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John Cotton Reconsidered: Law and Grace in Two Worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2013

DAVID PARNHAM
DAVID PARNHAM*
Affiliation:
50 McArthur Street, Malvern, VIC 3144, Australia; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Scholarly accounts of John Cotton's pre-migration divinity focus upon its legalism. Cotton's Old-World voice speaks with the law-mindedness of the ‘precisianist’ and the ‘experimental predestinarian’. Cotton, moreover, is said to have made a ‘radical change’ when, in Massachusetts, he renounced the law's ‘power’. Legalist therein becomes solifidian. Such a view fails to account for the very particular nature of Cotton's Old-World evocations of the moral law. Cotton was a diffident legalist in old Boston. A flirtation with the covenant of works momentarily roused the power of the moral law, but this was atypical of Cotton's English divinity. It was in Massachusetts that Cotton made bold pastoral use of the law's power. And, with this, he coupled a theological revision that cut through the roots of Old-World piety: placing unusual stress on the passivity of faith, he rejected the ‘evidentiary’ value of the Puritan holy walk.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 296 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

1 Webster, Tom, Godly clergy in early Stuart England: the Caroline Puritan movement, c. 1620–1643, Cambridge 1997, 24Google Scholar. For Cotton's living of a Puritan life see Ziff, Larzer, The career of John Cotton: Puritanism and the American experience, Princeton 1962Google Scholar.

2 See Winship, Michael P., Making heretics: militant Protestantism and free grace in Massachusetts, 1636–1641, Princeton 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Cotton's place in the stormy political and ecclesiastical world of old Boston see Rosenmeier, Jesper, ‘“Eaters and non-eaters”: John Cotton's A brief exposition of Canticles (1642) in light of Boston's (Lincs.) religious and civil conflicts, 1619–22’, Early American Literature xxxvi (2001), 149–81Google Scholar. For disagreements with Hooker see Shuffelton, Frank, Thomas Hooker, 1586–1647, Princeton 1977, 168–70Google Scholar, 254–8, 289–91; Bozeman, Theodore Dwight, The precisianist strain: disciplinary religion and antinomian backlash in Puritanism to 1638, Chapel Hill–London 2004, 259–60Google Scholar; and Parnham, David, ‘Redeeming free grace: Thomas Hooker and the contested language of salvation’, Church History lxxvii (2008), 915–54Google Scholar, esp. pp. 926, 942, 948–52.

3 Twisse, William, A treatise of Mr. Cottons, clearing certaine doubts concerning predestination, London 1646Google Scholar (Wing T.3425), 89, 92, 95, 227, 252–4, 269.

4 Ibid. 87, 229, 263–5.

5 Ibid. 264; The antinomian controversy, 1636–1638: a documentary history, ed. David D. Hall, 2nd edn, Durham, NC 1990, 62–3.

6 Toulouse, Teresa, The art of prophesying: New England sermons and the shaping of belief, Athens, Ga 1987, 32–3Google Scholar, 39, 42.

7 McGiffert, Michael, ‘The Perkinsian moment of federal theology’, Calvin Theological Journal xxix (1994), 117–48Google Scholar, quotations at pp. 142, 144–5; Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 286, 241; Como, David R., Blown by the spirit: Puritanism and the emergence of an antinomian underground in pre-civil-war England, Stanford 2004, 442Google Scholar.

8 Twisse, Treatise of Mr. Cottons, esp. pp. 45–8, 51, 69–70, 81, 87–92, 145, 147, 208–12, 215–20, 228, 233–44, 248, 257, 270–2.

9 Kendall, R. T., Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, Oxford 1979Google Scholar, esp. pp. 110, 117; Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 211, and ch. xi for ‘adumbrations’ and pp. 230, 242, 257–9, 266–7, 280, 282–90, 293–305 for Cotton's ‘semi-antinomian’ theology and his catalytic role in the antinomian insurgency.

10 For an eloquent account of Cotton's ‘disciplinary religion’ see Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 212–21. Bozeman fits Cotton too tightly into the mould of his ‘precisianist’ template, and so does not pick up on the subtle yet saturating equivocations that softened Cotton's legalism.

11 See, for example, Cotton, John, Christ the fountaine of life, London 1651Google Scholar (Wing C.6418), 40–1, 45, 109, 111, 126; A practical commentary, or an exposition with observations, reasons, and uses upon the first epistle generall of John, London 1656 (Wing C.6451), 29, 60, 108, 236–8, 345, 362, 368; and The way of life, London 1641 (Wing C.6470), 12, 161–2, 325–6, 426, 438.

12 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 126, 123.

13 Idem, Way of life, 139, 422, 424, and Christ the fountaine, 107, 109–12.

14 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 29; Way of life, 426, 434; and Practical commentary, 120.

15 Idem, Way of life, 303 (mispaginated as 273), and, for obsession with lust at pp. 12, 115, 232, 238, 247, 257, 260–1, 263, 265, 269, 278–9, 284, 301, 318, 352, 366, 479; Christ the fountaine, 18–19, 41, 68, 147, 150, 153; and Practical commentary, 60, 99, 104–5, 108, 111–37, 368, 384–5, 408.

16 Idem, Way of life, 12, and, on mortification at pp. 129–30, 218–19, 224–5, 238, 255–7, 260–7, 352–3, 360, 385, and Practical commentary, 60, 112–13, 122.

17 Idem, Gods mercie mixed with his justice, London 1641 (Wing C.6433), 41. See also Way of life, 318. For antinomian use see, for example, Eaton, John, The honey-combe of free justification by Christ alone, London 1642Google Scholar (Wing E.115), 10, 17, 47, 77, 87, 154, 323–4, 349, 371–2, 374–5, 405, 447, 468.

18 Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism, chs viii, xii; Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 212.

19 Cotton, Way of life, 129–30, and, on this kind of penitential affectivity at pp. 8, 29–32, 36, 40–1, 54–5, 127–8, 135–7, 161, 174, 264, 364, and Practical commentary, 336, 398–400.

20 Idem, Practical commentary, 153, 336.

21 Ibid. 325–6, and Way of life, 62.

22 Idem, Way of life, 8, 29–30, 39–40, 54–6.

23 Ibid. 32.

24 Ibid. 69.

25 On ‘threatnings’ and ‘commandements’ see idem, Christ the fountaine, 12–13, 120, 136–7, 189; Practical commentary, 60–71, 106–7, 112, 138, 160, 234–6, 269–75, 277–8, 338–43, 350, 354; and Way of life, 105, 225, 238, 244, 323–6, 330–3, 359, 371, 393–400.

26 Idem, Way of life, 174; The correspondence of John Cotton, ed. Sargent Bush, Jr, Chapel Hill–London 2001, 111.

27 Cotton, Way of life, 107, and also pp. 16–18, 21, 328.

28 Ibid. 359, 397–8, and also pp. 405, 473. See, similarly, Richard Sibbes, Works, ed. Alexander Grosart, Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1862–4, i. 59.

29 Cotton, Way of life, 134.

30 Ibid.

31 Idem, Practical commentary, 274.

32 Idem, Way of life, 134–9, 161–2.

33 Idem, Practical commentary, 338, 354, and Way of life, 323–6.

34 Idem, Way of life, 306–7 (mispaginated as 276–85), and also pp. 313–20, 323–4, 326–7, 329.

35 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 97–8.

36 Idem, Way of life, 247.

37 Ibid. 326–7; Hooker, Thomas, The soules preparation for Christ, London 1632Google Scholar (RSTC 13735.5), 198, and The poor doubting Christian drawn unto Christ, in Thomas Hooker: writings in England and Holland, 1626–1633, ed. George H. Williams, Norman Pettit, Winfried Hergert and Sargent Bush, Jr, Cambridge, Ma 1975, 158.

38 Cotton, Way of life, 328.

39 Idem, Practical commentary, 190.

40 Idem, Way of life, 129–30.

41 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 96, and Practical commentary, 397.

42 See the insight in McGiffert, Michael, ‘From Moses to Adam: the making of the covenant of works’, Sixteenth Century Journal xix (1988), 129–55Google Scholar, esp. p. 153, fleshed out in his ‘Perkinsian moment’, 130–6, 148.

43 Cotton, Way of life, 235–6, and Practical commentary, 242.

44 Idem, Way of life, 227, 229–34, 246–7, 260–2.

45 Ibid. 228.

46 See McGiffert's seminal article on this subject.

47 Cotton, Way of life, 228–9, 238.

48 Twisse, Treatise of Mr. Cottons, 62–3, 109–10, 259–61.

49 Cotton, Way of life, 235.

50 Ibid. 229, and also p. 230. See also Practical commentary, 234.

51 Idem, Way of life, 235–6.

52 Ibid. 238.

53 Ibid. 232–3, 239.

54 Ibid. 240–1.

55 Ibid. 237.

56 Ibid. 246–7, and A brief exposition of the whole book of Canticles, London 1642 (Wing C.6410), 92, 97.

57 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 21–2, 24, 26–8, 30, 141; Gods mercie, 69; Practical commentary, 385–6; and Way of life, 308, 311–12, 347, 356–7. For New England treatments dating from the period of the free-grace controversy see Antinomian controversy, 56, 96, 100, 122–3, 137, 178, 402, and Cotton, John, A treatise of the covenant of grace, London 1671Google Scholar (Wing C.6467), 16, 18, 28, 34, 36, 39, 43–5, 53, 71–3, 99, 110, 115–19, 126–9, 132, 141, 200–2.

58 Hooker, Soules preparation, 122, and The soules humiliation, London 1638 (RSTC 13729), 9–11, 18, 21–2, 40, 49–51.

59 Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 188–9.

60 Ibid. 19. See also Practical commentary, 384.

61 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 12. See also Practical commentary, 131, 351, and Way of life, 397–8.

62 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 8–9, 22, 115; Practical commentary, 190, 204, 206, 385; and Way of life, 147, 275.

63 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 24.

64 Idem, Practical commentary, 27, and Christ the fountaine, 26.

65 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 25–7, and Practical commentary, 65, 241. For pride and hypocrisy see Christ the fountaine, 22, 27–8, 43, 52, 96, 113, 128, 131, 147; Gods mercie, 41, 71; Practical commentary, 26, 113, 116–18, 134–5, 153, 158–60, 230, 266, 385, 388, 405; and Way of life, 38, 55, 132, 145–6, 191, 193, 215, 219, 224, 237, 263, 279, 301, 339, 435. For ‘common’ gifts and graces see Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 25–8, 115, 130; Practical commentary, 26–7, 164, 205, 352, 385; and Way of life, 38; and Twisse, Treatise of Mr. Cottons, 259–61. For godly cultivators of their ‘owne strength’ see Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 2, 30, 130, 132–3; Gods mercie, 69, 72; Practical commentary, 98, 105, 134–5, 201, 345, 386; and Way of life, 270, 280, 341–2.

66 Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 123, and also pp. 110–13, and Practical commentary, 398–400. For Sibbes see, for example, Works, i. 46–8, 53, 58–9, 157–8, 216, 235; ii. 117; iii. 467; iv. 285; vii. 371–6.

67 Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 47.

68 Idem, Practical commentary, 230.

69 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 29, 50, 93, 111–12, 119, 131, 141–2, 150; Practical commentary, 386; and Way of life, 218, 227, 303 (mispaginated as 273), 357, 451.

70 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 24–5. See also Rosenmeier, ‘“Eaters and non-eaters”’, 171–4.

71 Cotton, Treatise, 155–6, 87–98, 103, 106–7.

72 See, for example, Perkins, William, Works, Cambridge 1631Google Scholar, i (RSTC 19652.5), 79–80, 285, 732; ii (RSTC 19653), 243; iii (RSTC 19653a), 363–4; Preston, John, The new covenant, or the saints portion, London 1629Google Scholar (RSTC 20241.3), 411, 413–14; A liveles life: or, mans spirituall death in sinne, London 1633 (RSTC 20235), 43–4, 73–5; Sins overthrow: or, a godly and learned treatise of mortification, London 1633 (RSTC 20275), 24, 77, 146; The breast-plate of faith and love, London 1634 (RSTC 20212), pt i, 14, 27, 69; pt iii, 17; The saints qualification, London 1634 (RSTC 20264), 378–9; Foure godly and learned treatises, London 1636 (RSTC 20223), 173; The golden sceptre held forth to the humble, London 1638 (RSTC 20227), 262; and A heavenly treatise of the divine love of Christ, London 1640 (RSTC 20240.3), 9–10.

73 Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 10, and also pp. 134–5; Way of life, 11–12, 300, 365; and Practical commentary, 382–3, 410.

74 Antinomian controversy, 85, 96–7, 121–2, 136–7.

75 Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 10, and Practical commentary, 190, 383. See also Antinomian controversy, 37–8, 40, 55, 196–8; Cotton, Treatise, 109, 122–3, 217; Preston, New covenant, 475–6, 511; Breast-plate of faith and love, pt i, 39, 64–7, 70–2; Foure godly and learned treatises, 199; and Golden scepter, 102, 268; Sibbes, Works, iii. 399, 518; and Hooker, Soules humiliation, 110–11, 145.

76 Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 11.

77 Ibid. 11–12, and see also, on self-abhorrence, Cotton, Practical commentary, 135, 382–3, and Way of life, 5, 8, 120, 127–8, 169–70, 310, 328.

78 Idem, Way of life, 15–65, 328, 364.

79 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 36–7, 40–5; Practical commentary, 29, 388; and Way of life, 330, 426.

80 Faith ‘receives’ and ‘lays hold on’ Christ, ‘conveys’ him and ‘cleaves to’ him, and ‘applies’ his blessings: idem, Christ the fountaine, 45; Practical commentary, 190, 236, 238, 276, 280, 355, 417; and Way of life, 278, 288, 300, 311–13, 320, 331–5, 339, 346–9, 360–1, 365, 368–70, 400–2, 423–4, 454.

81 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 22, 24, 27–8, 46, 56; Practical commentary, 190, 385–6; and Way of life, 159–60, 239.

82 Idem, Way of life, 359.

83 Idem, Practical commentary, 189–90, 235, 242, and Way of life, 235–6, 368.

84 Idem, Practical commentary, 200, and also pp. 362–4.

85 Ibid. 198–9.

86 Idem, Way of life, 368, and Practical commentary, 249.

87 Idem, Practical commentary, 190.

88 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 28–9, and Practical commentary, 386.

89 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 28–9, and also p. 51.

90 Ibid. 29, and also pp. 132–3, and Way of life, 218–19.

91 Idem, Christ the fountaine, 52, 55, and also pp. 51, 56, 58.

92 See, for example, ibid. 61–2, and Practical commentary, 198–200. Cotton's spiritist discourse needs no elaboration here. For detailed and elegant commentary on the writings from Old World and New see Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 225–9, 257–9, 269–78.

93 Antinomian controversy, 96, and also pp. 85, 97, 99–100, 121–4, 136–7, 186–7; Cotton, Treatise, 43–4.

94 Antinomian controversy, 91–3, 96–100, 110–11, 121, 123, 136, 175–6; Cotton, Treatise, 19–20, 34–5, 37, 56, 61, 65–7, 86, 133–4.

95 For the English works see nn. 81 (‘trust’), 65 (‘owne strength’) above. On wrongful ‘trust’ in New England see Cotton, Treatise, 15, 34, 66, 91, 99, 102, 104, 106, 131, 133; on the saints' dependence on their ‘owne strength’ see Antinomian controversy, 103, and Cotton, Treatise, 43–5, 108–10, 119–20, 126, 128, 132. For Cotton's personal agonies provoked by the resort to pietistic signs see Cotton to Samuel Stone, Correspondence of Cotton, 273.

96 See, for example, Hooker, Soules preparation, 55–6, 122; Soules humiliation, 7, 9–11, 18, 21–2, 43, 45, 49–51; The soules ingrafting into Christ, London 1637 (RSTC 13733), 2; The soules vocation or effectual calling to Christ, London 1638 (RSTC 13739), 179–81, 306, 464–8; and The application of redemption, by the effectual work of the Word, and Spirit of Christ, for the bringing home of lost sinners to God: the first eight books, London 1656 (Wing H.2639), 28–30, 43–4, 219–20.

97 Antinomian controversy, 88–9, 98, 127, 186; Cotton, Treatise, 83–5, 89, 164, 174.

98 Antinomian controversy, 98–9, 137, 139; Cotton, Treatise, 4, 13, 25–6, 67, 193, 213–14.

99 Cotton, Treatise, 107.

100 Ibid. 25, 50.

101 Antinomian controversy, 50–1, 91–5, 147, 188–9; Cotton, Treatise, 19–20, 37–8, 133, 179.

102 Antinomian controversy, 57, 84, 86–7, 98, 121, 126.

103 Cotton, Treatise, 104, and also p. 20. See also Antinomian controversy, 54, 178.

104 Antinomian controversy, 55–7, 93–4, 108, 126, 137–9, 178–9, 196; Cotton, Treatise, 19, 21, 60–1.

105 Antinomian controversy, 56; Cotton, Treatise, 35.

106 Cotton, Treatise, 30–2, 45–6.

107 For Cotton's covenant of works and its pastoral application see ibid. esp. pp. 14–59, 89, 161–5, 200, and Sermon deliver'd at Salem, in John Cotton on the churches of New England, ed. Larzer Ziff, Cambridge, Ma 1968, 48, 57–9; Antinomian controversy, 53, 55–6, 85, 98, 117–18, 123, 125, 128, 132, 137.

108 For the Spirit of bondage in New England see Antinomian controversy, 54, 178; Cotton, Sermon deliver'd at Salem, 57, 60–3, and Treatise, 14–17, 34, 41, 45, 98, 114–20, 169; and in England see Cotton, Way of life, 3, 21, 26, 42, 233, 257. For ‘common’ graces see Antinomian controversy, 92, and Treatise, 48, 59, 156, 202 and n. 65 above for English uses. For confidence see n. 57 above.

109 Cotton, Treatise, 15–17, 34, 36, 114–20.

110 For temporary blessings see ibid. 26–7, 30, 32 (redemption), 27, 89 (union with Christ), 27, 30, 41–4, 53; Sermon deliver'd at Salem, 54 (faith); and Treatise, 29 (justification and adoption), 26–32, 38–40, 42–3, 45–9, 161–5 (sanctification), 40–1, 52, 59; Antinomian controversy, 406 (taste of the Spirit and of Christ). See similarly, on mercies extended to the reprobate, Perkins, Works, i. 106, 109, 358, and Hooker, Soules vocation, 465–70.

111 Cotton, Treatise, 15–17, 34, 43, 53, 118.

112 Ibid. 27, 40–1, 48, 51–2, 99.

113 Ibid. 66, and also pp. 37–9, 179–80. See also, on Cotton's legal covenant, Coolidge, John S., The Pauline renaissance in England: Puritanism and the Bible, Oxford 1970, 103–4Google Scholar, 111–12, and Parnham, David, ‘John Cotton's bequest to Sir Henry Vane the younger’, Westminster Theological Journal lxxii (2010), 71–101Google Scholar, esp. pp. 74–88.

114 Antinomian controversy, 148; Cotton, Treatise, 134.

115 Antinomian controversy, 132, and also pp. 53–4, 56, 85, 98–9, 117–18, 123, 126, 133.

116 Cotton, Treatise, 48, 110.

117 Ibid. 114–20.

118 Ibid. 51–3, and also pp. 39–43. The temporarily blessed may, nevertheless, maintain their hypocritical holiness for a lifetime (pp. 39, 46, 51–2).

119 Ibid. 117, 127–31. See also Sermon deliver'd at Salem, 62, 65.

120 Idem, Treatise, 84, and also Sermon deliver'd at Salem, 48, 58–9.

121 Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 224–5.

122 For the covenant of grace see ibid. 252–4, 258–9. For spiritism see n. 92 above.

123 Ibid. 223, 229, and also p. 230.

124 Ibid. 224. Though see pp. 264–5 where Bozeman notes the activity of Cotton's Old-World faith and speaks of Cotton's ‘generous appeals to human volition and effort’ in Lincolnshire. Bozeman valuably shows (p. 257) how divine agency in New England, for Cotton, is ‘less directly tied to the pietist system of moral and ritual mediation’.

125 Ibid. 224.

126 Cotton, Way of life, 311, 445, and Practical commentary, 273.

127 Antinomian controversy, 30, 50, 55, 57, 91, 103, 124; Cotton, Sermon deliver'd at Salem, 63, 65, and Treatise, 120–1, 221. In the English works, ‘waiting’ tends to bear an active connotation, and even incorporates faith's laying hold on Christ and laying hold of the promise of pardon: Cotton, Christ the fountaine, 33, and Way of life, 285, 304, 311–13, 317, 355, 402, 415, 430.

128 Antinomian controversy, 37–8, 40, 42.

129 Ibid. 56–7, 130, 138; Cotton, Treatise, 40.

130 Antinomian controversy, 37–8, 196; Cotton, Treatise, 22–3, 174–5, 218–19, 221.

131 Cotton, Treatise, 134.

132 Antinomian controversy, 91–2, 95, and also pp. 37, 41–2, 57, 79–80, 141; Cotton, Treatise, 18, 22, 24, 35–7, 40, 171, 178, 184–9, 218. See also the helpful treatment in Stoever, William K. B., ‘A faire and easie way to heaven’: covenant theology and antinomianism in early Massachusetts, Middletown 1978Google Scholar, esp. pp. 41–4, 64–7, 172. More generally on the theology of habits and acts see Cohen, Charles Lloyd, God's caress: the psychology of Puritan religious experience, New York 1986, 96–8Google Scholar.

133 Antinomian controversy, 49, 80, 105, 114, 135, 141, 223, 230, 232, 238, 263–4, 337; Cotton, Treatise, 191–2.

134 Antinomian controversy, 128, 141. For wrongful ‘resting’ see also Cotton, Treatise, 123, 137.

135 Antinomian controversy, 144, 89, 127. See also Cotton, Treatise, 108.

136 Antinomian controversy, 40, 92, 176, 193; Cotton, Treatise, 133–4.

137 Cotton, Practical commentary, 138, 415, and Way of life, 360.

138 Idem, Treatise, 40–1, 46.

139 Antinomian controversy, 85, 134.

140 Ibid. 126, 87, and also pp. 49, 87–8, 107, 109–11, 114–15, 119, 126, 136, 149–50, 189; Cotton, Treatise, 172–3.

141 Cotton, Treatise, 92, 194, and also pp. 50, 68–9, 74–9, 87–98; Antinomian controversy, 51, 86, 103–4.

142 Antinomian controversy, 89; Cotton, Treatise, 81–91. See also Cotton, Way of life, 229–30, and Practical commentary, 234. For rigorism see Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 242–3.

143 For orthodoxy see Cotton, Practical commentary, 189, 377, and Way of life, 320, 455; and Twisse, Treatise of Mr. Cottons, 135. For antinomian perversion see Cotton, Practical commentary, 285.

144 Antinomian controversy, 50–1, 85, 94–5, 99, 110–12, 115, 117, 119, 123–6, 136, 141, 149–50, 188, 191; Treatise, 20–1, 61, 87, 89–91, 134–5, 172–3, 179, 186, 190–1.

145 Antinomian controversy, 88–9; Cotton, Sermon deliver'd at Salem, 51, and Treatise, 69–79, 88–98.

146 Antinomian controversy, 81–2, 104, and also pp. 41–2; Cotton, Treatise, 67, 187–8, 192–3. On this dimension of Cotton's Old-World spirituality see Bozeman, Precisianist strain, 213–18.

147 Cotton, Practical commentary, 408.

148 Antinomian controversy, 122.

149 Cotton, Treatise, 39.

150 Ibid. 200–1, 221.

151 Ibid. 30, 110, 157.

152 Idem, Practical commentary, 197.