A30243:2393
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 94
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, This walking in the way of Godliness doth suppose a guide, a light to direct 1and inform them, that they may not stumble and fall. There are Land marks and Sea-marks for Passengers; and so the Word of God that is the guide, that is the light to walk by. As many as walk according to this rule, saith the Apostle. There are many walk in a disorderly, loose, and lawless manner. They have no Law but their lusts, no guide but their blind passions, and affections: but the walking of the godly is in an exact, orderly and godly manner. Now only the Word of God can direct and guide herein. Hence David doth so often commend it for a Lantern to his feet, and a Lamp to his paths. No man can tell how to live, or how to believe, or how to worship God, without his Word: We cannot tell how to pray, how to hear, how to live godly, and righteously without this rule: so that thousands of people discover they have none of this mercy in the Text vouchsafed to them; for, do they not live like brute beasts? Are not their lusts, their fancies the rule they live by? Give me the man that lives by the Scripture, that walks by the Scripture, that thinketh, that speaketh, that doeth by Scripture directions. There could not be such walking in darkness, and stumbling therein, if men did attend to this light. Oh that this truth might enter into you; My life is a walk, and I must have some Rule to guide me; and what is that but Gods Word? How then can I lye, curse, blaspheme by that information? Where doth the word allow, or command me such things? Be no longer like the Horse and Mule that have no understanding, but remember you are men, and so must have a rule of reason and piety to live by, and that is Gods Word. Men are convinced that they must have no other faith or Religion then what the word commands: but they do not consider this is as true also for their lives: They must live no other lives, do no other actions, then this word requireth.
Sixtly, This walking in the way of Godlinesse doth suppose a guide, a light to direct 1and inform them, that they may not stumble and fall. There are Land marks and Sea-marks for Passengers; and so the Word of God that is the guide, that is the light to walk by. As many as walk according to this rule, saith the Apostle. There are many walk in a disorderly, loose, and lawlesse manner. They have no Law but their lusts, no guide but their blind passions, and affections: but the walking of the godly is in an exact, orderly and godly manner. Now onely the Word of God can direct and guide herein. Hence David doth so often commend it for a Lanthorn to his feet, and a Lamp to his paths. No man can tell how to live, or how to believe, or how to worship God, without his Word: We cannot tell how to pray, how to hear, how to live godly, and righteously without this rule: so that thousands of people discover they have none of this mercy in the Text vouchsafed to them; for, do they not live like bruit beasts? Are not their lusts, their fancies the rule they live by? Give me the man that lives by the Scripture, that walks by the Scripture, that thinketh, that speaketh, that doeth by Scripture directions. There could not be such walking in darknesse, and stumbling therein, if men did attend to this light. Oh that this truth might enter into you; My life is a walk, and I must have some Rule to guide me; and what is that but Gods Word? How then can I lye, curse, blaspheme by that information? Where doth the word allow, or command me such things? Be no longer like the Horse and Mule that have no understanding, but remember you are men, and so must have a rule of reason and piety to live by, and that is Gods Word. Men are convinced that they must have no other faith or Religion then what the word commands: but they doe not consider this is as true also for their lives: They must live no other lives, do no other actions, then this word requireth.