A30243:2710
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 108
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.
And then in the second place, It doth suppose a satisfying and filling of the soul. That whereas the wiseman observeth, That the eye is not satisfied with seeing; and There are four things which never say, There is enough; yet here, he that thirsteth when he drinketh of this water, he never thirsteth more. That is not, as if he did not desire more grace, and more communion with Christ: Yea the more they taste of this object, the more they long to have, but they never thirst so, as to seek out for a better object; They never say of God, as the Church of her Idols, I will go to my former lusts, and my former sins, for then it was better with me, then since I cleaved to Christ. No, with Peter in his transfiguration, they say, It is good to be here; and which Peter did not, they know what they say. So then in making the grace of God offered to be like a sumptuous feast, it implieth, that there is no spiritual defect or want in thee, but it shall be made up. That grace no more then nature will not suffer any vacuum; Some Philosophers speaking how that Materia appetit omnes formas, yet say that the heavenly matter doth not, because there the excellency of the form doth satiate it. This is much more true in the godly heart, wherein God dwells, there it desireth, to make no more change. Now how great a matter it is to have all thy spiritual longings satisfied, the godly only know.
And then in the second place, It doth suppose a satisfying and filling of the soul. That whereas the wiseman observeth, That the eye is not satisfied with seeing; and There are four things which never say, There is enough; yet here, he that thirsteth when he drinketh of this water, he never thirsteth more. That is not, as if he did not desire more grace, and more communion with Christ: Yea the more they taste of this object, the more they long to have, but they never thirst so, as to seek out for a better object; They never say of God, as the Church of her Idols, I will go to my former lusts, and my former sins, for then it was better with me, then since I cleaved to Christ. No, with Peter in his transfiguration, they say, It is good to be here; and which Peter did not, they know what they say. So then in making the grace of God offered to be like a sumptuous feast, it implieth, that there is no spiritual defect or want in thee, but it shall be made up. That grace no more then nature will not suffer any vacuum; Some Philosophers speaking how that Materia appetit omnes formas, yet say that the heavenly matter doth not, because there the excellency of the form doth satiate it. This is much more true in the godly heart, wherein God dwels, there it desireth, to make no more change. Now how great a matter it is to have all thy spiritual longings satisfied, the godly only know.