A30243:1360
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 7 › Sermon 50
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.
Its better to have faith settling thy heart upon Christ, then to dispute whether faith justify. Its more comfortable to be a Saint, then to argue, Whether Saints only are members of a visible Church.
Its better to have faith setling thy heart upon Christ, then to dispute whether faith justifie. Its more comfortable to be a Saint, then to argue, Whether Saints only are members of a visible Church.
For opening this, I shall first show, What it is to have grace establish the heart, and then give the grounds of the Point. Only you must know, that as grace is here said to establish the heart; so in other places this effect is attributed to God, 1 Pet. 5. 10. The Apostle there prayeth that God would stablish, strengthen, settle them: there God doth it, and here Grace; for its usual in Scripture to attribute the same effect to the instrumental and principal cause; Grace doth only establish the […] of a man formally, as the instrument of Gods Spirit; and indeed grace in the heart being also a creature, though of a supernatural excellency, needeth it self a daily strengthening and preservation from God. Hence the Apostle when he exhorteth us to put on the whole armour of Christ; when all this is done, he concludeth, Praying always, Ephes. 6. 18. A Christian in all his spiritual strength must pray as earnestly, and depend as solely upon the power and might of God, as if he had no grace at all.1
For opening this, I shal first shew, What it is to have grace establish the heart, and then give the grounds of the Point. Only you must know, that as grace is here said to establish the heart; so in other places this effect is attributed to God, 1 Pet. 5. 10. The Apostle there prayeth that God would stablish, strengthen, settle them: there God doth it, and here Grace; for its usual in Scripture to attribute the same effect to the instrumental and principal cause; Grace doth only establish the of a man formally, as the instrument of Gods Spirit; and indeed grace in the heart being also a creature, though of a supernatural excellency, needeth it self a daily strengthning and preservation from God. Hence the Apostle when he exhorteth us to put on the whole armour of Christ; when all this is done, he concludeth, Praying alwayes,