A30243:1728
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 9 › Sermon 66
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.
Now this Text is frequently urged and debated upon in the matter of Reprobation, corrupt Teachers concluding from hence, that there is no Election 1or Reprobation absolutely, because God doth seriously will every mans life, and no wicked mans death. Some answer, that this place is wholly impertinent to that question; for (say they) the Prophet speaks not here of eternal death, but temporal, and that which is by the violence of the sword: And (say they further) the antecedents and consequents do evidently show, that the sense is, God doth not will the death of a wicked man, if he will turn from his wickedness; for the Jews charged God foolishly, as if they were punished unjustly, for they persuaded themselves they turned to God, and yet their calamities were not taken away: This is probable; but grant the Text to be comprehensive of Eternal death, as many other places are; such as that, God would not have any to perish, but to come to the knowledge of the truth, &c. 1 Tim. 2. 4. Then the answer is known, which may easily be made good, though it be not my work now, God hath an approving will, and an effective or decreeing will. Gods Approving will is carried out to the objects, as good in its self; but Gods Effective will is, when he intends to bring a thing about. God had an approving will, that Adam should stand, therefore he gave him a command, and threatened him if he did fall; yet he had not an effective will, to make him to stand, for then who could have hindered it? Thus Christs tears over Jerusalem (How often would I have gathered thee, and thou wouldst not?) were not Crocodiles tears (as some say the Calvinists make them) for though Christ, as God, had not decreed the conversion of the Jews, yet the thing it self was approved of and commanded, and he as the Minister of the New Testament, affectionately desired it: So here in the Text, God by this pathetical expression, doth declare, how acceptable and desirable a thing it is in its self, that the Jews should be converted; how distasteful and unpleasant their damnation was: therefore mark the expression, he doth not say, I do not will the death of the wicked, but I have no pleasure in it: And if that of the Arminians be true, that God doth effectually will the conversion of all, why then are not all converted? Who hath resisted his will? but I intend grapes, and not thorns;
Now this Text is frequently urged and debated upon in the matter of Reprobation, corrupt Teachers concluding from hence, that there is no Election