A30243:2212
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.
Fifthly, This word holds out the pertinacy and immovableness of the heart from 1the way of sin. A great heavy stone lieth many years in the same place; and thus it is with every man naturally, how self-willed, how unmoveable! you cannot stir him out of his former ways of impiety. Though he hear much, though he be entreated, reproved, and constantly warned over and over again, yet he is still the same man he was. Thus as the godly are commended for their immovable state in godliness and in happiness, they stand like Zion, which can never be moved; the same are they in a state of wickedness and impiety. Oh then, how doth experience daily witness this pertinacy of mens hearts in adhering to wickedness. When they are so convinced, that they can say nothing for their sins, they must needs confess its their duty to be other men; they cannot say one word for self-justification, yet they will not move from their former course of impieties. What kind of hearts we have, was typically represented by Moses, when the law was commanded to be written in stones, for albeit one main reason was to preserve the laws perpetually; as Heathen lawgivers have commanded their laws to be engraven on brass, or cypress trees, that will not putrefy: Yet the Apostle alludes to an Allegory, when he tells the Corinthians, they were his Epistle not written (2 Cor. 3. 3.) in tables of stone, but fleshy tables of the heart. So that to have hearts of stone, is to be pertinacious, wilful; say what you can, bring the Scripture never so plainly, demonstrate and convince the heinousness of sin never so clearly, yet nothing shall make any alteration in them; they will be wicked, because they will be.
Fiftly, This word holds out the pertinacy and immoveableness of the heart from 1the way of sin. A great heavy stone lieth many years in the same place; and thus it is with every man naturally, how self-willed, how unmoveable! you cannot stir him out of his former waies of impiety. Though he hear much, though he be intreated, reproved, and constantly warned over and over again, yet he is still the same man he was. Thus as the godly are commended for their immoveable state in godliness and in happiness, they stand like Zion, which can never be moved; the same are they in a state of wickedness and impiety. Oh then, how doth experience daily witness this pertinacy of mens hearts in adhering to wickedness. When they are so convinced, that they can say nothing for their sins, they must needs confess its their duty to be other men; they cannot say one word for self-justification, yet they will not move from their former course of impieties. What kinde of hearts we have, was typically represented by Moses, when the law was commanded to be written in stones, for albeit one main reason was to preserve the laws perpetually; as Heathen lawgivers have commanded their laws to be ingraven on brasse, or cypresse trees, that will not putrifie: Yet the Apostle alludes to an Allegory, when he tels the Corinthians, they were his Epistle not written (