A64833:264
Venning's remains, or, Christ's school consisting of four classes of Christians, I. babes, II.…
Venning's remains, or, Christ's school consisting of four classes of Christians, I. babes, II. little children, III. young men, IV. fathers : with their several characteristical differences and attainments, also the doctrines proper to be taught to each of them : being the substance of many sermons / preached by Ralph Venning and fitted by him for the press before his death.
London: printed for John Hancock senior and junior, 1675
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
4. Babes are defective in this that they have not attained to use or an habit as they of full age (or the perfect) have: as much difference as there is between habit and disposition, so much there is between Babes and grown Saints, for so the distinction is, Heb. 5.14. Habits are full of skill and strength and make operation easy, whereas dispositions are faint and weak, mere essays and attempts, such as are in Babes to speak and go. They have not (like David as to his Armour) been used nor habited to such things, and cannot go nor walk in them as others can that have tried again and again: we easily do things we have been used or wont to do, but we are bunglers at things for want of use and habit, which is the case of Babes; so that the difference between these and grown Saints, is as much as between manhood and infancy, the strength and weakness of the one and other, as between an ⟨p. 183⟩habit of perfection and an imperfect disposition and inclination.
4. Babes are defective in this that they have not attained to use or an habit as they of full age (or the perfect) have: as much difference as there is between habit and disposition, so much there is between Babes and grown Saints, for so the distinction is, Heb. 5.14. Habits are full of skill and strength and make operation easie, whereas dispositions are faint and weak, meer essays and attempts, such as are in Babes to speak and go. They have not (like David as to his Armour) been used nor habited to such things, and cannot go nor walk in them as others can that have try'd again and again: we easily do things we have been used or wont to do, but we are bunglers at things for want of use and habit, which is the case of Babes; so that the difference between these and grown Saints, is as much as between manhood and infancy, the strength and weakness of the one and other, as between an ⟨p. 183⟩habit of perfection and an imperfect disposition and inclination.