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A commandment testifies a most entire and absolute
will in him who gives it, but counsel only represents
a will of desire: a commandment obliges us, counsel
only invites us; a commandment makes the
transgressors thereof culpable; counsel only makes
such as do not follow it less worthy of praise; those
who violate commandments deserve damnation, those who
neglect counsels deserve only to be less glorified.
There is a difference between commanding and
recommending: in commanding we use authority to
oblige, but in recommending we use friendliness to
induce and incite: a commandment imposes necessity,
counsel and recommendation induce to what is of
greater utility,: commandments correspond to
obedience, counsels to credence: we follow counsel
with intention to please, and commandments lest we
should displease.
And thence it is that the love of complacency
which obliges us to please the beloved, consequently
urges us to follow his counsels, and the love of
benevolence, which desires that all wills and
affections should be subjected unto him, causes that
we not only will what he ordains, but also what he
counsels and exhorts to: as the love and respect
which a good child bears to his father make him
resolve to live not only according to the
commandments which his father imposes, but also
according to the desires and inclinations which he
manifests.
A counsel is indeed given for the benefit of him
who receives it, to the end that he may become
perfect: If thou wilt be perfect, said our Saviour,
go sell all that thou halt, give it to the poor, and
come, follow me.(1) But the loving heart does not
receive a counsel for its utility, but to conform
itself to the desire of him who gives the counsel,
and to render him the homage due to his will. And
therefore it receives not counsels but in such sort
as God desires, nor does God desire that every one
should observe all counsels, but such only as are
suitable,
according to the diversity of persons, times,
occasions, strengths, as charity requires: for she it
is who, as queen of all the virtues, of all the
commandments, of all the counsels, and, in short, of
all Christian laws and works, gives to all of them
their rank, order, season and worth.
If your assistance be truly necessary to your father
or mother to enable them to live, it is no time then
to practise the counsel of retiring into a monastery,
for charity ordains that you presently put into
execution its command of honouring, serving, aiding
and succouring your father or your mother. You are
perhaps a prince, by whose posterity the subjects of
your crown are to be preserved in peace, and assured
against tyranny, sedition, civil wars: the effecting,
therefore, of so great a good, obliges you to beget
lawful successors in a holy marriage. It is either
not to lose chastity, or at least to lose it
chastely, when for love of charity it is sacrificed
to the public good.
Are you weak and uncertain in your health, and
does it require great support? Do not then
voluntarily undertake actual poverty, for this is
forbidden you by charity. Charity not only forbids
fathers of families to sell all and give it to the
poor, but also commands them honestly to gather
together what is requisite for the support and
education of wife, children and servants: as also it
commands kings and princes to lay up treasures,
which, being acquired by a laudible frugality, and
not by tyrannical measures, serve as wholesome
defences against visible enemies. Does not S. Paul
counsel such as are married, that, the time of prayer
being ended, they should return to the well-ordered
course of their married life?(2)
The counsels are all given for the perfection of
the Christian people, but not for that of each
Christian in particular. There are circumstances
which make them sometimes impossible, sometimes
unprofitable, sometimes perilous, sometimes hurtful
to some men, which is one of the reasons why Our
Saviour said of one of the counsels, what he would
have to be understood of them all: He that can
receive it, let him receive it:(3) as though he had
said, according to S. Jerome's exposition: he that
can win and bear away the honour of chastity as a
prize of renown, let him take it, for it is proposed
to such as shall run valiantly. Not every one then is
able, that is, it is not expedient for every one, to
observe always all the counsels, for as they are
granted in favour of charity, so is this the rule and
measure by which they are put in practice.
When, therefore, charity so orders, monks and
religious are drawn out of their cloisters to be made
cardinals, prelates, parishpriests, yea sometimes
they are even joined in matrimony for a kingdom's
repose, as I have already said. And if charity make
those leave their cloister that had bound themselves
thereto by solemn vow, - for better reason, and upon
less occasion, one may by the authority of the same
charity, counsel many to live at home, to keep their
means, to marry, yea to turn soldiers and go to war,
which is so perilous a profession.
Now when charity draws some to poverty and
withdraws others from it, when she directs some to
marriage and others to continence, when she shuts one
up in a cloister and makes another quit it, she is
not bound to give account thereof to any one: for she
has the plenitude of power in Christian laws, as it
is written: charity can do all things; she has the
perfection of prudence, according to that: charity
does nothing wrongly.(4) And if any would contest,
and demand why she so does, she will boldly make
answer: The Lord hath need of it.(5)
All is made for charity, and charity for God. All
must serve her and she none: no, she serves not her
well-beloved, whose servant she is not, but his
spouse, whom she does not serve, but love: for which
cause we are to take our orders from her how to
exercise counsels.
To some she will appoint chastity without poverty,
to others obedience and not chastity, to others
fasting but not alms-deeds, to others alms-deeds and
fasting, to others solitude and not the pastoral
charge, to others intercourse with men and not
solitude.
In fine she is a sacred water, by which the garden
of the church is fertilized, and though she herself
have no colour that can be called colour, yet the
flowers which she makes spring have each one its
particular colour. She makes Martyrs redder than the
rose, Virgins whiter than the lily; some she dyes
with the fine violet of mortification, others with
the yellow of marriage-cares, variously employing the
counsels, for the perfection of the souls who are so
happy as to live under her conduct.
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