times he did not do actions of that degree which is absolutely the greatest; it is evident that God's goodness is so great, as to be content with such a love which parts no share between him and sin; and leaves all the rest under such a liberty, as is only encouraged by those extraordinary rewardsTM and crowns proportioned to heroical endeavours. It was a pretty question, which was moved in the solitudes of Nitria, concerning two religious brothers"; the one gave all his goods to the poor at once, the other kept the inheritance, and gave all the revenue. None of all the fathers knew which was absolutely the better; at once to renounce all, or, by repetition of charitable acts, to divide it into portions: one act of charity in an heroical degree, or an habitual charity in the degree of virtue. This instance is probation enough, that the opinion of such a necessity of doing the best action, simply and indefinitely, is impossible to be safely acted, because it is impossible to be understood. Two talents shall be rewarded, and so shall five, both in their proportions: " he that sows sparingly shall reap sparingly," but he shall reap: every man as he purposes in his heart, so let him give." The best action shall have the best reward; and though he is the happiest who rises highest, yet he is not safest that enters into the state of disproportion to his person. I find, in the lives of the later reputed saints, that St. Teresa à Jesu made a vow to do every thing which she should judge to be the best. I will not judge the person, nor censure the action, because possibly her intention and desires were of greatest sanctity; but whosoever considers the story of her life, and the strange repugnancies in the life of man to such undertakings, must needs fear to imitate an action of such danger and singularity. The advice which, in this case, is safest to be followed, is, that we employ our greatest industry, that we fall not into sin, and actions of forbidden nature; and then strive, by parts and steps, and with much wariness, in attempering our zeal, to superadd degrees of eminence, and observation of the more perfect instances of sanctity; that, doing some excellences which God hath not commanded, he may be the rather moved to

n Histor. Lansid.

• Πᾶν τὸ βέλτιστον φαινόμενον ἔστω σοι νόμος ἀπαράβατος. - Epict. c. 75.

pardon our prevaricating so many parts of our necessary duty. If love transport us, and carry us to actions sublime and heroical, let us follow so good a guide, and pass on with diligence, and zeal, and prudence, as far as love will carry us P: but let us not be carried to actions of great eminence, and strictness, and unequal severities, by scruple and pretence of duty; lest we charge our miscarriages upon God, and call the yoke of the Gospel insupportable, and Christ a hard task-master. But we shall pass from virtue to virtue with more safety, if a spiritual guide take us by the hand; only remembering, that if the angels themselves, and the beatified souls, do now, and shall hereafter, differ in degrees of love and glory, it is impossible the state of imperfection should be confined to the highest love, and the greatest degree, and such as admits no variety, no increment, or difference of parts and stations.

13. Secondly: Our love to God consists not in any one determinate degree, but hath such a latitude as best agrees with the condition of men, who are of variable natures, different affections and capacities, changeable abilities, and which receive their heightenings and declensions according to a thousand accidents of mortality. For when a law is regularly prescribed to persons, whose varieties and different constitutions cannot be regular or uniform, it is certain God gives a great latitude of performance, and binds not to just atoms and points. The laws of God are like universal objects, received into the faculty, partly by choice, partly by nature; but the variety of perfection is by the variety of the instruments, and disposition of the recipient, and are excelled by each other in several senses, and by themselves at several times. And so is the practice of our obedience, and the entertainments of the Divine commandments: for some are of malleable natures, others are morose; some are of healthful and temperate constitutions, others are lustful, full of fancy, full of appetite; some have excellent leisure and opportunities of retirement, others are busy in an active life, and cannot, with advantages, attend to the choice of the. better part; some are peaceable and timorous, and some are. in all instances serene; others are of tumultuous and unquiet

ν Ξὺν τῷ δικαίῳ γὰς μέγ ̓ ἔξεστι φρονεῖν. — Sophoc. Ajac.

spirits and these become opportunities of temptation on one side, and on the other occasions of a virtue: but every change of faculty and variety of circumstance hath influence upon morality; and, therefore, their duties are personally altered, and increase in obligation, or are slackened by necessities, according to the infinite alteration of exterior accidents, and interior possibilities.

14. Thirdly: Our love to God must be totally exclusive of any affection to sin, and engage us upon a great, assiduous, and laborious care, to resist all temptations, to subdue sin, to acquire the habits of virtues, and live holily; as it is already expressed in the discourse of repentance. We must prefer God as the object of our hopes, we must choose to obey him rather than man, to please him rather than satisfy ourselves, and we must do violence to our strongest passions, when they once contest against a Divine commandment. If our passions are thus regulated, let them be fixed upon any lawful object whatsoever, if, at the same time, we prefer heaven and heavenly things, that is, would rather choose to lose our temporal love than our eternal hopes, (which we can best discern by our refusing to sin upon the solicitation or engagement of the temporal object;) then, although we feel the transportation of a sensual love towards a wife, or child, or friend, actually more pungent and sensible than passions of religion are, they are less perfect, but they are not criminal. Our love to God requires that we do his commandments, and that we do not sin; but in other things we are permitted, in the condition of our nature, to be more sensitively moved by visible than by invisible and spiritual objects. Only this; we must ever have a disposition and a mind prepared to quit our sensitive and pleasant objects, rather than quit a grace, or commit a sin. Every act of sin is against the love of God, and every man does many single actions of hostility and provocation against him; but the state of the love of God is that which we actually call the state of grace. When Christ reigns in us, and sin does not reign, but the spirit is quickened, and the lusts are mortified when we are habitually virtuous, and do acts of piety, temperance, and justice, frequently, easily, cheerfully, and with a successive, constant, moral, and humane industry, according to the talent which God hath entrusted to us in the banks

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of nature and grace; then we are in the love of God, then love him with all our heart." But if sin grows upon us, and is committed more frequently, or gets a victory with less difficulty, or is obeyed more readily, or entertained with a freer complacency; then we love not God as he requires; we divide between him and sin, and God is not the Lord of all our faculties. But the instances of Scripture are the best exposition of this commandment: for David "followed God with all his heart, to do that which was right in his eyes 9;" and Josiah "turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might'." Both these kings did it; and yet there was some imperfection in David, and more violent recessions: for so saith the Scripture of Josiah, “Like unto him was there no king before him;" David was not so exact as he, and yet he "followed God with all his heart." From which these two corollaries are certainly deducible that to love God with all our heart admits variety. of degrees, and the lower degree is yet a love with all our heart; and yet to love God requires a holy life, a diligent walking in the commandments, either according to the sense of innocence or of penitence, either by first or second counsels, by the spirit of regeneration, or the spirit of renovation and restitution. The sum is this: the sense of this precept is such as may be reconciled with the infirmities of our nature, but not with a vice in our manners; with the recession of single acts, seldom done, and always disputed against, and long fought with, but not with an habitual aversation, or a ready obedience to sin, or an easy victory.

15. This commandment, being the sum of the first table, had, in Moses' law, particular instances which Christ did not insert into his institution; and he added no other particular, but that which we call the third commandment, concerning veneration and reverence to the name of God. The other two, viz. concerning images and the sabbath, have some special considerations.

The Second Commandment.

16. The Jews receive daily offence against the catechisms of some churches, who, in the recitation of the decalogue,

4 1 Kings, xiv. 8.

r

Kings, xxiii. 25.

omit the second commandment, as supposing it to be a part of the first, according as we account them; and their offence rises higher, because they observe, that in the New Testament, where the decalogue is six times repeated, in special recitation and in summaries, there is no word prohibiting the making, retaining, or respect of images. Concerning which things Christians consider, that God forbade to the Jews the very having and making images and representments, not only of the true God, or of false and imaginary deities, but of visible creatures', which, because it was but of temporary reason, and relative consideration of their aptness to superstition, and their conversing with idolatrous nations, was a command proper to the nation, part of their covenant, not of essential, indispensable, and eternal reason, not of that which we usually call "the law of nature." Of which also God gave testimony, because himself commanded the signs and representment of seraphim to be set upon the mercy-seat, toward which the priest and the people made their addresses in their religious adorations; and of the brazen serpent, to which they looked when they called to God for help against the sting of the venomous snakes. These instances tell us, that to make pictures or statues of creatures is not against a natural reason; and that they may have uses which are profitable, as well as be abused to danger and superstition. Now, although the nature of that people was apt to the abuse, and their intercourse with the nations in their confines was too great an invitation to entertain the danger; yet Christianity hath so far removed that danger, by the analogy and design of the religion, by clear doctrines, revelations, and infinite treasures of wisdom, and demonstrations of the Spirit, that our blessed Lawgiver thought it not necessary to remove us from superstition by a prohibition of the use of images and pictures; and, therefore, left us to the

• Ο Μωσῆς τὰς δοκίμους καὶ γλαφυρὰς τέχνας, ζωγραφίαν καὶ ἀνδριαντοποιίαν, ἐκ τῆς κατ ̓ ἀυτὸν πολιτείας ἐξήλασε. — Philo de Gigant.

Vide Exod. xxxiv. 13. Deut. iv. 16, and vii. 5. Numb. xxxiii. 52.

t Imò et Ecclesia 8. Novemb. celebrat martyrium Claudii Nicostrati et sociorum, qui, cùm peritissimi fuerant statuarii, mortem potiùs ferre, quàm Gentilibus simulacra facere, maluerunt.

Αγαλμα οὐ κατεσκεύασε, διὰ τὸ μὴ νομίζειν ἀνθρωπόμορφον εἶναι τὸν Θεὸν.Diodor. Sic. de Moyse.