A30243:2102
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.
As for a Soft, tender melting heart: These come much to the same sense; for before our conversion, every mans heart is of stone, and adamantine, like cold iron, will receive no impression; Doth not experience teach it? Why is it, that after so many mercies, so many judgements, so many afflictions, so many sermons, men are as prone and ready to sin as ever, but from the hardness of their heart?1
- 1What is implied in the phrase, Rent […] hearts.What is implyed in the phrase, Rent 〈…〉 hearts.
Secondly, Let us consider, what this phrase implieth, Rent your hearts; and then the negative, Not your garments: And
Secondly, Let us consider, what this phrase implyeth, Rent your hearts; and then the negative, Not your garments: And
First, It supposeth grief and trouble in the heart: The parts of a mans flesh cannot 1be rent or torn asunder, but it must be with great sorrow: And thus it is with the heart of a true convert, he finds much spiritual trouble and grief upon his soul; his soul is rent and torn into many sad dividing thoughts, between hope and fear, between faith and despair, between joy and grief; as you may see in Davids Psalms, such contrary affections working on him, that his heart seemeth to be like the sea, when contrary winds blow upon it: Oh then! this argueth, that many men have never been in these spiritual deeps, and to feel the wondrous works of God upon them; they have never said to their sins, as Paul to his weeping friends, Why do ye break my heart? They have never said, O how is my heart torn in pieces! There have been bodily punishments for heinous crimes, when the Malefactors have been torn in pieces, limb by limb, by wild horses; this must needs be exquisite torment, yet this hath been born; But a wounded spirit who can bear? These tearings and divisions of heart, when sin in all the guilt and aggravations of it, is laid upon the conscience, who could endure, did not God support in these agonies?