A30243:2371
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 93
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, The Dominicans arguing against the Jesuits in this point, reason thus, 1Every thing that is potential, must be reduced into act, by some thing that is it self in act: Now, say they, God he is Actus primus, & purus, he is the first and pure act. The principles and habits of grace are potential, and therefore they must be determinated and actuated by God, who is always in act: This Argument hath much strength in it, but it is too metaphysical: I come to a more popular one; And
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Seventhly, God doth not only bestow principles of grace, but also excites 1and quickens, as is plainly evidenced, In that two godly men, living under the same means of grace, yet one doth not profit, but groweth colder and colder; the other groweth and thriveth more and more: How comes this difference to be? but that one hath the grace of God assisting and enabling of him, the other hath not; not ⟨p. 552⟩that he who falls into sin may blame God; for his slothfulness, negligence and carelessness, makes God to withdraw his helping hand in that need: So that although the cause of one mans fall, is his own sin: Yet the cause of the other mans standing, is Gods grace vouchsafed unto him, yea, the same godly man: as David, finds a great change in his own heart: sometimes he is able to trust in God, to overcome temptations; at other times he is cast down, and hath no strength within him; Whence is all this? but from the ebbings and flowings of exciting grace: And this is a clear experimental demonstration of this truth, At sometimes the least temptation, the least snare, is ready to make a godly man fall; at another time, though strong winds and tempests blow upon him, yet he is able to stand like Mount Zion, that cannot be removed. Now this difference comes not from within a man, but from without, as this assisting and exciting grace is ready, or afar off.