s we receive through faith;
wherefore he says, that ye shall have all if ye so live as to prove
your faith, whereby ye flee worldly lusts. So he speaks, now,
further:

V. 5. _Give then all your diligence, and add to your faith, virtue._
Here St. Peter takes up the admonition, that they should prove their
faith by good works. Since such great blessing is bestowed upon you
through faith (he would say), that ye really have all that God is, do
this besides: be diligent, and not sluggish; add to your faith,
virtue; that is, let your faith break out before the world, so as to
be zealous, busy, powerful, and active, and to do many works; let it
not remain idle and unfruitful. Ye have a good inheritance and a good
field, but see to it that ye do not let thistles and weeds grow upon
it.

_And to virtue, discrimination._ Discrimination or knowledge is, in
the first place, that one should manifest an outward conduct, and the
virtue of faith, in accordance with reason. For we should so far
bridle and check the body, that we may be sober, vigorous, and fitted
for good works; not that we should torture and mortify ourselves as
some famous saints have done. For though God is likewise opposed to
the sins that remain in the flesh, yet does He not require that for
this reason you should destroy the body. Its viciousness and caprice
you should guard against, but yet you are not to ruin or injure it,
but give it its food and refreshment that it may remain sound and in
living vigor.

In the second place, discrimination means that one should lead a life
carefully exact, and act with discretion in regard to outward things,
as food and things of that sort,--that one should not act in these
things unreasonably, and that he should give his neighbor no
provocation.

V. 6. _And to discrimination, temperance._ Temperance is not only in
eating and drinking, but it is regularity in the whole life and
conduct, words, works, manners; that we should not live too
expensively, and should avoid excess in ornament and clothing; that
none come out too proudly, and make too lofty a show. But in regard
to this St. Peter will not fix any rule, measure, or limit, as the
Orders have prescribed for themselves, who have wished to do all by
rule, and have framed statutes which must be exactly observed. It is
a thing not to be tolerated in Christendom, that men should require
by laws that there be a common rule on _temperance_; for people are
unlike one