A30243:2683
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 107
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.
Fourthly, Another Reason why God passeth by temporal greatness, may be 1that in the verse following, To confound the great and mighty things of the world; for so saith the Apostle, He hath chosen the weak things, to confound the mighty: How are wise men and great men confounded, when they see that their temporal glory and greatness cannot do that, which the grace and godliness of meaner men doth! Every great man in the world, he thinks to ruffle it out, scorneth that those who are inferiors, should compare with him; but O the terrible confusion that will cover such mens faces, when at the day of judgement God shall say, Lo, thy wisdom, thy power, thy great revenues, have not brought thee to that glory and happiness, which the prayers and tears of meaner men have done. Our Saviour told the Jews, it would be their confusion, when men should come from far, and sit down in the Kingdom of heaven, and they themselves shut out: Oh what heart can conceive the rage and madness thou wilt be in! when thou shalt see such neighbours whom thou hatedst, mockedst for their strictness and forwardness in Religion, sit upon Thrones of glory, and thou with all thy earthly pomp cast out! As Austin crieth out, by way of blushing, Surgunt indocti & rapiunt caelum, &c. Illiterate men they rise and take the Kingdom of heaven by violence, when learned men with all their books and learning are shut out: So the meaner sort of men, they rise, and by strictness, forwardness, get the Kingdom of Heaven, when others find their outward greatness, like a millstone about their neck, pressing them into the bottom of the sea.
Fourthly, Another Reason why God passeth by temporal greatness, may be 1that in the verse following, To confound the great and mighty things of the world; for so saith the Apostle, He hath chosen the weak things, to confound the mighty: How are wise men and great men confounded, when they see that their temporal glory and greatness cannot do that, which the grace and godliness of meaner men doth! Every great man in the world, he thinks to ruffle it out, scorneth that those who are inferiors, should compare with him; but O the terrible confusion that will cover such mens faces, when at the day of judgement God shall say, Lo, thy wisdom, thy power, thy great revenues, have not brought thee to that glory and happiness, which the prayers and tears of meaner men have done. Our Saviour told the Jews, it would be their confusion, when men should come from far, and sit down in the Kingdom of heaven, and they themselves shut out: Oh what heart can conceive the rage and madness thou wilt be in! when thou shalt see such neighbors whom thou hatedst, mockedst for their strictness and forwardness in Religion, sit upon Thrones of glory, and thou with all thy earthly pomp cast out! As Austin cryeth out, by way of blushing, Surgunt indocti & rapiunt caelum, &c. Illiterate men they rise and take the Kingdom of heaven by violence, when learned men with all their books and learning are shut out: So the meaner sort of men, they rise, and by strictness, forwardness, get the Kingdom of Heaven, when others finde their outward greatness, like a milstone about their neck, pressing them into the bottom of the sea.