[ 745] Conversion of a sinner, wrought by degrees.
LIttle children,* 1.1 of whom •• travail again in birth, &c. saith the Apostle, Gal. 4. 19. untill Christ be formed in you: So that conversion is not wroug••t, simul & semel, but by little and little in processe of time. In the generation of Infants, first the brain, heart, and liver are framed; then the bones, veins, arteries, nerves, and sinews; and after this, flesh is added; and the Infant first begins to live the life of a plant, by growing and nourishing; then it lives the life of a beast, by sense and motion; and thirdly, the life of a man, by the use of reason. Even so, God outwardly pre∣vents us with his Word,* 1.2 and inwardly he puts into us the knowledge of his will, with the beginnings or seeds of faith and repentance, as it were a brain and a heart; from these beginnings of faith and repentance, arise heavenly desires; from these desires follow, asking, seeking, knocking. And thus the beginnings of faith are encrea∣sed, and men go on from grace to grace, from one degree of virtue unto another, till they be tall men in Christ Iesus.