A30243:1292
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 47
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.
Every time thou seest an ignorant profane man made a believer and holy, then is a very stone made Abraham's child; every time you behold a wicked and wretched sinner, praying, humbling himself, and reforming his life, you may then wonder and say; Behold how God makes Grapes to grow of Thorns, and Figs on Thistles; when God makes Matthew a Publican to leave his gainful sins, and to follow him; when he causeth Mary Magdalen to bewail and forsake her former lusts, God doth as he did at first Creation, out of a confused and unformed heap, make a glorious world. Therefore the Apostle useth that expression, God who worketh light out of darkness, 2 Cor. 4. 6. implying that God did not once only at the Creation, work light of darkness, but still he doth it daily. Even as often as he makes the Word of God to enter into mens hearts. So that we may say even of the worst and profanest of people, as the Prophet did to God, when God asked him, Can these dry bones live? Ezek. 37. 3. So, Can such a people, so stupid, so careless, so rebellious, be prepared to every good work? O Lord thou knowest! that is, O Lord, its in thy power, thou canst do whatsoever thou pleasest! A Camel with his big bunch on his back hath no disposition or fitness to enter a needles eye, yet God can make it do so. Though we deny there is any transubstantiation, God cannot (and Potentissimè non potest) or rather one substance cannot be changed into another, and they retain their proper dimensions and qualities; Yet in every conversion of a sinner, there is a soul-transmutation in respect of the qualities thereof, darkness is made light, gall is made honey. This glorious conquest over mens hearts is prophesied of as the great glory of Christs Kingdom, Isa. 11. 6. The Wolf and the Lamb shall lie down together, &c. That cursed enmity shall be removed, when God shall take away the poisonous nature of evil men. Thus Isai. 29. 18. The deaf shall hear, and the blinds shall see, and vers. 24. They that erred in spirit and murmured shall learn Doctrine, who more unlikely to hear then refractory and rebellious men? yet these shall understand.
Every time thou seest an ignorant prophane man made a believer and holy, then is a very stone made Abrahams childe; every time you behold a wicked and wretched sinner, praying, humbling himselfe, and reforming his life, you may then wonder and say; Behold how God makes Grapes to grow of Thorns, and Figs on Thistles; when God makes Matthew a Publican to leave his gainfull sinnes, and to follow him; when he causeth Mary Magdalen to bewaile and forsake her former lusts, God doth as he did at first Creation, out of a confused and unformed heap, make a glorious world. Therefore the Apostle useth that expression, God who worketh light out of darknesse,