danger of the Judgment ver 28. Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath comitted adultry v. 33 34. He tells them it is not sufficient not to forswear themselves but saith swear not at all and ver 39. bids them not to resist wrongs therefore we ought to be such persons and that commanding word that made the world can make us to be what he commands us to be and he hath prayed Sanctify them by thy truth and his prayers were alwaies heard and it is the office of the Holy Ghost to sanctify us It is the only end and design of the ministry as it is said by St. Paul of whom I travel in birth till Christ be formed in you The Apostle writes to the Disciples do as you have us for an example and Revel 2.8 The Church of Smyrna their graces wanted nothing but God would try them whether they would hold on to the end and the Church of Philadelphia God commends her and bids her hold on That Holiness is the only true Interest 2. Meditation Mot. A Good conscience is a continual feast The Authority of the Scriptures do prove it generally and particularly and do refel and destroy and baffle all other Interests according to that saying of the Apostle Godliness hath the promise of this life and of that which is to cemo Consider my soul a while the interests of of the mistaken men of the world whose ends designs and restless endeavours is after the vaine and transitory things of the world which they think to enjoy and repose themselves in the injoyment thereof as in their happiness Oh my Soul thou hast made some trials in these vaine sollacies but hast not found that satisfaction which thou promisedst to thy self and therefore hast vext thy self to see what thou hast ventured even thy soul and body and eternal happiness for a thing of nought that could not satissie thee and of thine own experience thou canst say that in the acquiring and in the keeping and injoying too they are meere vanity and vexation of Spirit and so full of labour as man cannot utter it Thus Solomon found before thee Thus Ammon having enjoyed his lusts desired object in a moment loathed it Thus Judas threw away the bate of his unsatisfied covetousness the like fruit attended all Sinners whether they repented or not So Naboths Vineyard yielded bitter grapes to Ahabs family and Davids bitter sweets which he found by stolen pleasures are by himself sufficiently deplored in Psal 51. The sweet enjoyment of Noahs Wine brought shame to himself and a curse upon his Son and his seed Ambitious Haman fell by his Ambition just then when he expected the greatest height of honour and Herod assuming to himself divine honours immediatly was seized upon and devoured by vermine the same cause procured Julius Caesar murther Many like instances my Soul thou hast heard and read both sacred and civil writers testifying what sad exits have attended pursuers of these sensual interests of covetousness lust gluttony drunkenness ambition c. Thou hast seen in thine own time many of these examples chiefly of lust drunkenness pride and covetousness All Historians testifie these and the like vanities and vexations attending the pursuers of these worldly Interests though carried on with power and with villany Sensual persons themselves notwithstanding the beam in their own eye can see the vanity of one anothers Interest and design and reproach them And do thou compare those vicious persons with the opposite virtuous But for an instance of that which most brave heroick valiant and eminent persons adorned with many excellent virtues stumble at in the height of their honour when to extinguish all their happiness and enjoyment in a moment some mean and unworthy person envious at their height and worth because it is above himself endeavours to suppress and abase that worth which he dispairs himself to attain to reviles calumniates or otherwise puts an affront upon them The examples hereof abound This they conceive they are bound to revenge that they may vindicate their honours which otherwise will be lost but this by which they pretend to assert their honour taints it The vanity of this mistaken worldly interest David's example towards his reviling enemies reproveth because by the eyes of faith he beleived that God was the Author of his sufferings and would reward his patience therefore he submitted to it And if God be provoked by us poor dust and ashes every day we may be contented if he causeth our meaner Bretheren sometimes to provoke us or our Servant Eccles 7.22 Nam lingua mali pars pessima servi Juv. And it serves to humble us which is necessary both to make us know our selves and also to know God And consider that detraction alwaies follows worth as Scipio Annibal or rather Jesus Christ and his Saints have felt And as for anger it resteth in the bosom of fools Eccles 7.10 Therefore he warneth as the Apostle doth to be slow to it It transporteth to lunacy as it did Saul to the destruction of Nob as it did Caracalla to the destruction of the Alexandrians the madness and folly of anger sufficiently manifests it self in the countenance speech habit gesture actions and effects which is repentance for that which cannot be undone again therefore brave and virtuous minds are not so much troubled with this passion as the base weak sick and infirm are for it shews greatness of mind to be unmoved and to disdain affronts and to keep it self serene and clear like the pure Heavens when free from clouds And become like to God himself and shew the greatness of our mind by being merciful to pardon injuries by clemency and slowness to anger and this Princely quality made the Emperour Titus so beloved and honoured And if we would have God so to us we should be so to our Brethren but we suffer our selves to be deceived with shadows as Titus 3.3 We our selves were sometimes disobedient deceived c. So that this may suffice to convince that godliness is most profitable for all things in this life and that which is to come But if thou wilt not be satisfied with this do but examine thine own heart whether every holy action which thou dost upon holy principles doth not yield present tranquility and satisfaction and sweeten thy life ever after And on the contrary whether every sinful action doth not disquiet and disturb thy mind and conscience with often flashes of horrour and imbitter thy life ever after viz. if not repented of with horrour and if repented of with grief and discontent with thy self for the unkindness done to so good a God for a thing of nought Let thy examination be made first in this particular viz. for what injuries received by thee which thou hast forgiven or else revenged and what joy or sorrow thou hast had thereof And how little thou enjoyest thy self or any thing else which thou possessest when thou art enraged
in sin and wickedness hereby he that enterprizeth it is emboldened in it and takes occasion to question the Being of God as he Quis putet esse deos And God suffereth them to prosper sometimes grow mighty and heap up silver as dust that his own people should know how little to value the world when he gives the Kingdoms thereof to the basest of the people Jer. 12.1 2. The Prophet did require of God the reason of their prospering and prays against them Pull them out as sheep for the slaughter And sometimes God suffereth it for this reason which David mentioneth in Psal 27. that he may cast them down suddenly with the greater ruine So Psal 83.17 18. But we find that this was a grievance to David as it was to afflicted Job Job 21. Wherefore do the wicked live And so it is generally to all God's afflicted people but mark the end of them Job 27.13 Another Obstruction that Satan makes use of to hinder this glorious Light of the Gospel from shining into their hearts is That whatsoever sin they perpetrate yet they sit at ease like the people of Lachish and find no changes nor alterations in their estates and affairs but all things go on after the same manner as before their sins committed they did according to the course of nature and according to the means which they use in their callings Sometimes the Lord is resolved to make them see and be ashamed According to that in the Prophet Isaiah c. 26. v. 11. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed Thus he made the Thunderer afraid of Thunder and ashamed So David prayed Put them in fear O Lord that they may know themselves to be but men When they forget themselves they forget God But oh how soon can God dismay them and make them recant whatever they dared against God in their pride of heart when he pleaseth to strike them with fear and consternation And then those who before prosessed themselves wise will confess themselves fools because they can no longer shut their eyes against the light but that they must see their shame I am sensible that Atheists make use of this argument of fear to perswade that it was nothing else that taught men the worship of God according to that saying Primus in orbe deos fecit timor To this first by way of admission I answer that if it should be admitted yet that is a necessary and a good fear which driveth us to God and restraineth from evil The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom But it is a bad fear which drives us from the face of God as Adam after he had sinned was afraid and hid himself So Peter's sense of his sinfulness made him beseech the Lord Jesus to depart from him Secondly By way of negation I conceive that love moveth good people to the service of God more than fear 'T was Abel's Love to God which made him offer the best and to think nothing good enough for God Likewise it was want of love in Cain that made him offer with an evil mind that which was not the best therefore it must needs be slavish fear in him that caused him to give God any Sacrifice But this motive of fear sometimes moveth the most wicked that are to worship God but when the fear is over the worship ceaseth Job 24. And though in their troubles they vowed Hecatombs they scarce will pay one of a hundred Besides it is manifest that the just and upright are little liable to fears Psal 23.4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil Psal 27. The Lord is my light and my salvation whom then shall I fear Psa 46. God is our hope and strength a very present help in trouble Therefore will we not fear though the earth be moved and though the hills be carried into the midst of the Sea Though the waters thereof rage and swell and though the Mountains shake at the tempest of the same As the Poet speaks of the just man Si fractus illabatur orbis impavidum ferient ruinae Because they that truly fear God know that they need not fear any thing else Therefore in the 37th of Isaiah upon Senacharib's great boastings and threatnings to destroy Juda the word of the Lord by the Prophet was concerning her The Virgin the daughten of Zion hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn I need not rehearse the examples of the undaunted courage of these people because they are so numerous I conceive that every one that hath a tongue to speak can tell a Catalogue of them as Abraham Gideon Sampson Baruck Jephta David and the Legio fulminatrix Christianorum And on the other side it is as notorious and commonly known that the most desperately wicked sinners and blasphemers are most timorous and fearful and are full of fears si vel herbam dimovere lacertae corde gemibus tremunt As Belshazzar trembled when he saw the hand-writing upon the wall before he knew whether it were good or bad Because their guilty conscience makes them fear where no fear is and fly when none pursueth It followeth that if fear did make gods to be they should be the greatest worshippers of them but the consequence is not truth and therefore not the antecedent or supposition Neither was it fear that made the differences of good and evil true and false just and unjust honest and dishonest c. but God who is the fountain of goodness and truth and being But if for all this they will not be convinced to take God for their strength and the fear of God and the wisdom which is from above for the true and sound wisdom and still will say to God Depart from us we will none of the knowledge of the Most High and strengthen and incourage themselves in their ungodliness and in the multitude of their iniquities boast themselves And notwithstanding they see their Policy Wit and Ingenuity whereof they so much boasted to be frustrated and baffled by those means which they disdained and their secret sins detected and punished and yet for all this they will not see the hand of the Lord. And their proud flashy wit leads them with Xerxes to fetter the Sea or the like vanities and extravagancies Then let them go on in the waies that they have chosen till such time as the Lord shall please to put a hook in their nose as he did in that Assyrian Monarchs And let those who embrace the true wisdom goodness and humility rest assured of this That the Virgin the daughter of Zion shall despise them and laugh them to scorn Isa 37.22 And so with David we may and must all pray against the enemies of our Lord and Saviour Christ Psal 59.13 Consume them O Lord consume them that they may perish and know that it is God that ruleth in Jacob and
my soul let thy impatiente bearing of lyings slanders backbitings and false accusations humble thee and drive thee to seek to God by prayers and tears to assist and help thy weak patience and faith and make thee more conformable to Christ thou canst bear other injuries learn to bear these that thou mayest be blessed O my God do thou preserve me support me and hold me up that I may not fall by wrath and impatience though the injuries I receive be never so great unjust and false yet let me be supported by thy word and thy Spirit in me assuring me of reward in heaven O my God let me contentedly submit to thy chastisments and let me be assured that thou wilt bring good out of evil and that they are sent by thee for my good that I should not be condemned with the world 1 Cor. 11. And by thy assistance I shall go forth to thee without the camp bearing thy reproach Heb. 13.14 And my patience shall be perfected And assure me that in this unjust suffering I take up the Cross of a Christian Another end why God afflicts us is to make us call to mind our sins which procured the afflictions as Josephs brethren called to mind theirs of selling their brother It makes us to search and try our selves what sins we lye in and have not repented off Meditation LORD Sanctify them to us for this end that we may not lye in our sins nor dye in them But may be awakened to search and try our waies and call to mind our sins and repent of them with a godly sorrow unto salvation and turne unto the Lord with all our hearts lest otherwise we perish with the world And let the blessedness which thou hast pronounced upon thy mourners and the comfort which thou hast promised them come on them in the sight of their persecutors for their comfort will be the discomfort of them Another end why Gods afflicts us is to restrain us from some sin which we are prone to so he restrained St. Paul from pride for if God did not restrain us we should fall oftener than we do not only into those same sins which we have formerly committed but also into all others which the nature of man is subject to commit and which we think our selves quite free from as Hasael when the Prophet told him what Villanies he would commit answered him saying Thinkest thou that thy Servant is a Dog yet he did what the Prophet had foretold 2 King 8. So God withheld Abimeleck from sinning with Abrahams wife so David before he was afflicted he went astray but learned Gods judgments by afflictions And said Thy Rod and thy Staff have comforted me by which saying of David it appeares That another end of Afflictions is for Spiritual comfort Therefore 't is said in St. James Count it all joy when you fall into manifold temptations For as sin as soon as committed flies in our face and tells us that we have deserved all the curses threatned in Gods word for our consciences immediately tels us that the wages of sin are death and damnation so afflictions brings to mind our sins and makes our consciences search themselves what sins lye unrepented off Then our repentance brings remission and peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost communion with God and watchfulness and carefulness against sin for the future But to make us more capable of the comfort it seems meet to God to visit us by afflictions Another end of afflictions it to abase and humble us That we may walk humbly with our God humble your selves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may lift you up where both these ends of afflictions are conjoyned viz. The joy of being lifted up with the humiliation he humbles whom he in tends to exalt Another end is for purgation I will purge away all the dross and tinn Which doth supose that there are some sins committed by and some corruptions remaining in the Servants of God as it is in the 9 of Daniel 11. Yea all Israel have transgressed thy law even by departing that they might not obey thy voice therefore the curse is poured upon us and the oath that is written in the law of Moses because we have sinned Every branch in me that beareth fruit he purgeth Isa 27.9 By this shall the iniquity of jacob be purged As our Saviour was made perfect by suffering so all that are made perfect are made perfect by sufferings When our consciences checks us it causes us to search and try our waies as it is in the Prophet after I was afflicted I smote upon my thigh Another end to bring a man to himself when before he would not know himself nor could understand his frailties and weakness also to bring a man to Christ and to make him go out of himself and the thought of his self-sufficiency and self confidence to seek his salvation in Christ alone for if the word doth not work upon us God doth work by the Spirit of bondage upon hard consciences as David said my reines chasten me in the night season So was the Prodigal Son brought to himself to bethink him of his Fathers house and to return home LORD sanctify them to thy Servant for all these ends that I may find all those opperations wrought in me and let me wait patiently upon the Lord laying my mouth in the dust As water that stands still without motion or agitation putrifieth and the Air corupteth unless it be moved with some gales of Wind so the minds of men become degenerate and their virtues and graces soon languish unless they be excited and exercised by variety of fortune troubles and new difficulties the most troublesome accidents that befall teach and improve a wise man most and learn him the best lessons Time of Trouble is the season for Prayer If Esau had not come against Jacob with an army he had not wrestled with God nor got the blessing Psal 50.15 Call upon me in the time of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt praise me so it is the season for Gods mercy to those who seek it by prayer And as if the sense of our necessities would not force us enough to this duty of prayer he injoynes it by precept and inviteth with a promise which shews both our backwardness to the Duty and Gods readiness to accept our prayers and shew mercy to us and sometimes he is fain to be found of them that seek him not and he is fain to send his Spirit to help us to pray and sometimes he is fain to hear us when we have but a purpose to pray as David said in the Psalms I said I wll confess my sin and thou forgavest my iniquities and sometimes God is fain to prevent us as Isa 64.10 Before they call I will answer and sometimes he will not stay till the end of our Prayer as it is said Whilest they cry I will say
man but a diligent Servant shall share the Inheritance with the Sons Pro. What delight can dull lifeless service be to him whom we serve Our service should be suited to the delight of him whom we serve And Our service should be to the honour of him whom we serve But slothful and lifeless service is to the dishonour of God therefore he saith Mal. 4. v. Offer it now to thy Governour and see whether he will accept it The fruit of Christs death is the Zeal of good works Titus 2.11.14 Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a peculiar people Zealous of good works From Thence it appeares that the note of Gods people is a Zeal of good works namely the works of mercy charity and piety They shall run and not be weary walk and not faint That obedience sway the conscience that the ends and aims be good that we should advance piety to the utmost and repress sin If we expect any benefit by our service we must not do it negligently but with Zeal the more Zeal the more comfort and satisfaction and the more will be our reward Zeal breaks through any restraints that would keep us from God Though Michael scoffed yet David would not leave off his dancing before the Ark. Consider how violent and earnest carnal men are in the ways of sin and shall they serve Satan better than God is served wicked men are so active and laborious that they are said to draw iniquity with cart-ropes they are not drawn into sin but draw sin there is no lust but costs them some self-denial Their pride must feel no cold the worldly man incroaches not only upon the pleasures of his life by rising early and going to bed late but also defrauds himself of necessary comforts they are wise in their generation like the unjust steward If Ammon be sick for Tamar shall not the Spouse be sick for Christ shall they take more paines to undo themselves than the Servants of God to save themselves Consider that you have been violent in the ways of sin and will you not do as much for God Rom. 6.19 I spake after the manner of men as you have yeilded your selves Servants of sin so now yeild your selves Servanss of Righteousness unto holiness So much as you have spent in and upon sin 't is but a modest proposal of the Apostle that you would spend so much in the service of God How can your conversion be right when sin hath more of your heart than God 2 Cor. 5.13 If we be besides our selves it is for Christ he had been mad against Christ 't was not unmeet if he seemed mad for Christ your pace was furious like Jehu's for your beloved lusts will you be slow for God Consider It may be you set out late towards Godliness therefore you must make the more haste Let the time spent in your lusts be sufficient All men set out too late we are transgressors from the womb God loved us before we were from eternity he loved us before we loved him or knew how to love him Consider what Christ hath suffered for us his bloody agonies and the sorrows of his Cross He is the Captain of our salvation and we must follow him He hath given us heaven as God gave Canaan to the Israelites but they were to force their way The power of Satan is broken but some relicts are left for our exercise Consider the enemies of our souls are violent The Devil compasseth the earth therefore we had need to stand upon our guard the enemy watcheth and do you sleep Whilest men slept the enemies sowed tares among their Corn. Whilest we are careless the enemy prevails when we make speed in our flight the enemy hath no advantage Whilest the Disciples were a sleep Judas and his Company were watching Small measure of grace must not content the professors of Christianity Except your righteousness exeed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven A temporary believer goeth far but a true believer must go farther Consider that all things in Religion are high and call for more than ordinary from us There are great obligations upon us He had no greater gift to give us than his only Son He could do no more for us then he did in his agonies and sufferings and laying down his life undergoing that intollerable pain that made him cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me So that in love God hath gone to the uttermost for us in his power he hath not so every mercy received obligeth us to do more than we have done the supplies of the Spirit of God which come in upon us and help more than we have done The supplys of the Spirit of God which come in upon us and help our infirmities oblige us The heathen some of them have gone so far by the light of nature that because they could not mortify their lusts they have put out their eyes this they did without those helps which we have Christ Jesus a person of the God head meriting our salvation and interceding for us The Spirit helping us to work out our salvation and the holy precepts of the law of God which is pure converting the soul Psal 19.19 Psal 119. The law of the Lord is exceeding broad It is another obligation that we have a hope exceeding all that we can imagine 2 Cor. 4.16 We have a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory laid up for us Besides these obligations the dreadful threats might make us earnest in the works of religion which if a man do but think of it causeth horrour Consider the danger of coldness in dutys if we don't go forward we go back like those that row against the stream Before we lose our first works we lose our Love first men grow careless then off goes religion and the service of God Some that are high in professing are cold in practice To provoake one another to love and good works is a good contention for solemn piety we cannot do too much In sin every thing is too much in grace nothing enough in particular exercises there may be too much in the love of God there can be no excess many come short Rom. 2.9 They come short of the glory of God 2 Peter 1.11 We are to labour that an abundant entrance may be given us into the Kingdom of Christ Jesus Consider if your heart is dead and cold you loose the comfort of Christian priviledges and duties a dead Christian is as none A change without life is but a morral reformation That is true conversion where we are not meerly changed but quickned by a new principal of life heathens have been changed from profaness to a morral life I am come saith Christ that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly All the true members of Christ are
God 2 Thes 2.12 which is his word we must believe the truth of his threatnings as well as the truth of his promises Jer. 32.19 This belief saved Noah and his family from the destruction of the deluge and this was commanded in him for a worthy act of faith and by this Lot escaped when Sodom was destroyed and his doubting wife made a perpetual monument or spectacle for her infidelity the chief and special object is Christ Act. 16.37 If we must leve Christ then is Christ the principle the cause efficient and final the matter and the forme of that life His example our pattern and his will ours to me to live is Christ is meant in some or in all these senses for faith verifies it in them all He is the end of our conversation because we can desire no more nor can we need any more if we have him he is the matter and forme of it because the natural life is drowned in this and is made spiritual as it is said If we have known Christ in the flesh yet henceforth know we him no more The holy soul doth not injoy its life if it doth not feel Christ living in it by his Spirit quickning its graces it crys O miserable man that I am c. As faith tells the instrument and meanes whereby we attain the greatest good so it is the Armour that defends us from the greatest evils therefore said the Apostle Ephe. 6.16 Above all take the shield of faith whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked Whereby he commends faith above all the spiritual Armour shewing the cause of his commendation from the exceeding virtue of it that it inables them to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked the virtue of it is universal against the worst of evils if it be taken that is if it be used It must be used in the relying act and in the aplying act staying our selves upon the Lord Psal 37.5 Commit our way unto the Lord. The Applying act is when the soul can say his righteousnes is mine to justify me his blood which he shed upon the Cross an attonement for my sins his Spirit mine to quicken me The fiery darts which Satan shoots are first the guilt of sin then afflictions inward and out ward those who were stung by the fiery Serpents could not be cursed unless they looked up to the brazen Serpent Faith sees that the blood which Christ shed for sinners was shed for my sin that he had an eye unto me in his sufferings A 2 Way faith quenches the fiery darts of Satan by seeing that sin is condemned if so then it can have no power to condem the soul A 3 Way is to see afflictions to be a means of grace that they sanctify us and work for us a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And to see God in the afflictions working for our good and keeping us from the hurt which men intended to us I will be with thee in the fire and in the water that the fire shall not burne thee nor the water hurt thee Isa 43.2 I will keep him secretly from the strife of tongues This made the suffering Martyrs more than conquerors through Christ that loved us and gave his life for us therefore they were wiling to suffer for him and lay down their lives for the testimony of the Gospel to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods and to think all too little for God for whom they suffered it therefore let us set before us our blessed Saviours suffering who endured for us such bitter paines mocking and contradiction of sinners lest we faint in our minds and are weary of the Cross of Christ Let us also set before us the examples of the Prophets Apostles and Martyrs and the examples of our own memory Our late King whose head was anointed with holy oyle yet his Majesty trampled upon with the greatest indignities and when the meanest of his subjects a common Souldier spit in his face used no reproof and he that was Gods vicegerent of the Crown was humbled to be Christs vicegerent of his Cross a rare and wonderful example of suffering patiently the good will and pleasure of God Our imitation of his virtues shall be a lasting monument of his Glory Aere ceu vacuo pendentia Mausolaea Mart. Holy David went far in this as when one abject fellow cursed him and threw durt at him he let him alone saying Who can tell whether God will requite good for his railing And God did not fail him because his faith did not faile though it was tried to the uttermost this faith carried him through all When the people talked of stoning him by this he encouraged himself in the Lord and was not dismaied and if it became the Captain of our salvation to be made perfect by sufferings why should it be thought strange if all that fight under the same banner be made perfect Soulders by the same discipline Oh that we could all follow him not only in drinking of the Cup which he drunk off viz. The bitter Cup of the Cross but also do it with the same charity to our enemies as he had when he prayed Father forgive them for they know not what they do whose steps the Proto Martyr St. Stephen also followed and for his reward he saw the Heavens opened and his Saviour standing at the right hand of God by this we are sure that the same Spirit is in us as was in Christ T was impossible for Job to have undergone so many of Satans fiery darts upon his estate his relations and bodily sufferings but that he believed that his redeemer lived and that he should see him with his eyes at the last day though wormes consumed his flesh And St. Paul having fought the good fight of faith had the like assurance as he testifieth henceforth is layed up for me a Crown of glory this inabled him to undergo the fight with victory and this took away the sting of death so that death it self was not formidable to him nor to the holy Prophets Apostles and Martyrs who willingly underwent it for a good conscience not accepting deliverance Those great temptations which Satan most relieth upon are those of sins guilt accusing the conscience and bloody persecutions though all manner of temptations as the vanities of the world the cares of the world the lusts of the flesh the pride of life are all of them by the arts of our Spiritual adversary so suited and managed according to several complexions that without this grace they are unresistable therefore the Scripture testifieth that this is the victory whereby we overcome the world and if morality could be sufficient to mortify our lusts and good education as some pretend how came it to pass that those moral Philosophers who writ so many things against lust covetousness and other vices were yet themselves overcome of them but through faith in Christ the world is