a doing excellent actions and instances of the commandments, a doing the commandment with love and excellence, a progression in the exercise and methods of that piety; the degrees of which, because they are affirmative, therefore they oblige but in certain circumstances; and are under no law absolutely, but they grow in the face of the sun, and pass on to perfection by heat and light, by love and zeal, by hope and by reward.

4. Now concerning these degrees it is that I affirm, that every thing is to be placed in that order of things where Christ left it and he that measures other men by his own stature, and exacts of children the wisdom of old men, and requires of babes in Christ the strengths and degrees of experienced prelates, he adds to the laws of Christ, that is, he ties where Christ hath not tied; he condemns where Christ does not condemn. It is not a law that every man should, in all the stages of his progression, be equally perfect: the nature of things hath several stages, and passes by steps to the varieties of glory. For so laws and counsels differ, as first and last, as beginning and perfection, as reward and punishment, as that which is simply necessary, and that which is highly advantageous: they differ not in their whole kind; for they are only the differing degrees of the same duty. He that does a counsel evangelical, does not do more. than his duty, but does his duty better: he that does it in a less degree, shall have a less reward; but he shall not perish,. if he does obey the just and prime or least measures of the law.

5. Let no man, therefore, impose upon his brother the heights and summities of perfection, under pain of damnation or any fearful evangelical threatening; because these are to be invited only by love and reward,--and by promises. only are bound upon us, not by threatenings. The want of the observing of this, hath caused impertinent disputes and animosities in men, and great misunderstandings in this question. For it is a great error to think, that every thing spoken in Christ's sermons is a law, or that all the progressions and degrees of Christian duty are bound upon us by penalties as all laws are. The commandments are made laws to us wholly by threatenings; for when we shall receive a crown of righteousness in heaven, that is, by way of gift,

merely gratuitous, but the pains of the damned are due to them by their merit and by the measures of justice: and therefore it is remarkable, that our blessed Saviour said, "When ye have done all that ye are commanded, ye are unprofitable servants;" that is, the strict measures of the laws or the commandments given to you are such, which if ye do not observe, ye shall die according to the sentence of the law; but if ye do, 'ye are yet unprofitable;' ye have not deserved the good things that are laid up for loving souls: but therefore towards that we must superadd the degrees of progression and growth in grace, the emanations of love and zeal, the methods of perfection and imitation of Christ. For by the first measures we escape hell; but by the progressions of love only, and the increase of duty, through the mercies of God in Christ, we arrive at heaven. Not that he that escapes hell, may, in any case, fail of heaven; but that whatsoever does obey the commandment in the first and least sense, will, in his proportion, grow on towards perfection. For he fails in the first, and does not that worthily,-who, if he have time, does not go on to the second.

6. But yet neither are these counsels of perfection left wholly to our liberty, so as that they have nothing of the law in them; for they are pursuances of the law; and of the same nature, though not directly of the same necessity; but collaterally and accidentally they are. For although God' follows the course and nature of things, and therefore does not disallow any state of duty that is within his own measures; because there must be a first before there can be a second, and the beginning must be esteemed good, or else we ought not to pursue it and make it more in the same kind; yet because God is pleased to observe the order of nature in his graciousness, we must do so too in the measures of our duty; nature must begin imperfectly, and God' is pleased with it, because himself hath so ordered it; but the nature of things, that begin and are not perfect, cannot stand still. God is pleased well enough with the least or the negative measure of the law; because that is the first or the beginning of all; but we must not always be beginning, but pass on to perfection, and it is perfection all the way, because it is the proper and the natural method of the grace to be growing; every degree of growth is not the perfection

of glory; but neither is it the absolute perfection of grace, but it is the relative perfection of it; just as corn and flowers are perfectly what they ought to be, when in their several months they are arrived to their proper stages: but if they do not still grow till they be fit for harvest, they wither and die, and are good for nothing: he that does not go from strength to strength, from virtue to virtue, from one degree of grace to another, he is not at all in the methods of life, but enters into the portions of thorns, and withered flowers, fit for excision and burning.

7. Therefore, (1.) No man must, in the keeping the commandments of Christ, set himself a limit of duty;—' Hither will I come, and no further:'-for the tree that does not grow, is not alive, unless it already have all the growth it can have: and there is in these things thus much of a law: evangelical counsels are thus far necessary, that although in them, that is, in the degrees of duty, there are no certain measures described; yet we are obliged to proceed from beginnings to perfection.

8. (2.) Although every man must impose upon himself this care, that he so do his duty, that he do add new degrees to every grace; yet he is not to be prejudiced by any man else, nor sentenced by determined measures of another man's appointment: God hath named none, but intends all; and therefore, we cannot give certain sentence upon our brother, since God hath described no measures; but intends that all,' whither no man can perfectly arrive here; and therefore it is supplied by God hereafter.

9. (3.) But the rule is to be understood in great instances as well as in great degrees of duty; for there are in the sermons of Christ some instances of duties, which although they are pursuances of laws and duty, yet in their own material natural being are not laws, but both in the degree implied, and in the instance expressed, are counsels evangelical; to which we are invited by great rewards, but not obliged to them under the proper penalties of the law. Such are making ourselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, selling all, and giving it to the poor. The duties and laws here signified are, chastity, charity, contempt of the world, zeal for the propagation of the gospel : the virtues themselves are direct duties, and under laws and punishment; but that'

we be charitable to the degree of giving all away, or that we act our chastity by a perpetual celibate, are not laws; but for the outward expression we are wholly at our liberty; and for the degree of the inward grace, we are to be still pressing forwards towards it, we being obliged to do so by the nature of the thing, by the excellency of the reward, by the exhortations of the gospel, by the example of good men; by our love to God, by our desires of happiness, and by the degrees of glory. Thus St. Paul took no wages of the Corinthian churches; it was an act of an excellent prudence, and great charity, but it was not by the force of a general law; for no man else was bound to it, neither was he; for he did not do so to other churches; but he pursued two or three graces to excellent measures and degrees; he became exemplary to others, useful to that church, and did advantage the affairs of religion: and though possibly he might, and so may we, by some concurring circumstances, be pointed out to this very instance and signification of his duty, yet this very instance, and all of the same nature, are counsels evangelical; that is, not imposed upon us by a law, and under a threatening; but left to our liberty, that we may express freely, what we are necessarily obliged to do in the kind, and to pursue forwards to degrees of perfection.

10. These therefore are the characteristic notes and measures to distinguish a counsel evangelical from the laws and commandments of Jesus Christ.

The Notes of Difference between Counsels and Commandments

evangelical.

1. Where there is no negative expressed or involved, there it cannot be a law; but it is a counsel evangelical. For in every law there is a degree of duty so necessary, that every thing less than it, is a direct act or state of sin: and therefore, if the law be affirmative, the negative is included, and is the sanction of the main duty. "Honour thy father and mother," that is a law for the lowest step of the duty there enjoined is bound upon us by this negative, "Thou shalt not curse thy father or mother;" or, "Thou shalt not deny to give them maintenance, Thou shalt not dishonour them, not slight, not undervalue, not reproach, not upbraid, not be rude or disobedient to them:' whenever such a negative is included,

that is the indication of a law. But in counsels evangelical, there is nothing but what is affirmative. There are some who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven: that is the intimation of a religious act or state: but the sanction of it is nothing that is negative, but this only; "He that hath ears to ear, let him hear,”—and, "Qui potest capere, capiat:" "He that can receive it, let him receive it :"-and, "He that hath power over his will, and hath so decreed in his heart, does well."-In commandments it is, 'He that does the duty, does well; he that does not, does ill:' but in counsels it is, 'He that does not, may do well: but he that does, does better:' as St. Paul discourses in the question of marriage; in which instance it is observable, that the comparison of celibate and marriage is not in the question of chastity, but in the question of religion, one is not a better chastity than the other. Marriage is кoírn àμíavros, 'an undefiled state;' and nothing can be cleaner than that which is not at all unclean; but the advantages of celibate above marriage, as they are accidental and contingent, so they are relative to times and persons and states, and external ministries: for to be made a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven,' is the same that St. Paul means by, the unmarried careth for the things of the Lord; that is, in these times of trouble and persecution, they who are not entangled in the affairs of a household, can better travel from place to place in the ministries of the gospel, they can better attend to the present necessities of the church, which are called the things of the Lord;' or 'the affairs of the kingdom of heaven:' but at no hand does it mean, that the state of single life is, of itself, a counsel evangelical, or a further degree of chastity, but of an advantageous ministry to the propagation of the gospel. But be it so, or be it otherwise; yet it is a counsel and no law, because it hath no negative part in its constitution, or next appendage.

11. (2.) When the action or state is propounded to us only upon the account of reward, and there is no penalty annexed, then it is a counsel and no law: for there is no legislative power where there is no coercitive: and it is but a precarious government, where the lawgiver cannot make the subject either do good or suffer evil: and therefore the 'jus gladii' and the 'merum imperium' are all one: and he that