A30243:2196
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 10 › Sermon 85
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.
Fourthly, That which is the most admirable operation upon the heart, is the bowing 1and bending of it, so as to make it of unwilling willing: Thus this expression of the Text, I will give an heart of flesh, doth denote the efficacy and intimateness of his power; and so the Apostle saith, God worketh in us to will; and in this very point, upon this hinge hangs that great and special truth, which the Orthodox maintain against Arminians and Papists: They will grant an irresistible work of light upon the understanding, they will grant a potent work upon the affections, but this they will not yield, that God makes the will to will, that he so boweth and changeth the heart, that it readily embraceth, what once it abhorred; yet in all that are converted, this power so efficacious, must ⟨p. 510⟩be needs put forth; for will not experience witness, that every mans will, before converting grace came, was as opposite to God, as averse to all holiness, as any natural mans in the world? did he not dispute, argue, refuse, and show all unwillingness, till God broke open the gate of the soul; he comes into the heart while the doors of it are shut: Thus he is said to open the heart of Lydia, Acts 16. and Paul, was he willing to receive Christ? did not he oppose, persecute and violently pursue the Church of God; and while he was in these furious outrages, did not God in a moment bow his heart, that he crieth out, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do: But of this more in the manner of Gods conversion.
Fouthly, That which is the most admirable operation upon the heart, is the bowing 1and bending of it, so as to make it of unwilling willing: Thus this expression of the Text, I will give an heart of flesh, doth denote the efficacy and intimateness of his power; and so the Apostle saith, God worketh in us to will; and in this very point, upon this hinge hangs that great and special truth, which the Orthodox maintain against Arminians and Papists: They will grant an irresistable work of light upon the understanding, they will grant a potent work upon the affections, but this they will not yield, that God makes the will to will, that he so boweth and changeth the heart, that it readily imbraceth, what once it abhorred; yet in all that are converted, this power so efficacious, must