A30243:2594
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 12 › Sermon 104
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.
The passage introductory of the matter contained in the Text, hath been dispatched. Let us observe the particulars of the distribution, which the Apostle here intendeth: And
THe passage introductory of the matter contained in the Text, hath been dispatched. Let us observe the particulars of the distribution, which the Apostle here intendeth: And
First, There is that which is a Goddess, as it were, in the world, admired by all; Not many wise men. Several Countries have heretofore striven about the appropriating of the famous seven wise men to themselves; some striving to make this man their Country man, others to make that: But here you see God passing over such, and choosing the babes and foolish ones of the world: So that you have the persons passed by, described, first, By their absolute quality, Not many wise, 2. By a restriction or limitation of this wisdom, Not many wise men after the flesh. Now wisdom after the flesh may have a twofold sense; as flesh hath, 1. That which is earthly, corrupt, and sinful craftiness, which the Scripture in many places speaks against. 2. For Humane civil prudence; as flesh is sometimes used for man, denoting indeed weakness, because not God or Angel, but not sinfulness: And this political civil prudence, is a natural perfection, and a good gift of God; yea, its a duty, to which the people of God are exhorted; but even of such political wise men, God doth not choose many, though some he doth: Thus Solomon had such wisdom to admiration; and Daniel 1is noted for a wiseman, because Tyre is reproved for her foolish confidence, thinking her self wiser then Daniel, Ezek. 28. 3. and Heman, that made the famous Psalm of one troubled and afflicted in conscience, distracted with the terror of the Lord daily, 1 King. 4. 31. yet the Scripture speaks of him as one of the great wise men in his time. We read of Ahithophel, a man so politically wise, that his counsel was accounted as the Oracle of God, yet he was rejected by God, and his wisdom proved fatal to him; but of this more in time. For the present consider, how the Apostle doth imply a distinction of necessary use, about wisdom, only he names one part of the distribution, A wisdom after the flesh, the complete sense is this, There is an heavenly wisdom, a wisdom after the spirit, highly esteemed by God, which all that are called do partake of: And there is A wisdom after the flesh, in an earthly, carnal, and worldly manner, when