A30243:1564
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 8 › Sermon 59
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, Therefore are many deceived in this plain point; because though they 1acknowledge damnation in the general to sinners, yet they never make particular application to themselves; they do not say, This threatening, this curse belongs to me. God gave the Commandments in the singular number, Thou shalt do no Murder, Thou shalt not commit Adultery; to teach every man to reflect upon himself, and say, Thou dost thus; and thou dost thus. The Prophet complaineth, No wicked 2man said, What have I done? Jer. 8. 6. Hence are those commands, To commune with our own hearts, and be still, To search and try our ways. It would make a man wonder, and say, How can this be? A man will acknowledge a Drunkard cannot inherit the Kingdom of heaven, and yet that man will be drunk; and so of all other sins. Now how came the general and the particular to be thus opposites? merely because men came not to particular conviction; they do not make home-application; they say not, Is not this I Lord? Even godly men have been senseless of grievous sins, as David of Murder and Adultery, till Nathan saith, Thou art the man. Oh let thy Conscience take Nathans language, and say, Thou art the man. The Scripture speaks to me, the Minister preacheth to me, as if there were no other sin in the world: But this undoeth you, you go on in foul and ungodly ways, not so much as thinking what you are, not minding you are such and such a sinner. To reflect upon your own selves is a peculiar effect of reason, beasts cannot do it; and the more thou art sensible this way, the more reason thou hast in thee. Be not then as the Swine that never reflects upon her self; thinking I am a Swine, I love to wallow in the Mire, I am no Sheep. As that Beast can never have such thoughts, so be not thou as brutish, never to consider, How plain is my wickedness? it cannot be hid from my eyes, I love not, or delight not in that which is good.
Secondly, Therefore are many deceived in this plain point; because though they 1acknowledge damnation in the general to sinners, yet they never make particular application to themselves; they doe not say, This threatning, this curse belongs to me. God gave the Commandements in the singular number, Thou shalt do no Murther, Thou shalt not commit Adultery; to teach every man to reflect upon himself, and say, Thou dost thus; and thou dost thus. The Prophet complaineth, No wicked