A30243:1013
Spiritual refining
Spiritual refining: or A treatise of grace and assurance Wherein are handled, the doctrine of assurance. The use of signs in self-examination. How true graces may be distinguished from counterfeit. Several true signs of grace, and many false ones. The nature of grace under divers Scripture notions or titles, as regeneration, the new-creature, the heart of flesh, vocation, sanctification, &c. Many chief questions (occasionally) controverted between the orthodox and the Arminians. As also many cases of conscience. Tending to comfort and confirm saints. Undeceive and convert sinners. Being CXX sermons preached and now published by Anthony Burgess sometime fellow of Emanuel College in Cambridge, and now pastor of the church of Sutton-Coldfield in Warwickshire.Spiritual refining: or A treatise of grace and assurance Wherein are handled, the doctrine of assurance. The use of signs in self-examination. How true graces may be distinguished from counterfeit. Several true signs of grace, and many false ones. The nature of grace under divers Scripture notions or titles, as regeneration, the new-creature, the heart of flesh, vocation, sanctification, &c. Many chief questions (occasionally) controverted between the orthodox and the Arminians. As also many cases of conscience. Tending to comfort and confirm saints. Undeceive and convert sinners. Being CXX sermons preached and now published by Anthony Burgess sometime fellow of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and now pastor of the church of Sutton-Coldfield in Warwickshire.
London: printed by A. Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1652
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A TREATISE OF GRACE and ASSURANCE; Being CXX. SERMONS. › Section 4 › Sermon 36
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.
Secondly, The employment and work that God calls for in heaven is altogether inconsistent 1with a wicked and ungodly heart. To praise God, and rejoice in him for ever; to love him, and to delight in him, forgetting all Creatures, and be swallowed up in him as the Ocean of all happiness, how can the heart of a natural man be thus affected? We see in this life how odious and troublesome holy duties are to the godly heart; and therefore much more would heaven be an hell to an ungodly man. It is true, wicked men as Balaam may desire happiness, but then they look to it only as it is a preservation from evil, and a preventing of torment; they do not consider the positive part in happiness, which is to glorify God, and to delight in him. It was much that the blind Philosophers could stumble on this, to conclude that blessedness consisted in virtuous actions, that the greatest delight and happiness that could be was to do justly; so that an ungodly man could not have Aristotle's happiness, and do we think he can have Pauls?
Secondly, The imployment and work that God calls for in heaven is altogether inconsistent 1with a wicked and ungodly heart. To praise God, and rejoyce in him for ever; to love him, and to delight in him, forgetting all Creatures, and be swallowed up in him as the Ocean of all happinesse, how can the heart of a naturall man be thus affected? We see in this life how odious and troublesome holy duties are to the godly heart; and therefore much more would heaven be an hell to an ungodly man. It is true, wicked men as Balaam may desire happinesse, but then they look to it onely as it is a preservation from evill, and a preventing of torment; they doe not consider the positive part in happinesse, which is to glorifie God, and to delight in him. It was much that the blinde Philosophers could stumble on this, to conclude that blessednesse consisted in vertuous actions, that the greatest delight and happinesse that could be was to doe justly; so that an ungodly man could not have Aristotles happinesse, and doe we think he can have Pauls?
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