A30243:1482
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 55
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.
Secondly, men plunged in voluptuous riotous courses, living in beastly lusts, ⟨p. 343⟩1either of uncleanness, drunkenness, or such deceitful pleasures: Th•se muddy streams do quickly put out that candle in the inward parts: Those that are drunk, are drunk in the night, saith the Apostle; sins of pleasures and inte[…]ance they are committed when men have put out all knowledge, that so they may neither be ashamed or afraid of what they have done. As muddy Bogs breed Toads and Frogs; so loose and dissolute lives breed all poisonous and loathsome imaginations in a man: Therefore saith the Prophet, Wine, and strong drink, and Whoredom take away the heart, Hos. 4. 11. How many men by debauched and luxurious courses have made themselves at the same time sots in their bodily parts, and in their natural conscience; and by their looseness have spent their consciences, as well as their estates; and as they have scarce one penny left to maintain themselves or children; so not one good thought left in their consciences, to accuse and condemn them for what they have done! Oh therefore who can complain bitterly enough of that brutishness and beastliness, many men are plunged in by their loose and intemperate lives, and even under judgements, and not so much awakened as Balaam's Ass was, under her Masters blows. Oh that this sottishness were only in Sodom, not in Jerusalem, in Gomorrah, not in Zion. If then you see many men living without any dictatings of Conscience about God, if you see them committing all manner of evil, so that they plainly declare they have no love of God written in their hearts, but of sin and the Devil: Marvel not at this, but consider, Are they not men wholly plunged in worldly things? or are they not confirmed in lusts and Pleasures of the flesh; if so; you may as soon expect a Star in a loathsome dunghill, as any right principles in such corrupt conversations; so that these are scarce to be reckoned in the number of men.
Secondly, men plunged in voluptuous riotous courses, living in beastly lusts, ⟨p. 343⟩1either of uncleannesse, drunkennesse, or such deceitfull pleasures: Thse muddy streams doe quickly put out that candle in the inward parts: Those that are drunk, are drunk in the night, saith the Apostle; sins of pleasures and inteance they are committed when men have put out all knowledge, that so they may neither be ashamed or afraid of what they have done. As muddy Bogs breed Toads and Frogs; so loose and dissolute lives breed all poysonous and loathsome imaginations in a man: Therefore saith the Prophet, Wine, and strong drink, and Whoredome take away the heart,