A30243:2099
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 82
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.
Again, as the vessel, when broken, hath presently all that was in it discovered and laid open: Thus it is with an heart in conversion to God, the breaking of it, makes all that wickedness and ungodliness appear, which formerly was hid and covered: Then he wallowed in such foul and noisome ways, and never took any notice of it; then he always blessed and flattered himself, still saying, I hope in God, I trust in God, I have a good heart, &c. O but when once the spirit of God breaks that hollow and hypocritical heart of thine, then O what depths of iniquity appear! What swarms of lust show themselves! Then thou art monster, and abominable in thy own eyes; then thou canst no longer endure thy self, thou wilt be no longer a stranger, and unknown to thy self. The heathens commended that sentence, as fallen down from heaven, Nosce teipsum, Know thy self: But (alas) they had only candle light, or moon light, not the light of the Sun, the Scripture, to discover themselves, and to judge of themselves by it.
Again, as the vessel, when broken, hath presently all that was in it discovered and laid open: Thus it is with an heart in conversion to God, the breaking of it, makes all that wickedness and ungodliness appear, which formerly was hid and covered: Then he wallowed in such foul and noisom ways, and never took any notice of it; then he always blessed and flattered himself, still saying, I hope in God, I trust in God, I have a good heart, &c. O but when once the spirit of God breaks that hollow and hypocritical heart of thine, then O what depths of iniquity appear! What swarms of lust shew themselves! Then thou art monster, and abominable in thy own eyes; then thou canst no longer indure thy self, thou wilt be no longer a stranger, and unknown to thy self. The heathens commended that sentence, as fallen down from heaven, Nosce teipsum, Know thy self: But (alas) they had onely candle light, or moon light, not the light of the Sun, the Scripture, to discover themselves, and to judge of themselves by it.
The other phrase is A Contrite heart, and that is more then broken; for this is to be bruised or pounced into small dust: So that this doth excellently denote, what a rent heart is; viz. An heart that is beaten into small pieces, that doth not retain the outward form or shape that once it had; it is wholly changed and altered. Take an earthen vessel, and let it be pounced into dust, and there remaineth nothing of its old beauty or figure: So it is here, when the heart is thus contrite, Oh it hath nothing of its old security, of its old mirth and jollity, it hath nothing of its old false peace and self-flattering, but becomes changed into another hue.