A30243:229
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 1 › Sermon 9
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.
So that by this of Paul, you may see, that a Christian may at the same time exalt Christ and his grace, going out of his own righteousness for Justification, yet take comfort also from it. The History of Job doth also abundantly confirm this truth, for when in the opinion of others God had cast him off as an hypocrite, yet he would not part with the comfort of his integrity till death. In this case Job had no immediate consolations from God, The arrows of the Almighty stuck deep in him, he possessed the sins of his youth, and there was nothing which did stay him, but the comfort of his upright heart; so that a godly mans sense and feeling of Gods grace within him, is a great bulwark in time of temptations: Neither is that of the Papists able to weaken this Assertion, when they say, These experimental suavities which are felt in religious duties, do only beget a conjectural knowledge not an assurance of faith, because the object thereof is not revealed in Scripture; for it may well be granted that this sense of believing is not an act of faith, and that a man doth not properly believe he doth believe, but inwardly perceiveth and feeleth he doth believe, and so love God, &c. Yet this sense is not fallacious, because it is from a supernatural principle within.
So that by this of Paul, you may see, that a Christian may at the same time exalt Christ and his grace, going out of his own righteousnesse for Justification, yet take comfort also from it. The History of Job doth also abundantly confirm this truth, for when in the opinion of others God had cast him off as an hypocrite, yet he would not part with the comfort of his integrity till death. In this case Job had no immediate consolations from God, The arrows of the Almighty stuck deep in him, he possessed the sins of his youth, and there was nothing which did stay him, but the comfort of his upright heart; so that a godly mans sense and feeling of Gods grace within him, is a great bulwark in time of temptations: Neither is that of the Papists able to weaken this Assertion, when they say, These experimental suavities which are felt in religious duties, do only beget a conjectural knowledge not an assurance of faith, because the object thereof is not revealed in Scripture; for it may well be granted that this sense of believing is not an act of faith, and that a man doth not properly believe he doth believe, but inwardly perceiveth and feeleth he doth believe, and so love God, &c. Yet this sense is not fallacious, because it is from a supernaturall principle within.