A30243:2766
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 111
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.
SERMON CXI.
Of Election and Reprobation, and of the Fewness and Properties of those that are chosen; Answering the Objections of men, and clearing the Justice of God.
MAT. 22. 14. For many are called, but few are chosen.
I Have dispatched the former Proposition, Many are called, and now come to the adversative, or exceptive Proposition, But few are chosen, [Greek or Hebrew]; though this Greek word may sometimes be taken as an adjective, signifying as much as excellent, choice and precious; yet it is here a Participle, and doth not so much denote any inward dignity and excellency, as an external act of God, selecting and choosing some to eternal life, and leaving others; thus the word is used very plainly against the Arminian gloss, that would have it be an Adjective, Mark 13. 20. [Greek or Hebrew] for the Elects sake, whom he hath chosen; So that this word doth signify an extrinsical favour and privilege of God, who doth all things according to his own will; why of these called, God chooseth one and not another, Noli Scrutari, said Augustine, do not curiously pry; and again Quaerat doctiorem, sed caveat ne inveniat praesumptiorem. We cannot tell the reason why of those many called, some have grace given them to obey, and others remain in their obstinacy. And as we cannot tell why this man, and not another; so neither why few, and not many. For as the glory of a King is in the multitude of his Subjects; so we would, think, the glory of God would lie in the multitude of those that are saved, but we see the peremptory assertion in the Text, Few are chosen.