Polywog Christians

“It so happens in the mud and slime of the river Borborus, when the eye of the sun hath long dwelt upon it, and produces frogs which begin to move a little under a thin cover of its own parental matter, and if they can get loose to live half a life, that is all; but the hinder parts, which are not formed before the setting of the sun, stick fast in their beds of mud, and the little moiety of a creature dies before it could be well said to live; so it is with those Christians, who will do all that they think lawful, and will do no more than what they suppose necessary; they do but peep into the light of the Sun of righteousness; they have the beginnings of life; but their hinder parts, their passions and affections, and the desires of the lower man, are still unformed; and he that dwells in this state, is just so much of a Christian, as a sponge is of a plant, and a mushroom of a shrub; they may be as sensible as an oyster, and discourse at the rate of a child, but are generally short of the righteousness evangelical.” -- Jeremy Taylor

I love a barbed arrow tipped with wit. But now I must see myself as a mushroom.