magistrates and all civil ordinances [likewise, how each one in his
station should live in a Christian manner, and, out of obedience to
the command of the Lord God, should conduct himself in reference to
every worldly ordinance and law]; of the distinction between the
kingdom of Christ, or the spiritual kingdom and political affairs, of
marriage; of the education and instruction of children, of chastity;
of all the offices of love. From this condition of the churches it
may be judged that we diligently maintain church-discipline and godly
ceremonies and good churchcustoms.

And of the mortification of the flesh and discipline of the body we
thus teach, just as the Confession states, that a true and not a
feigned mortification occurs through the cross and afflictions by
which God exercises us [when God breaks our will, inflicts the cross
and trouble]. In these we must obey God's will, as Paul says, Rom.
12, 1: Present your bodies a living sacrifice. And these are the
spiritual exercises of fear and faith. But in addition to this
mortification which occurs through the cross [which does not depend
upon our will] there is also a voluntary kind of exercise necessary,
of which Christ says Luke 21, 34: Take heed to yourselves lest at any
time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting. And Paul, 1 Cor. 9,
27: I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, etc. And
these exercises are to be undertaken not because they are services
that justify, but in order to curb the flesh, lest satiety may
overpower us, and render us secure and indifferent, the result of
which is that men indulge and obey the dispositions of the flesh.
This diligence ought to be perpetual, because it has the perpetual
command of God. And this prescribed form of certain meats and times
does nothing [as experience shows] towards curbing the flesh. For it
is more luxurious and sumptuous than other feasts [for they were at