A30243:1019
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 37
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.
SERMON XXXVII.
Of the unexpressibleness of this new life.
JOHN 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth, &c.
Our Saviour in these words doth further clear the Mystery of Regeneration unto Nicodemus, that so at last the scales may fall from his eyes; because this spiritual nativity was not visible, as that of the body is, Nicodemus would not believe any such thing. Now our Saviour instanceth in a very fit similitude. The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound of it, but thou seest it not with thy eyes, neither art thou able to tell from whence it cometh: So that this speech of our Saviour doth denote the difficulty of understanding this spiritual birth, not only to the corrupt understanding, but also to the renewed: for this in the Text ariseth not from the imbecility of the power or faculty to perceive, but the subtle and pure nature of the object to be understood: It is therefore the intent of our Saviour to express this spiritual birth, by a plain similitude. Some there are that take the greek word [Greek or Hebrew], for the spirit of God: upon this rule, wheresoever it is with the greek article, there the spirit of God is understood; but that is not universal, & then it would be most improper: for it could be no illustration to manifest a thing by it self, which our Saviour should do if we take it so. Maldonate takes spirit, or breath, for the soul of a man, and makes the sense thus; As we do not know the nature of the soul, how it is infused, whence it cometh, or, whither it goeth, only we perceive the strong operations of it; so it is in the work of Grace. But there is no just reason to recede from our Translation in making it to signify the wind, and so every thing will excellently agree.