2. But if in Holy Scripture discipline is frequently and everywhere prescribed, and the whole foundation of religion and of faith proceeds from obedience and fear; what is more fitting for us urgently to desire, what more to wish for and to hold fast, than to stand with roots strongly fixed, and with our houses based with solid mass upon the rock unshaken by the storms and whirlwinds of the world, so that we may come by the divine precepts to the rewards of God? considering as well as knowing that our members, when purged from all the filth of the old contagion by the sanctification of the laver of life, are God’s temples, and must not be violated nor polluted, since he who does violence to them is himself injured. We are the worshippers and priests of those temples; let us obey Him whose we have already begun to be. Paul tells us in his epistles, in which he has formed us to a course of living by divine teaching, “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a great price; glorify and bear God in your body.”6    1 Cor. vi. 19. Let us glorify and bear God in a pure and chaste body, and with a more complete obedience; and since we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, let us obey and give furtherance to the empire of our Redeemer by all the obedience of service, that nothing impure or profane may be brought into the temple of God, lest He should be offended, and forsake the temple which He inhabits. The words of the Lord giving health and teaching, as well curing as warning, are: “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”7    John v. 14. He gives the course of life, He gives the law of innocency after He has conferred health, nor suffers the man afterwards to wander with free and unchecked reins, but more severely threatens him who is again enslaved by those same things of which he had been healed, because it is doubtless a smaller fault to have sinned before, while as yet you had not known God’s discipline; but there is no further pardon for sinning after you have begun to know God. And, indeed, let as well men as women, as well boys as girls; let each sex and every age observe this, and take care in this respect, according to the religion and faith which they owe to God, that what is received holy and pure from the condescension of the Lord be preserved with a no less anxious fear.8    One codex adds here: “since it is written, ‘He who perseveres unto the end, the same shall be saved.’”

II. Quod si in Scripturis sanctis frequenter et ubique disciplina praecipitur, et fundamentum omne religionis ac fidei de observatione ac timore profiscitur, 0442A quid cupidius appetere, quid magis velle ac tenere nos convenit, quam ut, radicibus fortius fixis, et domiciliis nostris super petram robusta mole solidatis, inconcussi ad procellas et turbines saeculi stemus, ut ad Dei munera per divina praecepta veniamus, considerantes pariter ac scientes quod templa Dei sint membra nostra, ab omni faece contagionis antiquae lavacri vitalis sanctificatione purgata, nec violari ea aut pollui fas sit, quando qui violat et ipse violetur. Eorum nos templorum cultores et antistites sumus. Serviamus illi cujus esse jam coepimus. Paulus in Epistolis suis dicit quibus nos ad curricula vivendi per divina magisteria formavit: Non estis vestri. Empti enim estis pretio magno . Clarificate et portate Deum in corpore vestro (I Cor. VI, 19, 20) Clarificemus 0442B et portemus Deum puro et mundo corpore et observatione meliore; et qui per sanguinem Christi redempti sumus, per omnia servitutis obsequia Redemptoris imperio pareamus, demusque operam ne quid immundum et profanum templo Dei inferatur, ne offensus sedem quam inhabitat derelinquat. Sospitantis Domini verba sunt et docentis, curantis pariter et monentis: Ecce, inquit, sanus factus es, jam noli peccare, ne quid tibi deterius fiat (Joan. V, 14). Dat vivendi tenorem, dat innocentiae legem, postquam contulit sanitatem; nec habenis liberis et solutis vagari 0443A postmodum patitur, sed ipsis potius quibus sanatus fuerat mancipato gravius comminatur, quod sit scilicet minor culpa deliquisse ante cum necdum nosses disciplinam Dei, nulla sit venia ultra delinquere postquam Deum nosse coepisti. Et quidem hoc tam viri quam mulieres, tam pueri quam puellae, sexus omnis atque omnis aetas observet, et curet, pro religione et fide quam Deo debet, ne quod sanctum et purum de Domini dignatione percipitur, minus sollicito timore teneatur.