A Saint Indeed

3. Quer. Are you sure from Scripture grounds that a good man may▪ not relapse again and again into the same sin? 'Tis true, as for gross sins, they do not use to relapse into them. David committed adultery no more, Paul persecuted the Church no more, Peter denied Christ no more, but I speak of ordinary infirmities: Jobs friends were good men, yet (saith he) Chap. 19. 3. These ten times have ye reproached me. So then no such conclusions follow from this first ground of doubting.

3. Quer. Are you sure from Scripture grounds that a good man may▪ not relapse again and again into the same sin? 'Tis true, as for gross sins, they do not use to relapse into them. David committed adultery no more, Paul persecuted the Church no more, Peter denyed Christ no more, but I speak of ordinary infirmities: Iobs friends were good men, yet (saith he) Chap. 19. 3. These ten times have ye reproached me. So then no such conclusions follow from this first ground of doubting.

2. The second ground is, the declining and withering of our affections to spiritual ⟨p. 157⟩things, O saith the upright Soul, if ever I had been planted a right seed, I should have been as a green olive tree in the house of my God: but my branches wither, therefore my root is naught. But stay,

1. Q•er. May you not be mistaken about the decay of grace, and fading of your affections? What if they be not so quick and ravishing as at first? may not that be recompensed in the spirituality and solidity of them •ow? 1 Phil. 9. I pray God your love may abound more and more in all judgment: it may be more solid, though not so fervorous: or do you not mistake by looking forward to what you would be, rather then backward to what once you were? 'tis a good note of Ames: we discern the growth of grace, as the growth of plants, which we perceive rather crevisse quam crescere, to have grown, then to grow.