130 .jTtaitj. beating ; tome weak believers may feem to- tally dead , in whom yet before God , to whom all things are naked and open, as in an Anatomy, there is found a vital pulfe of faith fecretly working. God (faith a Reve- rend Divine) brings not fcales to weigh, but a touch -(lone to try our graces. If there be but the leati dram of gold, but the leaft fmoke or weik in the focket ( as the exprellion is Matth. r 2. a o.) God accepts it ; neither do I mean that this retignation is aced perpetu- ally , but with many fad paules and inter- ruptions, which happen partly by the blafis of Satans temptations , making the believer walk like Peter upon the water, now a good fiep, and then ready to fink when the wind grows boifterous, till his faith buoy him up again, with a Lord, fave me partly by the allurements and entanglements of the world, which are to him as the ftone and the firing were to Anfelms bird, now up in afcenfi- ons of foul to God and Chrift, and then down again to the earth and earthly things, and partly from the indwelling fin which make him live , as his Saviour did on earth , a sneer conflicting Ida, Chrift endured the con - iradiion of fanners, and he the contradiction offins ; the indwelling corruption makes his íòul, like a palfey hand with contrary motions, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief, whilefi faith moves forward, unbelief draws back; after he bath in a princelymanner wreflled with God, he goes off Jacob -like halting in one infirmity or other. CHAP.
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