A30243:2829
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 113
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.
1. The Duty it self, Walk worthy: To walk implieth the perpetual course and exercise of a mans life. He that steps now and then occasionally in such a path, is not said to walk in it: To be godly by fits, to have some pangs and sudden resolution; for what is good, and the• presently to let all vanish, is not to walk. To walk worthy; This is not worth of merit or congruity antecedent to Gods grace calling us. No, he plainly supposeth the grace of God hath called us already: and therefore, as it to be showed, it denoteth only a worth of condecency and fitness that is subsequent to this holy calling, that all our thoughts, words and actions should be decent, and becoming such an heavenly call. Even as John bid them, Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, Luk. 3. 8. that is, fit and beseeming repentance.
1. The Duty it self, Walk worthy: To walk implieth the perpetual course and exercise of a mans life. He that steps now and then occasionally in such a path, is not said to walk in it: To be godly by fits, to have some pangs and sudden resolution; for what is good, and the• presently to let all vanish, is not to walk. To walk worthy; This is not worth of merit or congruity antecedent to Gods grace calling us. No, he plainly supposeth the grace of God hath called us already: and therefore, as it to be shewed, it denoteth only a worth of condecency and fitnesse that is subsequent to this holy calling, that all our thoughts, words and actions should be decent, and becoming such an heavenly call. Even as John bid them, Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, Luk. 3. 8. that is, fit and beseeming repentance.
2. You have the object of this Duty, and that is The Vocation wherewith ye are called; by this he means, that outward favour of God calling them from their former ignorance and sins, to the profession of faith and obedience to the Gospel. They are not now what they were once; They must be other men; They must consider their heavenly dignity and condition. As Paul said, While he was a child, he did all things as a child; but when a man, he left those childish things, and did as a man: Thus it is here, when thou wast ignorant, profane, and a stranger from God, thou didst as such do, but when called by God, then thou takest up more holy and divine resolutions.