A30243:2750
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 110
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.
Upon what ground thou wilt pray, hear his word preached, thou art bound to cast away all thy ungodliness, to set upon the strict and powerful means of holiness: And O that God would by this truth convince you, how contradictory every ill-lived Christian is to his own principles; that he is a self convinced man, that he is the greatest hypocrite in the world, that God requireth all or none; that we are to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength; that there is no taking half of God, or half of Christ: To be almost a Christian, is to be almost saved, and that is to be wholly damned.
Before we come to lay down the grounds of this, consider these particulars:1
- 1Particular rules about this point. 1.
First, That the embracing of the Christian faith, and the Laws of Christ, are to be an act of the freest choice, and voluntary acceptation that can be: Though custom and education may help and prepare, and much incline, yet till a man come to Christ by his own faith, and by his own willing inclination, its not acceptable: Religio non potest cogi: Caesar non potest dare fidem, was the saying of the Ancients; even as it is said of Moses, He chose the afflictions of Christ, rather then the treasures of Egypt, Heb. 11. Thus a Christian, he chooseth rather the way of Christ, though requiring much self-denial, though exposed to all hatred, rather then any other advantageous way in the world: Now then grant this, That to obey Christs call, is an act of mere voluntary choice, then there is no intelligent man, can embrace any one command of Christ, who doth not likewise submit to all. Would you then know, how Christianity comes to be thus divided and mingled, an ungodly life, to a godly faith, like a live man, to a dead carcass; one main reason is, because we have this Religion by education, by custom, by the Laws of the Land, if it had been any other, Popery or Judaism, it had been all one: It is to the unknown God that most build an Altar, and by this means men are not careful to bring up their lives to this Christianity, but bring down that to them; whereas every man that taketh this holy and glorious profession upon him, should wisely weigh, what is this I have taken upon me? what doth it require of me? In all other worldly or external callings we conclude, and much more this should be done in this heavenly calling. Our Saviour gives an excellent caution herein, making the profession of Christianity, to be like war and building,