The practical divinity of the papists discovered to be destructive of Christianity and mens…

Mortification can scarce with them be so much as a Counsel, for their doctrine will have nothing in us to be mortified; that which is to be so treated, is sin in us; but they maintain, that in a just man there is no sin after Baptism. Carnal concupiscence it self is sinless; it is natural to us, and so innocent. ^(u)That which is in us by Nature, they say, is neither worthy of praise or dispraise: Hence they conclude, he is blind, who will say, concupiscence is a sin. They grant it induceth us to sin, but it is no more sin upon that account, than hearing, seeing, or other of our senses; than Gold, or Honour, or Beauty, or any thing else that may draw us to evil; and so plainly, we are no more bound to mortify it (if sin only is to be mortified) than we are obliged to ruin our senses, to destroy gold, or to spoil the beauty of a hansom Woman. And the same must be said of other vicious habits, contracted by a continued practice of sin; for though they call these Vices, yet Vices with them are no sins, no more than Virtues are duties; ^(*)the Law of God is not concerned in any habits, as it commands not those that are good, so it forbids not those that are vicious; and no reason to mortify that which is not condemned by the Law. However, they retain the word, but little else we meet with in them, about this great concern of a Christian; and a very odd object they find for it, instead ⟨p. 173⟩of that which the Scripture assigns; it is the natural body that is to be afflicted and macerated, not the body of sin; and so they are not concerned to get the work of the Devil destroyed; it is the work of God that must be mortified. They may be excused, if they make not this so much as a Counsel. But they say the maceration of the body is in order to the bridling of concupiscence: It seems, as Innocent as it is, it may need a curb, yet they take care to leave it loose enough, for those severities which should hamper it, they say are not commanded. ^(x)Afflicting of the body is under no precept, saith Soto and Sylvester, having told us out of Aquinas, that a Vow is properly of a work of Supererogation, acceptable to God; he adds, the ^(y)