A30243:2213
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.
Sixthly, An heart of stone is an heart altogether cold, and destitute of any warmth 1or heat of grace. A stone is nothing but hardened earth, and as siccity and frigidity are the two properties of that element, so are they of a stone. Hence, it was a miracle to bring water out of the rock: Citius e pumice aquam, is a Proverb. Stones have these two qualities, as the earth out of which they are generated, Siccity or dryness, there is no moisture, there is no wateriness in them, and thus it is in every mans heart, a dry barren spirit, there is no juice, no sap of any grace. Therefore the Greek word [Greek or Hebrew] hardness, and [Greek or Hebrew], doth excellently express this cursed temper, for that is properly the dryness of any herb, when it is withered, its then good for nothing, all the juice is out of it. And thus men by nature have not the least dropping or melting of soul: And observe this, A man may have a very tender, juicy heart, as it were, about earthly things; Jet an husband, wife, or any earthly advantage be lost, and rivers of water can gush out of thine eyes: They may be of a pitiful and tender complexion, and yet as dry and barren as a very stone about the sins they have committed, and the iniquities they are guilty of. Indeed David speaks of a drought upon his soul, that it was like a parched wilderness. Psal. 42. 1. but that was in a gracious sense, because of the earnest pantings and longings he had for the enjoyment of Gods favour. But this is in a very wicked and desperate sense, when men have not the least meltings, or thawings of soul upon any divine administrations. The other property is frigidity, or coldness, As cold as a stone, we say; and thus every mans heart is destitute of all that fire and heat which doth usually accompany the life of grace. Hence men are said to be dead in sins, Eph. 2. 4. death and coldness go together. The Spirit of God in its operations is compared to fire, because of the efficacy and ⟨p. 514⟩fervency of it; now men destitute of this spirit, are wholly lifeless; and cold in any thing that is good.
Sixtly, An heart of stone is an heart altogether cold, and destitute of any warmth