A30243:1116
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 5 › Sermon 40
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.
Seventhly, If external duties were enough without this new Creature, then the way to heaven would be a broad easy way. Whereas the Scripture sets down a peremptory 1position clean contrary; Straight is the way, and strive to enter into it, and Few enter in it. But if no more were required to pray and hear then most men do, it would be a broad way, every man would enter into it. There needs no striving, no agonies to such duties: A man in prayer must have a broken contrite heart; it is a Metaphor from a broken bone, which cannot be without much pain and torment; so a broken heart in a duty cannot be without much sense of grief, shame and spiritual confusion; and as when any thing is broken, we see what is in the midst of it, which did not appear before; so in a broken heart we discover all that foulness, all those loathsome Monsters, all that horrid impiety, which we had no acquaintance with before. And oh that this truth had got full possession in your hearts! Every religious duty, if rightly performed, puts the heart into a great agony: They are but few that can enter into this straight way: Therefore say, I fear my praying, my hearing, my walking is too broad a way, too large a way, it doth not wound deep enough, or affect throughly.
Seventhly, If external duties were enough without this new Creature, then the way to heaven would be a broad easie way. Whereas the Scripture sets down a peremptory 1position clean contrary; Streight is the way, and strive to enter into it, and Few enter in it. But if no more were required to pray and hear then most men doe, it would be a broad way, every man would enter into it. There needs no striving, no agonies to such duties: A man in prayer must have a broken contrite heart; it is a Metaphor from a broken bone, which cannot be without much pain and torment; so a broken heart in a duty cannot be without much sense of grief, shame and spirituall confusion; and as when any thing is broken, we see what is in the midst of it, which did not appear before; so in a broken heart we discover all that foulnesse, all those loathsome Monsters, all that horrid impiety, which we had no acquaintance with before. And oh that this truth had got full possession in your hearts! Every religious duty, if rightly performed, puts the heart into a great agony: They are but few that can enter into this streight way: Therefore say, I fear my praying, my hearing, my walking is too broad a way, too large a way, it doth not wound deep enough, or affect throughly.