A30243:1890
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 73
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, It argueth, that God can suddenly and quickly bring judgements upon men: Gods wonderful works of his wrath, are not only seen in the matter he 1doth, but also in the manner: On a sudden, in a moment calamities rise before any man thought or looked for them; even as the Church saith, When he turned their captivity, they were as men in a dream, Psal. 126. 1. so when he brings their captivity also: Hence you have the expression in this Chapter, At what instant I speak to a land to pull it down, or build it up: He can do those things in an instant, which humane power could not produce in many years. I create light and darkness, Creatio fit in instanti they say; God makes the deluge of his wrath to overflow in an instant: Thus he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah on a sudden; and that wonderful work of God, in bringing dead bodies out of the grave to appear before his Tribunal, will be in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 1 Cor. 15. 52. so that when God is said to frame evil against a people, it implieth, that he can bring this in a moment, on a sudden, before men think it possible. How often doth the Prophet tell them, That their miseries shall come upon them as travel upon a woman with child: Oh how should this make every wicked man speedily turn from his evil ways, for God can bring his judgements on thee in a moment; thou mayest have no time, no space to bewail thy sins, but his anger will consume thee in the twinkling of an eye; yet how securely do men live in open rebellion against God? how do they put far off from them the evil day? They put it far off in their thoughts, when God puts it very near in reality upon them: Could men eat and drink, and rise up to play, if they did consider how obnoxious they are to the sharp arrows of God, which may be shot into their hearts every hour? who can tell thee what evil the next day, the next night, the next hour, may bring upon thee?
Thirdly, It argueth, that God can suddenly and quickly bring judgements upon men: Gods wonderful works of his wrath, are not onely seen in the matter he 1doth, but also in the manner: On a sudden, in a moment calamities rise before any man thought or looked for them; even as the Church saith, When he turned their captivity, they were as men in a dream,