A30243:155
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 1 › Sermon 6
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.
In the first place, We may find a vast Difference in the efficient cause or principle 1that is procreant of the one and the other. And although causes are like the root under the ground, not so visible, yet they make much to the differencing of things. Assurance is a Fruit, whose Root is in Heaven, the Spirit of God in a two-fold act, Enlightening or Revealing, and Adopting or Corroborating the heart with Filial Evangelical Affections; but carnal presumption is a rush that groweth in the puddled mire of our own hearts; There being these internal causes that give life and breath to it.
In the first place, We may finde a vast Difference in the efficient cause or principle 1that is procreant of the one and the other. And although causes are like the root under the ground, not so visible, yet they make much to the differencing of things. Assurance is a Fruit, whose Root is in Heaven, the Spirit of God in a two-fold act, Enlightening or Revealing, and Adopting or Corroborating the heart with Filiall Evangelical Affections; but carnal presumption is a rush that groweth in the pudled mire of our own hearts; There being these internal causes that give life and breath to it.
- 1The difference between true Assurance and Presumption. 1. In the cause.
First, An ignorance with an unexperienced apprehension of the depth of sin, and 1danger thereby. They have never yet with Paul found the Law alive, and themselves dead; They have not seen the great abominations of their Nature; The foulness of sin, the purity of the Law, the exactness of Gods justice; and for want of these Discoveries and Apprehensions, they come quickly to be persuaded that every thing is well with them; This was Pauls case, he was alive before these thoughts came into him, he had great confidence in himself; and generally this was the state of the Pharisees who justified themselves, and the Jews who trusted in their own righteousness, not that there was any ground for them so to do, but only they were blind and ignorant, not knowing themselves, as those of Laodicea, who thought themselves rich and full, when they were poor and miserable: So that the presumption of unregenerate men ariseth from the stupidity and blindness in them; whereas the godly Assurance is wrought out of a gracious Illumination about the height, depth and breadth of sin, with a tender affection about the weight and burden of it. Art thou then one who presumest of the love of God, and restest in the goodness of thy heart? know, that if thou wert acquainted with all the wounds sin hath made upon thee, if thy eyes were opened to perceive the filthiness and vileness of thy nature and ways, thou wouldst sit like Job upon the dunghill, abhorring and loathing thy self.