A30243:2854
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 114
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 illustrate this point, consider,
First, What this holiness is, and that is in these things:1
- 11. What this holiness is.
First, An inward rectitude of all the parts and faculties of the soul, whereby they are employed and improved for holy ends: Holiness is not a particular grace, or a particular healing of some disease in the soul, but it is an universal medicine applied to all the soars of the soul, and if it doth not perfectly cure and heal all the disease, yet it doth for the main: So that this holiness is nothing but the sound and right temperament of the soul, whereby it is enabled in mind, will and affection, yea, the whole man to be carried out towards God; therefore this holiness is called The image of God; and we know, an image is not an hand, or a leg, but a full delineation in all the parts thereof; when therefore we are commanded thus to be holy, we are to look to holiness in the fountain, to holiness in the root; even as God is not only holy in actions, and in all his works he doth, but in his essence and nature also: So that although all thy actions have never such a show of holiness and outward splendour, yet if not flowing from this inward image, they are but gilded Sepulchres, and like the ashes of Sodom.
First, An inward rectitude of all the parts and faculties of the soul, whereby they are imployed and improved for holy ends: Holiness is not a particular grace, or a particular healing of some disease in the soul, but it is an universal medicine applied to all the soars of the soul, and if it doth not perfectly cure and heal all the disease, yet it doth for the main: So that this holiness is nothing but the sound and right temperament of the soul, whereby it is inabled in minde, will and affection, yea, the whole man to be carried out towards God; therefore this holiness is called The image of God; and we know, an image is not an hand, or a leg, but a ful delineation in all the parts thereof; when therefore we are commanded thus to be holy, we are to look to holiness in the fountain, to holiness in the root; even as God is not onely holy in actions, and in all his works he doth, but in his essence and nature also: So that although all thy actions have never such a shew of holiness and outward splendor, yet if not flowing from this inward image, they are but guilded Sepulchres, and like the ashes of Sodom.