I 8 4 A Box of precious °int-gent : Or, 116.12.22,23. ;Luke 17. y. z Pet. 3. 18. I Pet 2. 2. I Joh. f.13. Joh. 3.9. The righteous fhall fioutifb like the Palm tree, P1.41.91.11,13,14. The Palm tree never lofeth his leaf or fruit, Pliny. Grace grows not alike in aliSaints; in the parable, Come brought forth thirty,foole fixty, and Come a hundred fold, desires, his mird,.his with, his will, his choice, he would ne- yer fin more, he would never difhonour Jefus Chrift more, h would never grieve the fpirit of grace more, he woUld yield unfinning obedience,he would obey in this lower world; as theAngels, and as the fpirits of juft men made perfeot do obey in that upper world ; the weakeft Chrillian has his eye to the higheft round in Pc ib's ladder, and fain he would be at the top of it ; and Oh, how fweet is every Providence, and every Ordinance, and every duty, and every mercy, and every opportunity, that helps his foul more Chrift-wards,and heaven-wards, and holinefs-wards l fincere defires, and feri- ous endeavours to grow in grace, is an infallible evidence of the truth of grace. Look, as a man may have grace and not know it, fo a man may grow in grace and yet not difcern it. As in the lopping of. a Tree there feems to be.a kind of di- minution and deftruaion, yet the end and Ale of it is better growth 3 and as the weakning of the body by Phyfick feet's to tend.to death, yet it produceth better health and more flrength ; and as the Ball, by falling dOwnward rifeth upward, and water in pipes defcends that it may afcend, fo the Chri- (bans fpiritual growth, when feerningly dead and declining, and to (land at a flay, is (till carried on by the hidden method of God to encreafe ; for every true Chriftian is a member of a thriving body, in which there is no Atrophy, but a con- tinual ruing of fpirits from the head ; fo that life being wrought by the fpirit of life never dveth, but is alwayes up- on the growing hand (except in the dark winter night of de- fertion and temptations) ripening and encreafing even in the mid[} of all ordinary troubles and trials. The Kpof1le tells us, that the whole body of Chrift (whereof every true Chri- (Tian is a limb) is fo compa& together in it felf, and fo firm! y ..fafined with certain fpiritual nerves and ligaments to the head, that from it there is by them conveyed to each part a continual fupply of fpiritual grace, both fulficient to fornifh it, and to further the growth of it. Let me give a little fur- ther light into this particular, by this fimilitude : A man is bound for the Eaft-Indies,aridifhapeth his ccnrfe thitherward, but by the way is put often off by crofs winds to the Weft- ward ;
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