounced righteous and holy from Christ's pure grace and mercy shed, displayed and increased, upon us; wherefore we cannot glory on account of merit. Pages 74, 92, 93, 336. (f) Whoever trusts in works as being meritorious to himself, despises the merit and grace of Christ, and seeks a way to heaven by human power without Christ. Pages 16-19. (g) Works are not only unprofitable but even harmful to such as desire to mingle good works with the doctrine of justification, and by them to merit the grace of God. Page 708. (h) The works of the Decalogue are specified, and other necessary works, which God honours with rewards. Pages 176, 198. (i) We teach that good works are meritorious, not indeed as regards remission of sins, grace and justification, but as regards other bodily rewards, as also spiritual rewards in this life and after this life; for Paul says that everyone will receive a reward according to his work, and Christ says that great will be your reward in heaven. Moreover, it is frequently said that to everyone will be rendered according to his works. Wherefore we acknowledge eternal life to be a reward, because it is our due according to the promise, and because God crowns his own gifts, but not on account of our merit. Pages 96, 133-138. (k) When the good works of believers are done for right reasons and directed to right ends, such as God requires from the reborn, they are signs of eternal salvation; and God the Father accounts them acceptable and pleasing for Christ's sake, and promises them excellent rewards in this life and in the life to come. Page 708. (l) Although good works merit rewards, yet neither by their worthiness nor fitness do they merit remission of sins or the glory of eternal life. Pages 96, 135, 139, etc. Appendix, page 174. (m) At the last judgment Christ will pass sentence on good and evil works as being the proper effects and evidences of men's faith. Page 134. Appendix, page 187. (n) God rewards good works, but it is of grace that He crowns His own gifts: this is asserted in the Confession of the Churches in the Low Countries.