A30243:2038
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 79
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.
Lastly, Let a man turn never so far from the committing of any gross sin, yet if 1still he do not turn from himself, his self aims, self-ends, self principles, self interests, he is not yet turned to God; For conversion is the unhinging of the soul, hanging it upon another hinge, or setting it upon another bottom then it had before: Therefore the whole requisite to a Disciple of Christ, is comprised in this, To Deny himself: If a man deny his lusts, his sins, all his outward wickedness; yet if still he hath not denied himself, he hath not killed the Serpent in his head, and therefore he will revive again; for therefore were sins committed, because they were self-pleasure, self-ease, or self-profit: This was the blood that ran ⟨image 263⟩in every vein; therefore till a man be no longer himself, till he be converted and turned from himself, what a change soever may be in his life, yet he is not turned to God. Thus you see, that several ways men may turn from their sins, and yet not close with God; they are removed from their former life, as the dove was sent out of the Ark, but they have not found any place to rest their souls upon. Oh how much doth this concern you, who have made some motion from sin! you will not, you cannot, you dare not live as you have done: Oh! but upon what terms is all this? Thou mayest turn from sin, and yet go round and round about, till thou hast fallen into the same sins or worse again: As some wandering traveller, that hath lost his way, goeth directly to that place at night from whence he came in the morning: Oh take heed of being a broken Bow, to have all thy seeming turnings to God prove frustrated.
Lastly, Let a man turn never so far from the committing of any gross sin, yet if 1still he do not turn from himself, his self aims, self-ends, self principles, self interests, he is not yet turned to God; For conversion is the unhinging of the soul, hanging it upon another hinge, or setting it upon another bottom then it had before: Therefore the whole requisite to a Disciple of Christ, is comprised in this, To Deny himself: If a man deny his lusts, his sins, all his outward wickedness; yet if still he hath not denied himself, he hath not killed the Serpent in his head, and therefore he will revive again; for therefore were sins committed, because they were self-pleasure, self-ease, or self-profit: This was the blood that ran