A30243:2274
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 11 › Sermon 89
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.
First, It supposeth every man naturally a mere dead lump, without life or motion 1of himself to any thing that is holy. For as God at first breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living soul; So God doth still infuse into us his graces, that make us live the life of the Spirit. Hence some Expositors make this promise to be Parabolically represented in the next Chapter, by the resurrection of dry bones, whereas the wind is called upon to come and breath upon the Bones and sinews and all parts to be united together, that they may live: So doth God in the Conversion of men. But that Parable is to represent the recovery of Israel out of their Captivity, and miserable estate; which as to the eye of sense, had no more possibility ever to return again then those dry bones to live. Yet by way of similitude, it may also represent their restitution unto a spiritual life of Grace, unto which they had more impossibility than to return unto their own Land. Oh then this very phrase, I will put my Spirit into you, should fall like thunder and lightning upon all those Doctrines and Opinions that maintain Free-will, or the power of nature in Conversion. Can man co-operate to the infusion of Gods Spirit? The order of nature, and the order of Grace, differ as much as heaven and earth, and one cannot prepare for the other; so that this expression doth inform that we all are animal or sensual, destitute of the spirit. And as brute beasts cannot perform the Offices or acts of Reason; so neither can men naturally do the actions of grace; he cannot pray or hear spiritually, he cannot love God, or repent of a sin in a spiritual manner.
First, It supposeth every man naturally a meer dead lump, without life or motion 1of himself to any thing that is holy. For as God at first breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living soul; So God doth still infuse into us his graces, that make us live the life of the Spirit. Hence some Expositors make this promise to be Parabolically represented in the next Chapter, by the resurrection of dry bones, whereas the winde is called upon to come and breath upon the Bones and sinews and all parts to be united together, that they may live: So doth God in the Conversion of men. But that Parable is to represent the recovery of Israel out of their Captivity, and miserable estate; which as to the eye of sense, had no more possibility ever to return again then those dry bones to live. Yet by way of similitude, it may also represent their restitution unto a spiritual life of Grace, unto which they had more impossibility than to return unto their own Land. Oh then this very phrase, I will put my Spirit into you, should fall like thunder and lightning upon all those Doctrines and Opinions that maintain Free-will, or the power of nature in Conversion. Can man co-operate to the infusion of Gods Spirit? The order of nature, and the order of Grace, differ as much as heaven and earth, and one cannot prepare for the other; so that this expression doth inform that we all are animall or sensual, destitute of the spirit. And as bruit beasts cannot perform the Offices or acts of Reason; so neither can men naturally doe the actions of grace; he cannot pray or hear spiritually, he cannot love God, or repent of a sin in a spirituall manner.