The Church of Rome distinguishes between ‘precepts’ (commandments binding upon everyone), and ‘counsels’ (recommendations which are desirable, but not binding upon everyone).  In 1 Corinthians 7 St. Paul, discussing the relative merits of marriage and celibacy, says, ‘Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment (praeceptum, ‘precept’) of the Lord, but I give my judgement (consilium, ‘counsel’).’  On the basis of such passages it is argued that those who observe the ‘counsels’ by taking vows of poverty, chastity, and the monastic life, perform thereby works of supererogation.^[1]  The excess of merit earned by such works is alleged to belong to the whole Church, so that a sort of ‘Treasury of Merit’ is supposed to exist, from which the Church can draw to help sinners, not only in this life, but also hereafter.^[2]

But the whole doctrine of merit is as irrational as it is unscriptural.  ‘For our whole life, for every power that we possess as well as for every opportunity of exercising it, we are utterly dependent upon God.  He has an absolute claim upon all our life.  Nothing we can do can give us a claim against Him.  Hence, not only is the “reward” that we receive from Him non‑transferable, but from the nature of the case even the holiest saint can never possess any “merit” that belongs to him, as it were, in his own right and can be transferred to another’s account.  Our personal relationship to our Heavenly Father cannot be expressed in terms of arithmetic.’^[3]  The Article, in effect, says that no man can do more than his duty.  Since nothing less than perfection is required of us,^[4] and all our works, as we saw,^[5] are imperfect, it is impossible for any man to attain to God’s standard, much less to exceed it.  There can be no exception to our Lord’s verdict: ‘When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We be unprofitable servants.’^[6]  If the best of service is ‘unprofitable’, there can be no excess of merit.

The distinction between ‘precepts’ and ‘counsels’ is not absolute.  For instance, if God calls a man to the Ministry, he does not earn extra merit by obeying; but he would be committing a sin if he disobeyed; the ‘counsel’ has become for him a ‘precept’.  The same applies to those who are called to a life of poverty or chastity.  The Rich Young Ruler was asked to become poor as a condition of discipleship, not as a work of supererogation.  By refusing, he did not simply fail to earn merit; he endangered his entrance into the Kingdom of God.^[7]  God does not, however, call all men to make the same sacrifices, or to serve Him in the same way.^[8]