a new convert but his having forsaken his old vices 3. It is an Argument both of the Truth and excellency of the Christian Religion that the Doctrines of it are according to Godliness Godliness as we have shewn is the sum of the duties of natural Religion and what duty is there in natural Religion but in the code of the Royal Christian Law it is more clearly propounded more fully explained more strongly confirm'd Now what greater Argument is there for the truth of the Doctrines of any Religion than their agreeableness to the common sentiments of mankind or what more manifest proof of the excellency of the precepts of it than their harmony with the Laws of Nature for the most material objections against any Instituted Religion are either that its Principles are contradictory to clear Reason or its Duties repugnant to Natural Laws Since those Principles can not be true which contradict right Reason nor those Precepts good which are repugnant to the Laws of Nature For if we cannot be certain of the truth of those things for which there is plain and manifest Reason we cannot be certain of the truth of any thing and it must be granted that natural Religion is the Foundation upon which all revealed Religion does stand because from natural Light is fetcht the proof of the Existence of God which revealed Religion does always suppose Now there is nothing commanded in our Religion but what becomes the perfections of the Divine Nature and agrees with those Eternal Laws which flow from it there is nothing required of us but what sutes with the Native Principles of our own Souls and our truest Interest there is nothing propounded in our Religion as a point of Faith but we have sufficient Reason to believe it there is nothing exacted as a Duty but we have exceeding good motives to doe it We may find the great duties of our Religion all writ upon our own Nature And it was well said by Trithemius in his Answer to Maximilian the Emperor That of all the Sects and Religions in the World none approach'd so near to the Laws of Nature nor were so conformable to them as the Christian Religion Neither is there any thing that will contribute so much towards the accomplishment of our natural capacities as a life conformable to the Laws of our Religion since as God designed Religion to advance our nature and make us more nearly resemble him so prophaness and irreligion set God and us at the greatest concievable distance and turn man upon whom the divine Image was stampt into the shape of the Devil or of the beast that Perish Thus should you suppose the contray of every Christian Law enacted that insted of forgiving Enemys reconciling our selves to our adversarys and shewing mercy to the distressed we should be commanded to revenge every little injury unto Death to be implacably malitious where we have had a quarrel and cruel even to extremity with the poor and unfortunate would not mankind be chang'd into a race of Wolves and Tigers shall I say or become a new order of Devils incarnate And suppose also that we were injoyned to be false to our words unjust in our dealing treacherous to our trust would not all civil societies be disolv'd all commerce destroy'd and the World become a great den of Thievs and Robbers if it was required of us to eat always to gluttony and to drink to excess would the effect of our obedience be any other than the spoiling our health the besotting our rational faculties and the transforming the Children of Men into a Herd of Swine So little reason have we to complain of the Commandments of God as either difficult or grievious when it is evident that were we to receive laws in the matter and all the circumstances of them contrary to those with which God now Governs the World we should cry out of our duty as intolerable and sink under our burdens as not being able to bear them And so much cause is there to bless God for ruling the World by Righteous Laws and having given us a Religion which our own faculties being judges and we trust and rely upon in all other Cases is most reasonable and excellent As being perfective of our nature and Worthy of the wisdom of God who contrived it as being framed with great Condescention to the infirmities of man and carrying a plaine conformity in it to the attributes of God 4. That they who Teach and Perswade Men they may be Saved by their true Opinions or sound Beleif tho not Accompanied with a Godly life do defeat the very design of the Gospel and Obstruct that Influence it should have on the minds of men Christianity is a Covenant wherein as God has obliged himself to bestow rewards so he has bound man too to yield Obedience How absurd then is their opinion who think a Covenant does not bind on both sides how hurtful is their mistake who teach Christians there is no service required on their part in this new Covenant what ground or colour could there be to think the Religion instituted by Jesus should consist in the beleif only of a set of Propositions without intermedling in the affairs of Life and the Government of our will and affections when all his Sermons were so many Lectures upon virtue and at the last day he will judg us by our Works when he has Establisht so many rules for the ordering of our thoughts words and actions in every Condition and required a sincere though not a Perfect observance of them all We are Commanded to Watch and Pray to fight the good sight of Faith to strive that we may enter in at the strait Gate to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling to run that we may obtain and to take the Kingdom of Heaven by Violence These Phrases contain a Discription of the Dutys of a Christian and the degrees wherein they are required of him They shew he is to work as well as believe and that what he does must be withal his might and with as much perfection as he can his Life must be Productive of much and the best fruits the nature of his Christian Inployment does make it Necessary that he pursue it with great Intention of Mind and Earnestness of will and that he put to all his Strength The Christians duty is represented under the Metaphor of a Race to convince him that he must strip and free himself of whatever does Clogg or Burthen him and use his utmost Speed and not Slacken his pace till he has obteined that is till he comes to the end of the Race and his Life his Duty also is exprest by a narrow Way and strait Gate to shew that his calling is attended with great difficulties and that they are only to be broke through by Zealous Contention he that will enter must strive The reward indeed which is proposed to Christians is very tempting and of most
MOORE MAJOR Curia Specialis tent die Lunae xxix no. Maii 1682. Annoque Regni Regis Caroli Secundi Angl ' c. xxxiiii ta This Court doth desire Dr. Moore to Print his Sermon Preached yesterday at the Guild-Hall Chappel before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City Wagstaffe A SERMON Preach'd before the Lord Mayor AND THE Court of ALDERMEN AT GUILD-HALL Chappel ON The 28th of May 1682. By JOHN MOORE D. D. Chaplain to the Right Honorable Heneage Earl of Nottingham Lord High Chancellor of England LONDON Printed for Walter Kittilby at the Bishops Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1682. To the Right Honorable Sir John Moore Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen of the City of London My LORD THE Meekness Peace and Charity of which our Saviour was so Zealous a Preacher and so great an Example seem to be in a manner lost in the beats bitterness and noise with which men manage their Disputes about his holy Religion as if the Character of a true Christian was to be taken rather from the contentiousness of his Spirit and his skill in Controversy than the Purity of his Mind and Conversation When yet nothing can bring a greater disparagement upon Christianity and prove more fatal to the Professors of it than to make it the occasion of those Evils and Mischiefs among Men and of that disturbance in the World which God purposely intended it should allay and extinguish It was my design in this Discourse which in obedience to your Commands I now make Public to take men off from their furious debates about 〈…〉 often not material to 〈…〉 earnestly to press them unto the ex 〈…〉 of those Primitive Vertues upon which our Religion has always laid so much stress and which our Lord hath so plainly declared to be the indispensable conditions of our Salvation by shewing that all necessary Christian Doctrines have a natural tendency to that Godliness which is now too generally neglected And I am the more bold to perfix your Lordships name to it because you are known to be so fair a Pattern of that Practical Religion I recommend both in your private life as a Christian and in your Public Capacity as a Magistrate I am My Lord Your Lordships most humble and obedient Servant John Moore A SERMON Preached before the Lord Mayor c. May 28. 1682. 1 TIM VI. 3 And to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness WHen we consider there never was any Religion in the World which did so earnestly recommend and so strictly enjoyn Godliness as the Christian Religion has done and yet that so little of it do's appear in the lives of Christians we must conclude that there are either great defects in the Religion or faults in the Professors of it we must either say there is not a sufficiency in the means Christianity do's prescribe and afford towards the attainment of true Piety and Virtue or else that the blame is to be laid upon them who having undertaken the Christian Profession do neglect or despise the means and instruments provided by their Religion to make them Holy here and happy for ever And it will not be hard to determin on which side the fault lies for God and Religion have not been wanting to Men but Men have been wanting to themselves There being nothing required in our Religion as our Duty and a necessary Condition of our Happiness which is above our strength assisted with that Grace which every one may obtaine who sincerely prays to God for it Therefore if men will not make use of that Grace which God so plentifully poures forth upon all it is but fit and equal that they impute their defects to themselves And few have had the boldness directly to charge their Vices upon God as if he had denyed them power and opportunitys to have been better They will lay their faults upon themselves but with some privat reserves and Suggestions that those faults are very pardonable ones as being neither much offensive to God nor plainly repugnant to the state of good men So the Common way has been for men to frame such a model of Religion to themselves as might sute with a vitious life and help to quiet the complaints of an uneasy conscience Thus when Persons are debauch'd in their morals they are apt presently to turn Hereticks in their Faith It having been observed that nothing is more usual than for men to shelter the Monstrous impiety of their lives under some or as notoriously impious Opinion and to depart as far in their belief from the true Doctrins of Christ as they had before Strayed in their practice from his Holy precepts Thus some men have justified a wicked life by denying the differences between Good and Evil and others have excused it by pretending all their actions are under a fatal decree and come necessarily to pass Some again make the performance of Obedience to Gods Laws very needless by disowning his providence and care of the World Others would exempt themselves from the ties of godliness and virtue by fansying their Religion to consist only in true believing and others place it all in outward shew and Ceremony Some again hope they may enjoy both the brutish pleasures of this life and the pure ones of the next and carry their sins a long with them to Heaven by so exalting and extending Gods mercy unto obstinately Impenitent Sinners as to deny both his Justice and Truth and others cut the sinews of Religion by calling in question the Resurrection of the Dead and the rewards of the Life to come So Simon Magus that infamous Magician and Founder of all the Heresys which followed him that he might serve his vain Glory and Ambition did covet the gifts of the Holy Ghost and hoped to purchase them by Money he also boasted that he himself was God and appeared in Samaria as the Father among the Jews as the Son and to the Gentiles as the holy Spirit he also deny'd that Man had any liberty of will or that there was any necssity of good Works So the Nicolaitans for a cover to their abominable Lusts taught there ought to be Community of Wives and that to commit Fornication and to eat meats offer'd to Idols were things indifferent Thus Menander and Marcion disowned Gods being the maker of the World ascribing that work of Omnipotency to Angels Thus also Himenaeus and Philetus denied the Resurrection Some of these ungodly Men lived in the days of the Apostles of whom St. Jude saies they turned the grace of God into lasciviousness denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ Now what in the Primitive Church was the disease only of some few Men seems in our unhappy age to have been a plague which has generally infected and spread its malignity over the Face of the Christian World Great numbers in these times as they have given themselves up to the filthiest of the vices among
to their Masters but because their Masters whose tempers were softned by the love which the Religion of Jesus does inspire would treat them tenderly and kindly and be glad of an opportunity of being beneficial to them and this is the Doctrine which is according to Godliness For if any man Teacheth otherwise and consent not to wholsom words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to godlines he is proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings perverse desputings of Men of Corrupt minds destitute of the Truth supposing that gain is godliness from such withdraw thy self So dangerous a thing it is for a Christian more to busy himself about Contentious disputes than the Rules of an holy Life for a doting upon Questions may betray him into that wrath and envy which shuts men out of the Kingdom of Heaven but it must be a continual exercise of himself according to Godliness that will carry him thither So true also is it that neither the Spiritual relation of Brotherhood between Christians has destroy'd the several Orders Ranks and Qualitys of men in civil Societys nor that Christian liberty has taken away the obligation which is upon Servants to be obedient to their Masters and the Duty that is upon the People to be Subject to their Governors this being part of the Doctrine which is according to Godliness But to come to a further improvement of our Text there are these five Propositions which seem very proper and natural to be insisted on from it and which accordingly I shall make it my business to treat of in this Discourse 1. That Godliness is a fixt and certain thing not variable according to places and times or the humors of men but the reasons of it are Eternal and Unchangeable 2 That the Scope and end of the Doctrines of the Gospel is to advance Godliness and recommend the practice of it to mankind 3. That it is an Argument both of the Truth and Excellency of the Christian Religion that all the Doctrines thereof are Conformable to Godliness 4. That they who teach or perswade men they may be saved by their true Opinions or sound Belief tho not accompanied with a Godly life do defeat the very design of the Gospel and obstruct that influence it should have on the minds of men 5. That whatsoever Doctrins are not according to Godliness are so far from being necessary that they cannot be true 1. That Godliness is a fixt and certain thing not variable according to places and times or the humors of men This is apparent both from the Text and the Reason of the thing first of all the Text plainly implys it St. Paul requires every man should give consent to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness What can we gather from hence but that according to him Godliness must be the standard and measure by which men are to Judge of Doctrines if a Doctrine be according to Godliness he is to assent to it if not according to Godliness he is to dissent from it All men therefore must have one certain unvariable notion of Godliness in their minds or else they can never know what Doctrines they are to embrace and what to reject But secondly this do's more evidently follow from the notion of Godliness it self for Godliness is nothing else but a being like God it is a Copying out in our minds and manners all the perfections of the Divine Nature so far as we are capable Now if those qualitys and perfections in God be Eternal and unalterable then certainly the notion of Godliness in us must be so also It is true if we go to the criticism of the word this term of Godliness is sometimes used in a stricter sense and imports no more then the worship of God properly so called which consists in our having just and worthy apprehensions of God and in rendring to him that Love Thanks-giving Honor and Adoration which is due to the Great Governor of the World and our best Benefactor But in the larger sense of the word and as it is here taken by the Apostle Godliness is a Comprehension of all the Moral Virtues and takes in not only acts of Religion towards God but those of Righteousness towards our Neighbour and of Sobriety with respect to our Selves In a word It is a walking sutably to that Nature and that Reason which God has given us and for Gods sake Which notion of Godliness being admitted it cannot possibly be thought an Arbitrary thing but must be eternal and immutable as the nature of mankind is or rather as God is who contrived that nature We may talk what we please of the indifference of Good and Evil but the more we think the more we shall be convinced that there is an Eternal goodness and evil in things as they fall under a Moral Consideration Now some actions have an agreeableness with Gods holy Nature and some an utter incongruity with it and if his holy Nature is always the same eternal and unchangeable then also will those things be eternally good which have an agreement with this blessed Nature and those eternally evil which do vary from it thus as to love and honour God are acts most agreeable to his perfect Nature so will it be eternally the duty of the Creature to pay them unto him and it is a repugnancy in terms to suppose God can command his Creatures to hate him or to do the least thing which is contrary to the rectitude of his Nature Besides there are such eternal respects and relations between things that some actions will be ever good and some evil We cannot suppose a Benefactor but we must acknowledg that gratitude and thanks are his due We cannot allow a person to be Innocent but we must grant too that no injury or hurt ought to be done unto him How unreasonable then is that Opinion which makes the Civil Law of the Magistrate the only measure of Good and Evil for should the Magistrate forbid me to put up Prayers to God would therefore the service of God be Evil or should he Command me to kill my Father would therefore Parricide be lawful If so then there are actions antecedently good to the Laws of the Magistrate and dutys not alterable by them in performance of which doth the Godly man exercise himself Day and Night They are saies Justin Martyr a very acceptable to God who do those things which are in their own Nature Vniversally and Eternally good 2. The Scope and end of the Doctrines of the Gospel is to advance Godliness and to recommend the practice of it to Mankind it being much truer of Christs Doctrines what was said of the Lacedaemonian Laws That it is the property of them all to inflame mens minds with the love of virtue and to create a contempt of empty and sensual pleasure To this
inestimable Value it is a Kingdom but he that sets himself to rest and folds his hands shall never be the better for it for that Kingdom shall only be taken and possest by them who violently invade it Nothing can be perform'd without Gods assistance who works in men to will and to do but then it is only in those who Concur with him and do work out their own Salvation with Care and Concernment with fear and trembling Christ has purchased for us a liberty as to Places and Times as to the choice and difference of meats but not a liberty to omit our Duty or do the least sin he has freed our shoulders from the burden of Moses Law but not discharged our obligation to any one Moral Virtue or Law of nature The Faith that will carry a man to Heaven must be a Faith that Worketh by love and love is the keeping the Commandments So the holy Scripture declares so the Primitive Fathers taught St. Ignatius makes Faith and Love the whole Duty of a Christian Faith the beginning Love the end Faith the guide Love the way and he hardly ever recommends the one but in the Company of the other Faith preceeds Fear builds Love makes perfect 5 That whatsoever Doctrines are not according to Godliness are so far from being necessary that they cannot be true For if it be the Scope and End of the Gospel to advance Godliness and that it is an argument both of the Credebility and excellency of it that it does so as I have before prov'd then it plainly follows if we suppose the Doctrine of the Gospel to be a true Doctrine that all such Opinions as are either contrary to the Godliness or do disserve the interests of it can neither be necessary Doctrines nor true ones Seeing then the truth of this Proposition is evident from the foregoing discourse I shall only now make it my business briefly to reflect on some of the many ill opinions which tho they have been taught for sound and Orthodox yet upon examination will appear not to be according to Godliness 1. The first I take notice of is that of Gods being the Author of Sin which has been expresly maintained by some men Now it is not possible that Opinion should be true which is inconsistent with the Reason of mankind or manifestly repugnant to the Attributes of God for all Controversies in Religion must be decided by Reason either from the Principles of Natural Religion or Divine Revelation and from the Principles of Natural Religion it is evident that there can be nothing in a Religion which comes from God that is repugnant to his Essential Attributes that is to himself Now that God should be the Author of Sin that is the Author of what does offend and dishonour him is very absurd and unreasonable that he should be Author of that which he has so often and solemnly declared he does abhor and detest thwarts with the attribute of his truth and that he should be the efficient cause of all the wickedness which is done and he will so severely Punish is a gross repugnancy not only to his infinite goodness but his justice it self Such Opinions as these deprive God of the holiness essential to his Nature and which even by the Gentiles unassisted with the light of the Gospel in their Praiers and Devotions was constantly ascribed to him 2. The Doctrine of irrespective decrees cannot be according to Godliness because it takes away the ground of all the motives to a Godly Life For if a man be included within the decree of Election the greatest sins will not Damn him and if he be left out of it the most holy Life cannot put him in a capacity of Salvation Again if God has decreed to save or reprobate men without regard had to either their good or evil Lives then they will be saved or lost without any respect had of either for what God has decreed that certainly will come to pass but to say that Men shall have sentence pass upon them to go either to Heaven or Hell without any consideration of their Faith and Obedience on one hand or their infidelity and impenitence on the other is to make a day of Judgment unnecessary and repugnant to that justice according to which God has declared he will then proceed We must all appear before the judgment of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 3. Among these ill Opinions we may rank that of the Popish Casuists who teach that the precept of loving God is in it self only Obligatory at the very point of Death altho we be always under the protection of Gods unwearied Providence and do every moment that we breath receive good at his hand tho there is no day of our Lives but we offend and stand in fresh need of his mercy yet these Licentious Casuists to say no worse of 'em are of opinion that it is a sufficient return of Gratitude to God for the infinite and unspeakable Acts of his love to us if in the end of our Lives we express one act of Love towards him But there needs no other Confutation in this Auditory of an Opinion so impious and directly contrary to the first and greatest Commandment of the Evangelical Law than the bare rehersal of it 4. Another Doctrine to be reflected upon is that which Teaches and Directs us to the use of such Means for the promotion of Christian Religion as are destructive of the ends of it The end of Christian Religion is to make men sincere in what they profess true to their word and upright in their dealings and therefore they who by lying and perjury equivocation and reserves endeavor to propagate the Religion of our Blessed Savior do by the means they use subvert the end they pretend to serve The design of Christian Religion is to teach men Peace and Subjection to all lawful Authority therefore they who would instil Principles of Sedition and Rebellion in order to the work of Reformation do defile and corrupt that pure Religion which they make such a shew of reforming The end of Christian Religion is to render men harmless kind and Charitable one to another therefore they who Condemn mens bodies to the stake and fire in order to refine their Minds and cut their Throats to save their Souls instead of doing service to the institution of Christ they bring the utmost slander and disgrace upon it that possibly they can No we must not doe evil that good may come of it we may not make use of unlawful means to bring about an honest end God in no Case will allow it neither can true Religion ever be reduced to such extremity as to stand in need of it But the time not allowing that I should further pursue this point or take any more of the
Doctrines into consideration which are not according to Godliness I shall beg leave to conclude the whole discourse with some application of it to our selves and the unhappy times into which we are fallen times wherein so many Errors in Faith so many vices in Practice have prevailed contrary to the Doctrine of Godliness And what Guide can we take what Method may we use to rectifie our Judgments and recover our virtue to remove our present evils and to avert the calamities we all fear it will be in vain to search for the causes or the cures of our miseries in the Politics or among the Stars when they are in great Part lodged within our own brests and there to be found Nations and Kingdoms have their growths and declensions their rise and their periods as well as particular Persons but with this difference that they never waste and decline before the temperance and the modesty and the innocence and the honesty of their Inhabitants have first so done When an universal corruption has over-spread the manners of a Nation then the disease will come to a dangerous Crisis its Condition will be desperate and such as all wise and good men must deplore not only the Reputation Fame and Glory thereof will be much obscur'd but the very life and being of it will be highly endanger'd When a long Custom of sinning has taken from men the very sense of their guilt and they are so deeply enslaved to their Lusts as to be in love with the fetters that confine them when the distemper has prevailed so much upon the vital parts that no desire longer remains in the Patient of Recovering then all hopes will be past unless a speedy Remedy can be apply'd And this Remedy every man by the grace of God has in his own power which is by repentance to turn from the evil of his ways and without all further delay to make hast to keep Gods Commandments this is the only Course whereby he may save himself and do as much as in him lies to preserve his Country For it is neither force of Armes nor a multitude of Laws that without a thoro reformation in the Lives of Men can recover a sick and languishing Kingdom Now if every one would be as Zealouly concern'd and as really painful and laborious to approve himself to God by a Conscientious performance of all the unquestionable Conditions which are required to make a man a true Christian as he is to recommend himself to his own party there would soon be less faction and turbulency and more love and Religion among us and we should not thus be divided and subdivided into such a number of little Sects who ought all to be closely united in one body for the defence of our Reform'd Religion against the common Enemy If insted of being so apt to censure or misrepresent the designs and actions of our Governors which we seldom fully know and often quite mistake and by which means their hearts are hardned against and their affections estranged from the People and the just Reverence which the People owes them lost or abated and so the management of Public affairs render'd in a manner unpracticable every man would do his part to promote Peace and Virtue and the cherishing a good understanding among us what a turn would this make in the condition of things what a visible stop would this put to our growing fears and jealousies and our Ears would no more be grated with terrifying stories and complaints after men were once earnestly busy in procuring the Public good and quiet If insted of inventing names to distinguish and bespatter men and then spightfully fastning them one upon another if instead of narrowly prying into the faults of others and the seeing them all double or representing them as great again as they are it being too common to charge the things done ignorantly upon men as their wilful crimes to interprit their meer mistakes for acts of malice and to add something of our own to every bad report of ' em If instead of raking in every kennel to find proper Materials to blacken and vilifie each other by which means an Infinite Scandal is cast upon that pure and peaceable Religion we profess and the powerful efficacy of its Doctrins hindred not only among our selves but among Infidels as has been often sadly complained of by those who have endeavoured their Conversion we would all take a True and Faithful survay of our own Condition and heartily beg the Pardon of God and our Neighbour for all the injuries we shall find we have done to both and also humbly implore Gods Grace and Joyn to it our earnest endeavours that in the time to come our Faith may be sound and our manners pure these changes would prove the best Expedients to recal that Tranquility and Peace all that love and respect all that good will mutual trust and confidence which at any time heretofore our prosperous Nation has been blest withal and I am sure no others without these can How often has God in a Fatherly way admonisht us that he might not smight us how often has he given us some slight wounds to the end we might avoid the fatal strokes of his justice how often has hâ— laid his gentle Chastisements upon us that we might take care to escape being buried under the ruins which his terrible judgments are wont to bring upon a Kingdom And shall none of the various methods God has used work a change and real amendment in us shall the mighty things he has done for us and the tender care he has ever had of us be all in vain If neither his clemency will invite us to consider nor his severity awaken us out of our ungrounded security it must prove fatal to us May then the threatning dangers affright and perswade us may the multitude of the Divine Mercies allure us may the secret motions of the Holy Spirit excite us to seek the Lord while he may be found before the acceptable time pass away and his injured and long abused patience change into implacable fury May that Zeal we bear for the best Religion and a Church purely Reform'd and of all others coming nearest to the Primitive Pattern which so extremly suffers by so general a decay of Piety and the increase of Schisms and Parties and Factions may the love we bear to our Country whose overthro is threatned by the wickedness of its Inhabitants may the care of our own Souls which will everlastingly perish if we do not every one truly Repent prevail upon us to return unto God and our Duty In a word may all these Considerations together prevail upon us forthwith to take up firm and steddy resolutions to conform our own wills in all things unto the Divine Will to govern our thoughts and deeds by the laws and example of our blessed Savior to subdue every lust and unruly passion and to make us strictly purpose never