A30243:181
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 7
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.
A second Remedy is, A particular opening and applying of the Law in the purity 1and rigidity of it. Matth. 5. What an excellent course did our Saviour there take, to make his hearers afraid of themselves, and to see more sins in themselves then ever they thought of! He makes the Law so spiritual, reaching so deeply into all the motions and lusts of the soul, that they must needs be as foul as Blackmoors in Gods eyes, while they did admire their own beauty. Thou blessest thy self because of the innocency in thy outward conversation and freedom from all gross sins, but no dunghill is fuller of Snakes and Worms then thy heart is of filthy lusts. Thus Rom. 7. Paul, as good as he was in his own eyes, when he looked into the glass of Gods word, his holy Law, he found so many blots and blemishes in himself, that he had no longer life or hope within him. Hence it is that men to keep themselves from appearing so deformed as they are, limit the sense of the Law, as if it were not so exact as it is, like the Elephant bemudding the water, that it may not see its own deformity.
A second Remedy is, A particular opening and applying of the Law in the purity 1and rigidity of it. Matth. 5. What an excellent course did our Saviour there take, to make his hearers afraid of themselves, and to see more sins in themselves then ever they thought of! He makes the Law so spiritual, reaching so deeply into all the motions and lusts of the soul, that they must needs be as foul as Blackmoors in Gods eyes, while they did admire their own beauty. Thou blessest thy slf because of the innocency in thy outward conversation and freedom from all gross sins, but no dunghill is fuller of Snakes and Worms then thy heart is of filthy lusts. Thus Rom. 7. Paul, as good as he was in his own eyes, when he looked into the glasse of Gods word, his holy Law, he found so many blots and blemishes in himself, that he had no longer life or hope within him. Hence it is that men to keep themselves from appearing so deformed as they are, limit the sense of the Law, as if it were not so exact as it is, like the Elephant bemudding the water, that it may not see its own deformity.