Remains of that reverend and learned divine, John Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplain in…Remaines of that reverend and learned divine, Iohn Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplaine in…

even so when the spiritual man is strong in the inward man, it sees the more motes and bracks in the spiritual strength, and labours for more strength against weaknesses, which a natural man cannot conceive of, as 1 Pet. 4. 4. They think it strange that you run not with ¹them into the same excess of riot; they know not the reason, or they cannot conceive what should keep you from loving such and such vices which they love: like blind men, they hear the pipe, but they see not the persons that dance, so they hear the pipe, but they see not the rule by which the spiritual man goes; as a country-man that comes and sees a man drawing the Geometricians line, he marvels what he means to spend his time about such a thing, when as he that draws it knows that it is of a great use: Fourthly, in degree, that is, in the generality of the ²growth, when you grow in every part proportionably: a natural man may grow in some parts, but not in all parts; as for example, he may have a large capacity of knowledge in divine Truths, yet he hath but weak affections to God: or it may be his affections are strong, but his Judgement is ⟨p. 83⟩weak: or it may be he is strong in both, that is, he knows the good, and after his manner of loving, he loves the good: but yet there is such weakness in the will, that he will not yield any true obedience unto God: but it is not thus in the spiritual strength, that is, in the growth of the inward man, for that leads him unto all growth in all parts: now in the natural growth, we say, it is not a proper augmentation, except there be a growth in all parts: as for example, if a man should grow in one member, and not in another, as in the arm, not in the leg, we would not say that it were a growth, but a disease, and that many humours of the body were met together in his arm, and that it were rather a sign that it should be cut off from the body, then a help unto the rest of the body; even so the growth in any part of the soul, if it be not universal, rather hurts then helps, that is, it rather shows a disease in the soul, then the health of the soul: but the true spiritual strength, that grows in all parts: so much for the first difference.