A30243:1163
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.
In the second place, Let us consider the nature of this new creature by what it opposeth: 1For when the Apostle saith, a new creature, he supposeth there are some old things to which this stands diametrically opposite. Therefore the Apostle, 2 Cor. 5. 17. expressly mentioneth the general of them, when he saith, Old things are passed away, and all things are become New. Let us therefore examine what those Old things are, in whose room this New Creature comes.
In the second place, Let us consider the nature of this new creature by what it opposeth: 1For when the Apostle saith, a new creature, he supposeth there are some old things to which this stands diametrically opposite. Therefore the Apostle, 2 Cor. 5. 17. expresly mentioneth the generall of them, when he saith, Old things are passed away, and all things are become New. Let us therefore examine what those Old things are, in whose room this New Creature comes.
- 1What the new creature is opposed to.
First, There are the old things of sin and ungodliness. The glorious sun and a 1dark night can as well stand together, as this new Creature; and thy old swearing, lying, thy old lusts and profaneness: As soon as ever God works this new work upon thee, presently those old things do not only pass away, but are thrown away with great detestation: As it is said of Naaman, 2 King. 5. 1. That he was a great man, a man of much eminency, but he was a leper, and till he was washed, he was loathsome and unclean. So may we say of many a great man, a rich man, a learned, but if an ungodly man, He is altogether unclean. The Apostle speaking of the Corinthians what they were formerly, Riotous, Thieves, Unclean, Effeminate, but ye are washed, but ye are justified, but ye are sanctified,