A30243:2214
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.
Seventhly, Seeing a stone is nothing but a product of the earth, it hath also the property of the earth, which is heaviness or gravity, an inclination to descend, to fall downwards. 1And this also is wonderfully seen in every mans disposition by nature: His affections are wholly set upon earthly things, though he hath a body straight up towards heaven, and so excelling other creatures, yet his soul is bowed down to the ground, so that in this sense, as well as others, we may say, he is a worm and no man. The bodily curse of the serpent, is spiritually fulfilled on him, To lick the dust of the earth, and to make that his food; this is the heavy portion of every man by nature, to swallow down iniquity like water, to centre upon earthly objects, as naturally as the stone falls downward; Wonder not then, if you see men wholly plunged in earthly affairs, they mind not, they regard not, they understand not heavenly things; for (alas) how can the earth ascend upwards? how can a clod of clay move of it self towards the skies? here must be a change of our natural properties, before these things can be done.
Seventhly, Seeing a stone is nothing but a product of the earth, it hath also the property of the earth, which is heaviness or gravity, an inclination to descend, to fall downwards. 1And this also is wonderfully seen in every mans disposition by nature: His affections are wholly set upon earthly things, though he hath a body streight up towards heaven, and so excelling other creatures, yet his soul is bowed down to the ground, so that in this sense, as well as others, we may say, he is a worm and no man. The bodily curse of the serpent, is spiritually fulfilled on him, To lick the dust of the earth, and to make that his food; this is the heavy portion of every man by nature, to swallow down iniquity like water, to center upon earthly objects, as naturally as the stone fals downward; Wonder not then, if you see men wholly plunged in earthly affairs, they minde not, they regard not, they understand not heavenly things; for (alas) how can the earth ascend upwards? how can a clod of clay move of it self towards the skies? here must be a change of our natural properties, before these things can be done.
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