A30243:1584
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 60
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.
Thirdly, Grace converts sometimes notorious sinners, to confound the pride and swelling thoughts of self-righteous men. There are a generation of men, whose ways 1are clean in their own eyes, Prov. 16. 1. men who justify themselves, blessing God they are not like other men; now when the grace of God comes and worketh ⟨p. 371⟩upon the most profligate sinners, leaving others to their own pride and conceited righteousness, hereby they are confounded and ashamed: Thus it was discovered by our Saviour, he tells the Pharisees, That the publicans and harlots should go into the kingdom of heaven before them; and, He came not to call such righteous as they were, but sinners to repentance; Mat. 9. 13. There are none commonly further off true grace, then those who please themselves with the conceit of their own goodness and righteousness. The emptiest ear of corn grows up highest, and holds its head above others; but those who have true grace, are deeply sensible of their own insufficiency and imperfections; their righteousness, is to bewail their own unrighteousness: It falls out therefore, that there is sometimes more hope of a gross sinner, then a civilized Pharisee; for the one is sooner convinced, his conscience is easier awakened; but the other being already falsely persuaded of his own worth, can hardly be changed: Ille morbus vix est sanabilis qui sanitatem imitatur, That disease which is like health, is hardly cured; and thus a man living a life like godliness, when it is not so indeed, is seldom truly reformed.
Thirdly, Grace converts sometimes notorious sinners, to confound the pride and swelling thoughts of self-righteous men. There are a generation of men, whose ways 1are clean in their own eyes, Prov. 16. 1. men who justifie themselves, blessing God they are not like other men; now when the grace of God comes and worketh ⟨p. 371⟩