A30243:2211
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 86
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, This describeth the hardness of the heart, and impenetrableness of it. Its a stone, and though the word be a two edged sword, yet is it any wonder, if 1a sword cannot pierce through an hard stone. The Scripture, Ephes. 4. 18. speaketh of a threefold hardness, natural, acquired, by voluntary sins against conscience, and judicial, inflicted as a just judgement by God upon those who have rebelled against the light; now this which we speak of is the natural hardness, that which is in every man and woman. Take the most civil and ingenuous man, who is so tractable in all things of morality, yet he hath an hard heart to that which is spiritual. The doctrine of repentance, mortification, and powerful walking with God, is that which can find no entrance in him. Oh therefore that this spiritual hardness were more apprehended; you can complain of hard times, of hard ⟨p. 513⟩dealings in the world. Oh what hard dealing hath God from thee! His judgements have not broke thy heart, his mercies have not melted thy heart, Oh think if there were any softness, if any drops in thee, if any meltings in thee, thou hadst not to this day continued such a rebellious wretch against God. Illud est cor durum, quod non trepidat ad nomen cordis duri; If thy soul doth not break, and tremble, and melt at the very preaching about a stony heart, its because thou art over-whelmed by it. This hard heart is else where called an heart of adamant, which is as much as that, which cannot be turned: Oh this is thy case; nothing hath tamed thee, or humbled thee to this day.
Fourthly, This describeth the hardness of the heart, and impenetrableness of it. Its a stone, and though the word be a two edged sword, yet is it any wonder, if 1a sword cannot pierce through an hard stone. The Scripture, Ephes. 4. 18. speaketh of a threefold hardness, natural, acquired, by voluntary sins against conscience, and judicial, inflicted as a just judgement by God upon those who have rebelled against the light; now this which we speak of is the natural hardness, that which is in every man and woman. Take the most civil and ingenuous man, who is so tractable in all things of morality, yet he hath an hard heart to that which is spiritual. The doctrine of repentance, mortification, and powerfull walking with God, is that which can finde no entrance in him. Oh therefore that this spiritual hardness were more apprehended; you can complain of hard times, of hard