A30243:1540
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 58
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.
First, That the Heathens were right in this, in commending Moral Philosophy above all other Arts, because the end of it was to make men civilly good, and ⟨p. 356⟩[…] ⟨p. 357⟩[…] ⟨p. 358⟩orderly to govern their actions: Therefore Seneca said well, The other Arts are called Liberal, because they are worth the study of a free and ingenuous man; but this is called Liberal, because it makes a man free, and sets him at liberty from his passions and vices. All the Sciences lie in Contemplation and Speculation, but this endeavoureth to bring a man to the enjoyment of some good, which is his end. The former were onely invented Ut. Exercitia ingenii, not Remedia animi, but this to be a medicine and cure of the soul. Hence when they compared all the Arts together, sometimes they resembled them to a field; Natural Philosophy they made the plants and roots that grew therein; Logic the hedge that enclosed the field; but Moral Virtue was the fruit growing thereon: At other times they compared them to an Egg; the yolk or substance, was Moral Philosophy; the shell was Logic. Thus far they did well, that they thought it more excellent to reform a mans manners, to better his conversation, then to know the Motions of the Heavens, or to dispute subtly: Therefore they called it the music of the soul, as that which did tame and quiet mens unruly passions, and regulate their crooked lives; and herein they will certainly at the day of judgement condemn many Christians, who labour more for knowledge, and how to get skill and understanding in those matters which have applause in the world, then to live soberly and righteously.
First, That the Heathens were right in this, in commending Moral Philosophy above all other Arts, because the end of it was to make men civilly good, and ⟨p. 356⟩〈…〉 ⟨p. 357⟩〈…〉 ⟨p. 358⟩