A30243:1154
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 42
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.
The Observation from the Text is obvious. The work of grace regenerating maeth 1us altogether new.
- 1Obs.
That new and glorious Body which the people of God shall have by their resurrection, doth not more exceed this vile, mortal, and infirm body that we now bear about with us; then the alteration and change God makes in the soul when he reneweth it, causeth it for the future to differ from what it was formerly; then proud, now humble; then earthly, now heavenly. Then it was like Naaman before his washing, full of a loathsome leprosy; but now like his skin after his washing, fresh and beautiful. Before it was like a Lazarus, full of noisome Ulcers and sores; but since it is like Absalom, that was comely from the head to the foot. This ⟨p. 258⟩point deserveth diligent explication, because it will be a mirror or glass to see your selves in, as also to know whether you may go on comfortably in the way you are in, or else wholly begin a new course: for the Apostle by this supposeth, That a man may live many years in the outward privileges of the Church, and in the discharge of the public duties which relate to Gods worship, and yet be an old creature, he must begin all anew again: Do not therefore think it strange, thou who hast served God, as thou thinkest, this fifty or threescore years, if it be told thee that thou art yet to begin to be a Disciple of Christ. The Apostle in this Text tells us what is true Christianity, wherein the marrow of Christian Religion consists, viz. Not in external duties, but in a new sanctification of the whole man: This is the Holy of Holies, whereas duties are like the outward porch of the Temple: I shall proceed in this method.
That new and glorious Body which the people of God shall have by their resurrection, doth not more exceed this vile, mortal, and infirm body that we now bear about with us; then the alteration and change God makes in the soul when he reneweth it, causeth it for the future to differ from what it was formerly; then proud, now humble; then earthly, now heavenly. Then it was like Naaman before his washing, full of a loathsom leprosie; but now like his skin after his washing, fresh and beautiful. Before it was like a Lazarus, full of noysom Ulcers and sores; but since it is like Absolom, that was comely from the head to the foot. This