A30243:115
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 1 › Sermon 4
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.
Eighthly, This Certainty a Believer hath cannot be made known or demonstrated unto another, but remaineth unexpressible in his own heart. Even as a man cannot 1describe unto another, what it is to be a father or a mother, only those that are so, and feel the bowels of such a relation, they can in themselves feel what it is; and thus when a man becomes persuaded of the truth of grace in his own soul, as differing from hypocrites, this cannot be discovered unto another, only the man himself rests satisfied; Therefore its called, The white stone which none knoweth but he that hath it. As it is thus only known to a mans self, so neither can others by a judgement of Certainty, but of charity only judge who are so. For it is God only that knoweth the hearts, and there is nothing visible in Christianity, which an hypocrite may not upon false grounds do, as well as the godly upon true, and if some did in the primitive times know what was in mens hearts, it was by a peculiar extraordinary revelation, not of customary discerning. And that discerning of spirits which was given to some in the Church, was in respect of Doctrines, to difference the true from the false, not of mens hearts and affections: This is to be observed against that error of some, that hold, A man may certainly know whether another be godly, Peter was deceived about Simon Magus, and he calls Silvanus a faithful brother, as he supposeth, 1 Pet. 5. 12. It is true there is a great sympathy and conformable working of Gods Spirit in godly men, and their hearts answer one another as the face in the glass, but yet here is no infallibility, and many whom the godly have admired as stars, have fallen from heaven; and others whom they did not expect have remained firm to God.
Eighthly, This Certainty a Believer hath cannot be made known or demonstrated unto another, but remaineth unexpressible in his own heart. Even as a man cannot 1describe unto another, what it is to be a father or a mother, only those that are so, and feel the bowels of such a relation, they can in themselves feel what it is; and thus when a man becomes perswaded of the truth of grace in his own soul, as differing from hypocrites, this cannot be discovered unto another, only the man himself rests satisfied; Therefore its called, The white stone which none knoweth but he that hath it. As it is thus only known to a mans self, so neither can others by a judgement of Certainty, but of charity only judge who are so. For it is God only that knoweth the hearts, and there is nothing visible in Christianity, which an hypocrite may not upon false grounds do, as well as the godly upon true, and if some did in the primitive times know what was in mens hearts, it was by a peculiar extraordinary revelation, not of customary discerning. And that discerning of spirits which was given to some in the Church, was in respect of Doctrines, to difference the true from the false, not of mens hearts and affections: This is to be observed against that errour of some, that hold, A man may certainly know whether another be godly, Peter was deceived about Simon Magus, and he cals Sylvanus a faithful brother, as he supposeth,