A30243:2788
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.
To this the Answer is easy: Thou must live by the revealed will of God, not 1by the secret: Now Gods revealed will calls for such duties, commands such graces of every one. What is Gods secret will none can tell thee, but in the Word he hath showed thee, O man, what thou art to do: Do not thou then ⟨p. 647⟩cavil, and argue against thy Duty? But hear what the Scripture saith, Tremble under what God doth require of thee, thou art sure the neglect of these Duties will be unto thee an evident token of perdition. Neither do the Orthodox assert such an Absolute Decree as doth oppose ordered means, but Conditions suspended upon the uncertain will of man. We see the Scripture positively asserting such an Election of God before the foundations of the world: we see it also as positive and peremptory in commands for the use of the means. Therefore these two things may stand together: Let not then the difficulty of reconciling them make thee deny either; and if upon prayer and study thou canst not pitch on a way for their concord (for several learned men differ herein, some going one way, some another) do then rather submit thy understanding, then presumptuously deny the truth, as thou doest in the matter of the Trinity; and this counsel, about a point very near it, not all one with this, doth Cajetan the subtle Schoolman give.
To this the Answer is easie: Thou must live by the revealed will of God, not 1by the secret: Now Gods revealed will cals for such duties, commands such graces of every one. What is Gods secret will none can tell thee, but in the Word he hath shewed thee, O man, what thou art to do: Do not thou then ⟨p. 647⟩cavil, and argue against thy Duty? But hear what the Scripture saith, Tremble under what God doth require of thee, thou art sure the neglect of these Duties will be unto thee an evident token of perdition. Neither do the Orthodox assert such an Absolute Decree as doth oppose ordered means, but Conditions suspended upon the uncertain will of man. We see the Scripture positively asserting such an Election of God before the foundations of the world: we see it also as positive and peremptory in commands for the use of the means. Therefore these two things may stand together: Let not then the difficulty of reconciling them make thee deny either; and if upon prayer and study thou canst not pitch on a way for their concord (for several learned men differ herein, some going one way, some another) do then rather submit thy understanding, then presumptuously deny the truth, as thou doest in the matter of the Trinity; and this counsel, about a point very near it, not all one with this, doth Cajetan the subtil Schoolman give.