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Philosophie also teacheth, that both the extreames be vices, and therefore your rule dothe teache that a man must go from one vice to another, if he will come to vertue, whiche is a meane: but Sainct Paule teacheth the contrary, saying, Non est facien∣dum malum, vt inde veniat bonum. VVe must not do euill that good may come thereof.
Wherefore as your rule is heathenish and naught, so do you as naughtily 〈◊〉〈◊〉 it Is there no way for the prodigall man to come to liberalitie but by 〈◊〉〈◊〉? no way for the glutton to come to temperance, but by pyning himselfe? no way for t〈1 line〉〈1 line〉e 〈◊〉〈◊〉 person to come to the true feare and loue of God, but by des〈1 line〉〈1 line〉era∣tion? 〈◊〉〈◊〉 way to come 〈1 line〉〈1 line〉rom poperie to the Gospell, but by confusion, and 〈◊〉〈◊〉 of all good ord〈1 line〉〈1 line〉r and gouernment? Is this diuinitie? In déede 〈1 line〉〈1 line〉uch 〈◊〉〈◊〉 it is that Aristotle a prophane Philosopher doth teach in his Ethikes, but not that Chris〈1 line〉〈1 line〉 and his 〈◊〉〈◊〉 do teach in the Gospell.
The ordinarie meanes whereby a Christian man must come from vice to ver∣t〈1 line〉〈1 line〉e,* 1.2 from an e〈1 line〉〈1 line〉treme to a meane, is the diligent reading and hearing o〈1 line〉〈1 line〉 the word of God, ioyned with earnest and heartie prayers. The best way therefore to bring a dronken man to sobrietie is, not to perswade him to a superstitious kind of abstinence or fasting, but to lay before him out of the word of God the horriblenes of that sinne, and the punishment due vnto the same. The similitude of a croked sticke is a〈1 line〉〈1 line〉t to set foorth so croked a precept, but not so apt to make manifest the way vnto vertue. But I may not blame you for vsing and allowing those prophane rules, whiche you so aptly follow, and so commonly practise in all your doings.
The Replyer prescribeth a heathenish rule of retor∣mation. Rom. 3.
The ordina∣rie meanes to draw men from 〈◊〉〈◊〉.