A30243:1593
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.
And first, Therefore this change is a necessary one: It must be said of every one 1that would be saved, Such an one thou once wast, but now thou art sanctified. Even the man who hath always lived civilly and unblameably, that hath no gross sin to be turned from, yet he hath the soul-uncleanness, and the heart-leprosy upon him, from which he must be washed; so that this turning from what once we were, is indispensably necessary in young and old, in rich and poor, either inwardly or outwardly: Consider of this therefore, you whose Motto is, Semper idem; though that be a glory in a good thing, yet for a man to be always the same he was from the womb, is certain and irrecoverable death; When then will you bethink your selves? when shall the time be, that thou wilt become another man? think not that flesh and blood can inherit the Kingdom of heaven: This undoeth many, that as they never dream of a change, which death will one day make upon them, so they never desire a change, that Grace in this present life should work on them: Therefore as Job said of the change by death, He would every day wait till his change came, Job 14. 14. (as some expound it:) do thou say of this change by grace, I will every day pray, hear, read, meditate, mourn and roar out before God all the day long, till this spiritual change come.
And first, Therefore this change is a necessary one: It must be said of every one 1that would be saved, Such an one thou once wast, but now thou art sanctified. Even the man who hath always lived civilly and unblameably, that hath no gross sin to be turned from, yet he hath the soul-uncleanness, and the heart-•eprosie upon him, from which he must be washed; so that this turning from what once we were, is indispensibly necessary in yong and old, in rich and poor, either inwardly or outwardly: Consider of this therefore, you whose Motto is, Semper idem; though that be a glory in a good thing, yet for a man to be always the same he was from the womb, is certain and irrecoverable death; When then will you bethink your selves? when shall the time be, that thou wilt become another man? think not that flesh and blood can inherit the Kingdom of heaven: This undoeth many, that as they never dream of a change, which death will one day make upon them, so they never desire a change, that Grace in this present life should work on them: Therefore as Job said of the change by death, He would every day wait till his change came,