3. \t1efion. Whether an eflimate may be taken from the ordinary patfages of our lives. .Refelved. The Tryall of lower, and a greater vent given,and fo it came more gufhing out, dregs and all. That a man after he is growne up to his full lîrength, falls into fogreat a fickneffe, filch an one as he never had whenhe was a child, which maketh him weaker then when he was ten or twelve yeeres old, Both rot argue but that he is a man grown for all that. David after a long growth, had a timeof great fickneffe, whereby he loft the 'exercife, the lively vigorous ufe ofhis graces : enfeebled by that'Gckneffe, he lo[I his tafle in Gods Ordinances by it, and the joy ofGods falvation, ás appears bythe And the third thing I would adde is this, that fuch an one as is indeed muchmortified, ifit happens he falls into fuch a fit, yet thegreater meafure of his mortification will apeare after- wards, in that the lu[I will be weaker after his recoverie againe. It is in this, as with a man that is in a hot fierie fit of a feaver, though he have at that in[lant the flren.gth of two men in him, (as was Paid) yet afterward, when the fpirits are ebbed and fetled againe, his body is the weaker for it : fo is the body of fin, upon the refurrecîion of grace, after Inch a fall. Many grow more after fickneffe. For Gods end beingbut to difcover his weak- ref-Fe, (and what he is in himfelfe) and to rouze himout of his fecurity, he then loves to manifefl his power when oncewe have faene our wcakneffe ;, and fo makes his f rength perfeR in our in- firmities, when they are not ordinary, but beyond the ordinary temper and difpofitions ofour fpirits. But then the Que[lion may be concerning the more ordinary paflages of a mans life, whether a man may meafure and take a lure e[timate of the inward root of corruption left in him, by the ordinary rifings and flirrings ofit, and his fallings into fin more or le(i:°. I [peak nor nowof extraordinary fits, but of ordinary, qualms and weakneffes. To this I anfwer, that ordinarily men may conclude from the more or leffe buffo they find corruption to be in them, that the more or lèflè there is of corruption in them; and fo thereby meafure their growth : for grace and Corruption are as two roots, (and therefor-4 the actions of them both are called their fruits,,Ga1. 5. 17, 22.) Now Chrift elfewhere gives us this rule of nature, to judge ofthe tree ly thefruits, to proceed by, in matters of
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