A30243:1239
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 45
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.
3. This outward form will not suffice, is not the new Creature, because men may be 1rea•• Heathens, while they are formal and titular Christians. In works they may deny Christ, while in words they do acknowledge him. and real denying by actions, is worse than verbal by words. Thus Isaiah calls the Rulers among the Jews, Isa. 1. Princes of Sodom and Gomorrah, the worst of Heathens, because their lives were like such: The Apostle instanceth in one sin, and we may say so of any other gross sin; If any man provide not for his own, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an Infidel, 1 Tim. 5. 8. As it holds true of that sin, so we may say; If any man be a drunkard, liar, swearer, Sabbath-breaker, he hath denied his faith, and is worse than an Infidel. But why worse than an Infidel? Because he sinneth against more light and knowledge, as also against more holy obligations and bonds which are in the Christian Religion. Know therefore that a titular Christian, but a real profane man; a nominal believer, but a real ungodly person, is like old Sepulchres, with new gilding and painting over them; like a Statue of earth and dirt, with some glorious colouring; and as if a man should go to touch and feel what such a Statue is, it would presently turn to dirt and dust in his hand: so if thou wouldst seriously lay to heart thy condition, that which thou hopest in, and boastest of, thou wouldst find to be empty and vain: real ungodliness and profaneness under the form of Christian profession, is gross and palpable hypocrisy; and it's a wonder, how that contradiction between thy faith and thy practice, thy Religion and thy conversation is hid from thy eyes; It's a wonder, that thy sins stare thee not in the face, when thou art in thy Christian duties, like so many devils, asking you what you do there. How doth thy praying and swearing stand together? how doth thy hearing and thy contempt of godliness consist together?
3. This outward form will not suffice, is not the new Creature, because men may be 1rea•• Heathens, while they are formall and titular Christians. In works they may deny Christ, while in words they do acknowledge him. and reall denying by actions, is worse than verbal by words. Thus Isaiah calls the Rulers among the Jews,