A30243:2776
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.
Secondly, Consider the aggravation of the Doctrine, Many are called and few 1are chosen, even of those that are called; and therefore, as you heard, it is an inference made from the man who came to the feast, sate down with all boldness, and yet because he had no wedding garment, was wholly excluded; and this indeed makes the consideration of this point more terrible and sharp; for had it been said, Of all the men in the world, there are but a few that are elected to eternal glory, this would not have struck so much trembling; for who would not have thought it very probable, that those who are within the Church, those that are within the Ark, none of them should perish? But this should wound at the very heart, that even of those who have called Lord, Lord, who have prophesied, wrought miracles, enjoyed the Ordinances, that an handful of these should be saved: Oh the depths of the counsel of God! How can man sit and hear these things, and not be dar•ed into the very heart? As they cried out when Christ said, One of you shall betray me, Is it I Lord? Is it I Lord? And thus now when the Scripture speaks, Many of you persons called shall be damned, Is not every one to say, Is it I Lord? Is it I Lord?
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Thirdly, That notwithstanding few are elected comparatively to those that are left 1by God; yet if you take the number of the elect absolutely in themselves, so there is a great number of them. Hence many are said to come and sit down with Abraham, Matth. 8. 11. in the kingdom of Heaven; and the spiritual seed that is given unto Christ, is very great, compared to the dew of the morning, Psal. 110. Hence in the Revelation you read of many thousands sealed in every Tribe. It hath been a conceit of some of the Ancients, that so many shall be repaired out of man-kind, as will make up the number of the Angels that fell. Their opinion is, That for the many Angels that fell, there shall rise up so many men in their room, and God will have that number completed; but here is no ground for this out of the Scripture; We may truly say, that howsoever it be a few in respect of others, yet it is an All absolutely considered in themselves; and therefore they are sometimes called the world, and all men, as some Divines do expound those places.