A30243:2302
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 90
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 is then fulfilled in us, when the things of Christ, his Glory, Will and Command lie closest, and nearest to the heart: For that is indeed within a man, and intimate, which is next to his heart, as we say; and this our Saviour requireth in every Disciple, He that loveth father or mother more then me, is not worthy of me, Mat. 18. 37. We know the love of father and mother is a most natural thing, it comes not by teaching, by custom, its inbred in us as soon as we are born; and yet the love of Christ, his Glory, and his Commandments should be more intimate then this. Hence the Apostle, to express this innate and inward life, saith, I no longer live, but Christ in me, the life that I live is by faith in Christ, Gal. 2. 20. What an emphatical expression is this, I do not live, but Christ; I live not the life of sense, I eat not, I drink not, I breathe not bodily breath; that is, comparatively to the life of faith: So that you see our very natural life, which is the most inward and deep thing in a man that is, is said not to be lived, in respect of this life of grace, which is more inward ⟨p. 536⟩then these: Oh then examine, how close and dearly heavenly things lie to thy heart: Is there any thing more prized then God, then Grace, then Godliness? then know, God hath not put his spirit in thee, but the Devil, or the world, and sin have put their lusts in thee: Now this is a sure discovery of the woeful and sinful estate of most people, God is not in all their thoughts, Christ is not in their affections, they choose other things rather then him. Furthermore, as God and Christ is the beloved of their heart; so that which is most hated and abhorred from the heart, is sin and all evil; its more loathed then any other thing, more feared, more avoided; so that they choose affliction and all misery rather then sin, their heart is most sensible and apprehensive of this: Oh what then can they think of themselves, who harbour and nourish sin? they no longer live, but sin in them; this is their meat and drink, to do the works of the Devil: Oh then that at last men secure and bold in sin, would be awakened: How cometh that to be embraced in thy bosom, and practised in thy life, which thou should […] avoid as hell it self?
First, It is then fulfilled in us, when the things of Christ, his Glory, Will and Command lie closest, and nearest to the heart: For that is indeed within a man, and intimate, which is next to his heart, as we say; and this our Saviour requireth in every Disciple, He that loveth father or mother more then me, is not worthy of me, Mat. 18. 37. We know the love of father and mother is a most natural thing, it comes not by teaching, by custom, its inbred in us as soon as we are born; and yet the love of Christ, his Glory, and his Commandments should be more intimate then this. Hence the Apostle, to express this innate and inward life, saith, I no longer live, but Christ in me, the life that I live is by faith in Christ,