A30243:1462
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 54
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.
And first, That hereby God might be known and acknowledged in all the world: That though men by nature did but grope in the dark, when they enquired what God was, yet it was clear to them there was a God, whom they conceived supreme, and then whom nothing could be better. This the Apostle calls, [Greek or Hebrew], That which may be known of God, Rom. 1. 19. Indeed this natural knowledge of God is so confuse, uncertain, and corrupted through carnal imaginations, that in the Scripture phrase they are said to be ignorant of God, and to be without God, and that God is only known in his Church: But yet that they attain to some kind of apprehension of him, is plain by Rom. 1. where they are condemned because they did not glorify God, as they knew God. This is a sure Axiom. That there is no mere natural Atheist in judgement; there may be an Atheist in affection and desire, wishing there were no God to govern and order all things, punishing men for their wickedness; in which sense the Psalmist saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God, Psal. 14. 1. But to be persuaded in judgement, there are none so by nature, or very rare: God hath set this Candle in the dark places of the belly, to keep men in awe, and to acknowledge a power above them. Men that have not had the glorious Sun of the word to walk by, yet they have had this Torch to go by in the night. And truly the improvement of this natural principle, that there is a God, might make every wicked mans joints to tremble; for if thou canst not raze it out of thy heart, Why dost thou not glorify him as God? Why art thou not afraid of him as a God?1
And first, That hereby God might be known and acknowledged in all the world: That though men by nature did but grope in the dark, when they enquired what God was, yet it was clear to them there was a God, whom they conceived supreme, and then whom nothing could be better. This the Apostle calls, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, That which may be known of God, Rom. 1. 19. Indeed this naturall knowledge of God is so confuse, uncertain, and corrupted through carnall imaginations, that in the Scripture phrase they are said to be ignorant of God, and to be without God, and that God is onely known in his Church: But yet that they attain to some kinde of apprehension of him, is plain by