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Why doth God try us every moment? Because we are one moment in one temper, and the next moment in another. The acting frame of a man's heart this hour cannot be collected from the frame it was in an hour before; therefore there is a continual trial. Some things if they be tried once, they are tried forever; if we try gold, it will ever be as good as we found it, unless we alter it: as we try it to be, so it continues to be. But try the heart of man this day, and come again the next and you may find it in a different condition; today believing, tomorrow unbelieving; today humble, tomorrow proud; today meek, tomorrow passionate; today lively and enlarged, tomorrow dead and straightened; pure gold today, and tomorrow exceeding drossy. As it is with the pulse of a sick man, it varieth every quarter of an hour, therefore the physician tries his pulse every time he comes, because his disease alters the state of his body. So it is with the distempered condition of man's spirit. God having tried our pulse, the state of our spirit, by crones or by mercies this day, next day He tries us too, and the third day He tries us again, and so keeps us in continual trials, because we are in continual variations. That sickness and disease within us alters the state and condition of the soul every moment. Our comfort is that God hath a time wherein He will set our souls up in such a frame as He shall need to try us, but that once. Having set us up in a frame of glory, He shall not need to try our hearts for us, or to put us to the trial of ourselves any more, we shall stand as He sets us up to all eternity.

(J. Caryl.)

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KJV: What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?

WEB: What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him,