A30243:209
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 8
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.
Sixthly, The Scripture describing the Marks of a godly man makes them 1of different sorts, some Negative, some Positive, and the Positive do signify more evidently then the Negative. James 1. 27. Pure Religion is described by many Positives, and by one Negative: to be unspotted from the world. Psalm. 15. is a professed description of a godly man, wherein are six Positives and six Negatives; Now it is true, neither Negatives or Positives, as they are outwardly and visibly expressed, can be a sure testimony of godliness; for a man may do that which is good, and abstain from that which is evil upon several corrupt grounds, every one of which is a dead Fly in a box of Ointment. In the first Psalm, a godly man is described by his Negatives; first, That he doth not sit in the counsel of the wicked, nor walketh with the ungodly, only Negative signs do not come up to so full a manifestation of grace, as Positive; and the reason is, because grace lieth most in the things we ought to do, and good is more good then evil is evil, and therefore our love to the one is more to be exercised then our hatred of the other; Therefore it is a deceitful and vain way, to argue our grace from Negatives only, as the Pharisee did, I am no extortioner, no adulterer. For God at the day of Judgement will proceed in this form, according to the good things we have done; yet the generality of people have no other claim or plea, but what is upon Negatives, they are no such wicked or profane persons; But godliness doth not denote a mere absence of evil, but a Positive concurrence of good.
Sixthly, The Scripture describing the Marks of a godly man makes them 1of different sorts, some Negative, some Positive, and the Positive do signifie more evidently then the Negative. James 1. 27. Pure Religion is described by many Positives, and by one Negative: to be unspotted from the world. Psalm. 15. is a professed description of a godly man, wherein are six Positives and six Negatives; Now it is true, neither Negatives or Positives, as they are outwardly and visibly expressed, can be a sure testimony of godliness; for a man may doe that which is good, and abstain from that which is evil upon severall corrupt grounds, every one of which is a dead Flie in a box of Ointment. In the first Psalm, a godly man is described by his Negatives; first, That he doth not sit in the counsell of the wicked, nor walketh with the ungodly, onely Negative signes doe not come up to so full a manifestation of grace, as Positive; and the reason is, because grace lieth most in the things we ought to doe, and good is more good then evil is evil, and therefore our love to the one is more to be exercised then our hatred of the other; Therefore it is a deceitfull and vain way, to argue our grace from Negatives onely, as the Pharisee did, I am no extortioner, no adulterer. For God at the day of Judgement will proceed in this form, according to the good things we have done; yet the generality of people have no other claim or plea, but what is upon Negatives, they are no such wicked or prophane persons; But godliness doth not denote a meer absence of evil, but a Positive concurrence of good.