A30243:1272
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 6 › Sermon 46
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. Thou hadst better never have been Gods natural creature, if not this gracious creature; because this natural life is fraughted with many miseries and troubles, so 1that the grief is more then the joy: now to be miserable here, and miserable for ever hereafter, is misery in its height. Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble, Job 14. 1. But man that is born of God, is incorruptible, and everlasting, and full of peace and joy in the holy Ghost. Alas, all thy comforts in this life, which are but few, they hang but upon a thread of thy uncertain life: so that as the heathen said, when one was commending the riches, and wealth of merchants, Non amo faelicitatem è funibus pendentem, I do not love that wealth which hangs upon ropes, if they break the ship miscarrieth. We may say of all comforts: We love not that profit, that pleasure which hangs upon thread: Why then dost thou not betake thy self to some solitary & serious contemplation? saying, What is my life worth? wherein am I more happy then beasts? then that Toad that creeps there, if I be not made a new Creature?
2. Thou hadst better never have been Gods natural creature, if not this gracious creature; because this natural life is fraughted with many miseries and troubles, so 1that the grief is more then the joy: now to be miserable here, and miserable for ever hereafter, is misery in its height. Man that is born of a woman is of few daies, and full of trouble, Job 14. 1. But man that is born of God, is incorruptible, and everlasting, and full of peace and joy in the holy Ghost. Alas, all thy comforts in this life, which are but few, they hang but upon a thred of thy uncertain life: so that as the heathen said, when one was commending the riches, and wealth of merchants, Non amo faelicitatem è funibus pendentem, I do not love that wealth which hangs upon ropes, if they break the ship miscarrieth. We may say of all comforts: We love not that profit, that pleasure which hangs upon thred: Why then dost thou not betake thy self to some solitary & serious contemplation? saying, What is my life worth? wherein am I more happy then beasts? then that Toad that creeps there, if I be not made a new Creature?