The Christian warfare wherein is first generally showed the malice, power and politic stratagems…The Christian warfare wherein is first generally shewed the malice, power and politike stratagems…

§. Sect. I ¹The fourth motive to persuade us to speedy repentance and turning unto God, is that the longer we defer it the harder we shall find it, for the difficulty thereof will be much increased by ⟨p. 384⟩delay,² and our selves also who are unfit today will be more unfit to morrow, the reasons hereof are many, first because by continual sinning we get a custom and habit of sinning, and if a custom which is but affected be hardly left, what shall we say of a custom which is confirmed by nature or what is nature strengthened by custom? who knoweth not that the drunkard is more easily reclaimed from his drunkenness when he first falleth to this vice then when he hath long lived in it, that the swearer the longer he useth and inureth his tongue to swearing, the more hardly can he forbear it, and the covetous man as he increaseth in years increaseth also in covetousness, and the like may be said of all other vices. Neither need this seem strange unto us seeing it is a thing apparent in reason and in experience; for the longer the disease hath possessed the body the more hardly it is cured, and therefore that counsel is good, Venienti occurrite morbo, prevent the disease before it hath seized on thee or presently after it hath taken place remove it. The longer the sore is neglected the more it festereth & the greater difficulty there is to heal it, the longer the tree groweth the deeper root it taketh and the more hard it is to pull it up; the enemy is more easily kept from scaling the walls, then beaten back when he is entered into the middest of the city; & so it is with sins and vices, facilius repelluntur quam expelluntur, they are more easily kept from entrance then beaten out: as therefore you would condemn him of extreme folly who would not regard his sickness till it had overthrown nature and then think to cure it, or who would neglect to apply any salve to a grisly wound till it were festered and then think the better to heal it; or that should assay to pull up a young plant and being unable should defer it till it were grown to a great tree, thinking then more easily to pluck it up by the roots, or that would let the enemy quietly enter into the city with a purpose then to expel him with more facility and less loss;

§. Sect. I