A30243:1183
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 43
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.
2. The supernaturality of this Creature is seen in the Motives, why it sets upon 1any duties, and that is, because of God. Thus faith, part of the new Creature in a man, believeth Gods Word, not from custom and education, or the authority of the Church, but because of that divine Authority and Revelation which appeareth therein: As a man seeth the Sun by the light of the Sun shining from it. Thus the Thessalonians received the Word of God, not as the word of man, but as of God, 1 Thes. 2 14. This new Creature believeth the principles of Religion, Quia ipse dixit, because God hath said it, not because men say so: when a man assents unto matters of Religion no further than humane grounds lead him, it is but an humane faith, and we need not a special gift of God to believe thus: After the same manner also it is, when a man bewaileth his sins, and condemneth himself for them, merely because of the natural light of conscience, not from the Word, and because God is offended, but because of external judgements, this is but to move as a man, to repent as a man; whereas the Apostle telleth us of sorrow after a godly manner, 2 Cor. 7 9. which is, when a spirit of prayer and supplication, and mourning is upon our souls, because God is displeased with what we have done; and indeed the greatest, and the most noble part of the supernaturality of this new Creature lieth in this, That we go to all divine objects upon a divine ground, upon a divine motive; so that it's acknowledged by all, both Papists and Protestants, that nothing can be said to be graciously and after a godly manner done, unless it ascend as high as God, and be terminated on him, as the object: we are not to stay on Jacobs Ladder, but to go up to him, who sits at the top of it in heaven. Oh consider, we may believe as men, repent as men, pray as men, hear as men, but all this while not new Creatures; because these things are not done with a reference to God, and a complacency in him: and by this we may easily judge, why it's so possible for a man to be taken from the wedding Feast, and bound hand and foot, and thrown into utter darkness, I mean to be taken from religious duties, and damned, because these were not the acts of a new Creature, but the humane devotions of a moral man. Let not therefore thy heart be quieted in any holy duties, till it be immediately applied to God himself.